“For this amount of coin, I can wait.” His eyes gleam as he stares down at the four twenty-dollar bills wrapped around a Benjamin Franklin. I’m on a modest third-year agent salary, but old family money reached my bank account not long after my twenty-first birthday. I rarely touch it, but for circumstances like this, I don’t mind dipping into funds I hope never to need.
“I’d rather you circle the block and come back in twenty minutes.” I don’t know about you, but a taxi idling at the front of a property for twenty minutes would be highly suspicious, especially with how high gas prices are. “Actually, make it fifteen. I don’t think this will take long.”
“All right.” After shoving the notes into the top pocket of his lint-riddled vest, the taxi driver pulls away from the curb.
While running my hand down the lapels of my suit to make sure none of his lint transferred to me, I commence walking down the cracked footpath. I’m halfway down when the front door of the residence creaks open. I don’t know why, but I step behind a thick bush in desperate need of a trim, hiding from the woman I’d guess to be around twenty-two perhaps twenty-three bounding out of the door. If I were a person who still trusted my gut, I’d say because it isn’t time for us to meet just yet.
“Wait! Please.” She chases down the taxi I ordered away, her jog hindered by the mountain load of textbooks she’s holding close to her chest.
When the driver seeks my gaze in the rearview mirror, I signal for him to stop. The unknown beauty with chestnut hair and a petite body smiles a blistering grin when the taxi’s brakes squeal through the crisp morning air, doubling her attractiveness.
“Thank you so much. My uncle would have shot me if I missed another class.”
She bundles her books into the back of the cab before slipping in behind them. She’s halfway in when her head suddenly pops back out. My first thought is that she’s spotted me hiding behind a bush at the front of her home, but the generous tilt of her jaw soon exposes my error. She’s noticed the military cargo plane in the air—the same plane the Bureau chartered to deliver Tobias to his final resting place.
She watches it for several long seconds, her chocolate-brown eyes twinkling in the low hanging sun, her brows pinched. Only once it disappears behind a thick cloud does she fully enter the idling cab.
If she hadn’t mentioned an uncle, I would have happily declared she is Tobias’s daughter. Now I feel far from the scent. Excluding Isabelle, Tobias doesn’t have any known living family members. His father passed away at the end of last year, his brother died decades ago, and his mother was never cited in any records.
Rumors circulated that Tobias’s dedication to eradicate sex trafficking rings was because of his mother, but since those rumors were mostly based on speculation rather than facts, I brushed off the agent’s comments.
Lies always travel further than the truth.
I learned that the hard way many times the past six years.
Once the taxi disappears into a gulley, I move out from the bush and make my way to the front door of the residence disclosed in Tobias’s anagram. Even aware it most likely will go unanswered, I press in the doorbell. When its old-style buzz goes unheard, I jimmy the lock, or should I say, ‘I attempt to jimmy the lock.’ Tobias’s security is tight, meaning I’ll need more than a credit card and a bobby pin to gain access.
While observing the area for nosey neighbors, I slip down the side of the paint-peeled property. I whistle like I’m calling the family pet to get a treat to ensure no attack dogs are waiting in wake before climbing over the six-foot steel fence.
“Fuck it,” I grumble to no one when my trousers snag a bent piece of wire. My descent saves my dick from being sliced, but my thigh isn’t as lucky. It’s now harnessing a nasty three-inch-long gash.
“Hello… is anyone home?”
It takes me a few seconds to remember why the hunt for my gun comes up empty. I had to hand it in at the commencement of my suspension. It’s probably being logged into evidence as we speak, then Leesa will have more than bad-mentoring to argue when she pleads her case.
“My name is Brandon James. I’m an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
When my introduction falls on deaf ears, I test the back door to check if it’s locked. It is, but the lace curtain on the window is thin enough I can see through to the kitchen. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, the standard kitchen you find in many homes. Even the photographs on the fridge are the same. They show Tobias a good three decades or so ago with his arm wrapped around the shoulders of a much smaller and somewhat younger African American woman.
There are several pictures of them, but I’m more interested in the ones scattered between them. It’s a timeline of events that leave no doubt that Tobias had a daughter. Even from a distance, I’m confident in declaring she was the woman who left here only minutes ago.
Isabelle looks around three or four in the first photograph up until a recent one that appears to be her first day of college. She’s easily identifiable via her chocolate-brown eyes and button-shaped nose.
When I spot her in an image with a woman I swear I’ve seen before, I dig my cell phone out of my pocket. Because the fridge is on the far wall, and the picture is at the bottom of the stack, I can’t get a good view of the stranger’s face, but hopefully, the zoom on my phone will fix that.
After flattening the camera lens on the back of my phone against the glass, I wait for the familiar click to sound through my ears before dragging it back down. The quality is horrendous when I zoom in, but no amount of pixilation can detract from my belief that the woman photographed with Isabelle is Katarina Rouse, once lover of Henry Gottle, the mob boss of New York.
What the fuck?
Is this how Tobias and Henry met?
Is Katarina Isabelle’s mother?
She has the same dark, wavy hair and petite features, but I’m still cautious. There are reports that Henry orders wakeup calls for any men stupid enough to date his ex, so there’s no way he would have left Tobias breathing if he’d slept with Katarina. But what other reason would there be for Isabelle and Katarina to be photographed together? She’s clearly young, and there are no additional pictures of them, but still, this is a development I never saw coming.
With my curiosity at a pinnacle, I check all access points of the house to gain unlawful entry. When my inspection of the multiple windows and doors fail to grant me entrance, I move toward a garage-type shed in the back corner of the property. It’s daringly sitting on the edge of a cliff, appearing more hazardous than safe.
My lips twist when the sliding door opens with only the quickest pop of the mechanism. It has a silent alarm rigged into the tracks, but the wire cutters in my multi-combination pocketknife soon stop the speakers above my head alerting the neighborhood to an intruder.
