I’ve worked the numbers around multiple times to see if they’re an anagram for a date of birth, an address, or case file number. Nothing has popped up. I’m truly stuck as to why Tobias used the last of his strength to hand me this sheet of paper, and I lose the chance to deliberate further when the cargo-like plane lands in Tiburon.
After slipping Tobias’s piece of paper into the pocket of my trousers, I return his belongings to the foot of his gurney. The solemnness of his death hits me full force when I follow his gurney out of the back of the plane. There’s no twelve-gun salute, no line of agents honoring his years of service. There’s no one—not even his daughter.
My voice cracks when I ask the agent wheeling him out to stop. “Can you give us a minute?”
He looks a little surprised by my request, but he grants it, nonetheless.
Once it is just Tobias and me on a tarmac as empty as my life has been the past six years, I find his hand through the sheet, press my lips near his ear, then whisper, “I’ll make sure Isabelle gets your message. I won’t let you down.” I calm the rattle of my vocal cords before continuing, “It was an honor working with you, Tobias.”
After a final squeeze of his hand, I raise my right one to my temple to salute a man whose death should be more honorable than it is. Once again, this country has lost a true hero, and once again, they’re none the wiser to their massive loss.
When my hand falls back to my side, the agent standing under the hangar returns to wheel Tobias into a waiting hearse. When the wheels of the gurney get stuck in the ramp, he gives it an extra push, sending Tobias’s belongings toppling to the ground. Since I didn’t zip it back up, the contents inside disperse in all directions.
“I’ll get it,” I assure the agent when he curses his supposed stupidity.
Because there aren’t many items to gather, I have them collected rather quickly. It’s only the impressive bounce of a first-edition copy of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy I’m required to scamper for. It’s lodged under the seat my backside kept warm the past two hours.
When I scoot across the checker-plate material of the plane’s flooring, my heart rate increases. Tobias’s book is open, and the sunlight coming in from outside reveals something I didn’t notice earlier. There’s a circular indent around one of the letters in the book. It appears to be written in Russian, but the symbol in the word resembles an ‘H.’ There are no other pen markings to make the gouge noticeable, just the solemn pressure of a pen nib, proving someone circled that exact letter.
With my back facing the agent, I fan through the remaining pages of Tobias’s book. My already sky-high heart rate jumps up another notch when I discover several more indents scattered throughout the book. Just like the first one I noticed, the letter circled represents a letter in the English alphabet.
Since the agent’s attention is fixated on guiding the wheels of Tobias’s gurney down the ramp without additional incidents, he fails to notice me slipping Tobias’s book into the breast pocket of my jacket.
His eyes only raise to mine when I hand him the Ziplock bag that’s noticeably emptier than it was a few seconds ago. “Everything good?”
“Yep, everything is fine,” I lie.
4
BRANDON
T wenty minutes later, I’ve deciphered a majority of Tobias’s hidden message. It appears to be an address in Tiburon. It’s not the one cited on his FBI credentials. Although I’m confident I’ve decrypted his code correctly, a six-digit cryptology remains on the bottom of the long sequence of numbers. It’s not a zip code or telephone number, and it doesn’t appear to correspond with the code he hid in his book. It can’t be a date of birth because the letters don’t correspond with any months or dates when decoded.
I could spend an additional twenty minutes combing for clues, but with my inquisitiveness higher than my wish to spend more time at a morgue, I slip Tobias’s book into my pocket, farewell the agent I traveled with the past three hours, then exit the coroner’s office via the main entrance.
It takes a little longer to hail a taxi than I’m used to. This side of the country isn’t as reliant on cabs as those on the east side. As my taxi weaves through the hilly landscape, I recall the last time I traveled these roads. I wasn’t alone, and my company was an undoubtably attractive female.
When you put two moody, single, heartbroken people in a hotel room for the night, what outcome would you foresee? If it were for me to do my job without my moral compass being led astray, you still have a lot to learn about me.
I didn’t go down the same destructive path Madden and Phoenix did after Joey’s death, but I wasn’t an upstanding member of society either. Honestly, if I didn’t have Tobias and Grayson constantly riding my ass, I’d most likely be either living in the gutter or following in my father’s footsteps.
Both outcomes are as bad as the other.
My ‘altercation’ with Olivia wasn’t a hiccup I needed in my life, but at the end of the day, it was something that needed to happen. It got my head back into the game, and gave me the determination to ensure nothing like that ever happened again. Do I hate her for being the motive behind Melody and I not speaking for the past three years? In a way, somewhat. But in all honesty, I’m more pissed off at Melody than Olivia.
We separated because she cheated on me. Yet, I still reached out to her within a month of her leaving me to offer her my friendship, but the instant it appeared as if I was moving on, she cut me off cold turkey. The dozen or so text messages we exchanged each year before I sought her help didn’t compare to how close we once were, but still, I thought she’d give me the chance to prove I didn’t do what I was accused of.
She didn’t.
She didn’t give me the time of day.
Her silence is affecting me more than her. The last I heard she was dating some rich schmuck she met while interning at the DA’s office in Los Angeles. They moved back to my side of the states when Melody commenced her final year of law at Browns. Part of her scholarship was to intern under a division my father was in charge of. I still can’t believe that out of all the people in the world, she ended up working for the man who did everything in his power to keep her out of her university of choice.
To this day, I haven’t unearthed the cause of my father’s motive. Phoenix swears it’s because he didn’t want people to know his son was dating a ‘disabled’ person, but I believe it was more than that. My dad is a shallow, heartless man, but he keeps that side of himself hidden when he’s running for office. Furthermore, Melody would have helped his campaign. Diversity is everything in politics.
I stop reminiscing about jaded memories when my cab comes to a stop at the front of a modest weather-clapped property perched over the Tiburon esplanade. It gives off the vibe of a family home, but it’s a little unkempt like no one has a spare minute to run a lawn mower over the ankle-high grass or to trim the bushes hedging the fence line.
After digging a bundle of bills out of my pocket, I hand them to the driver of my cab. “Come back in around twenty minutes.”
