Page 13 of Shadow of Hope
“You attend a lot of them?” she asked, hoping to steer the conversation in the direction she wanted to go.
He looked down his nose at her. “Enough to keep my skills current.”
“Me too,” Garrett said. “Almost didn’t get into this one though, due to the time it took to process my application. Other companies don’t require a background check. Which is why I wanted this one. Been to enough of them where I had to deal with some nutso preppers and hoped these checks ruled them out.”
“We’re selective,” Micha said, eyeing something on the nearby rock with fixed interest.
A bug scurried across the rough face. Maybe a spider. He lurched to his feet and went to stand on the other side of the pit. Yeah, the guy was afraid of spiders. An endearing thing that made the uber-strong man more human. More approachable.
“No kidding on being selective,” Fritz said. “I had to wait weeks to find out if I was in.”
“Not sure what your damage is, but I just applied on Monday.” Buck cocked his head. “Got in right away.”
“Me too,” Ernie added. “Not Monday, but over the weekend.”
“It took two weeks or so for me.” Jamal stared blankly ahead as if bored.
“Same with me,” she added so she didn’t seem to be questioning others.
Looking darkly dangerous, Fritz lifted his chin and eyed Micha. “So what’s the deal? Why’d mine take so long?”
Micha cleared his throat. “Most likely you don’t have much of an online presence to get a complete picture on the background check, and we had to do more digging.”
“Well, yeah, on the online stuff.” Fritz crossed his arms. “That goes without saying. My life is my own to decide who gets to know about it. Not some big cheese search engine that’s out to track my every move and leverage every bit of it into profits to fuel their greedy machines.”
If attitude made a person in the group guilty, Fritz led the way, followed by Jamal. But one thing she’d learned. If the guys were telling the truth, she could eliminate Fritz. Garrett too. No way these men could possibly know she would be in this group when they applied. They’d sent in applications before Layne’s mother died, and even Ava didn’t know then that she would take the class.
That left Ernie, Buck, and Jamal as her top suspects.
Jamal topped her list. A gut feel, but she’d also heard him humming a few times. Not your usual pop song, but an obscure symphony. Told her he was into music.
“I was meaning to ask,” she said. “When we get back to our cabins, I’ll want to play my bassoon at night. Would that bother anyone?”
Fritz wrinkled his forehead. “What in the world is a bassoon?”
“A woodwind instrument,” Jamal said.
Fritz scoffed. “Like that makes it any clearer.”
“Yeah,” Garrett said. “Don’t know a thing about instruments.”
“It’s an instrument played in a band or orchestra,” she said. “Not a single reed, which is most common, but a double reed, to be exact.”
“Single?” Fritz rubbed his chin. “Double? I don’t get it.”
And that also helped put him to the bottom of her suspect list. “It’s kind of boring.”
“Oh, I get it.” Fritz jutted out his chin. “You think we’re too dumb to get it.”
She resisted sighing. “Not at all. Just trying to save you from boredom.”
“I for one would like to hear it. So bore away.” Ernie laughed.
“Okay, but remember you asked.” She smiled. “So many woodwind instruments have a plastic or rubber mouthpiece to which a flat reed made from cane plants is affixed. This would be a single reed like for a clarinet or saxophone. But a double reed is just what it says. Two reeds strapped together. No plastic mouthpiece, but the reeds are placed on the instrument, and they vibrate against each other to form the sound. The oboe and bassoon are the most common double reed instruments.”
“You’re right.” Fritz mimicked yawning. “Boring.”
“Shut up, Fritz. She warned us.” Ernie glared at him, then cast a softer gaze at Ava. “And you play the bassoon?”
