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“Does he have anyone with him?” Jasmine asked.
“Actually, yes, another man just exited and hopped in the car too.”
“Any chance you can follow them?” I asked.
“Not unless you brought us another vehicle to use, one for land,” he said. “Not to mention we’re on the other side of the canal. We wouldn’t be able to get to them on that side in time.”
“That’s frustrating,” I growl.
“Yeah, tell me about it. I don’t think they are going to go anywhere we can access by water, hence the car and not one of their boats,” Mendez added.
“Shit, why didn’t we prepare for this?” Wells growled and balled his fists.
“Don’t beat yourself up. This slipped by me too.” It’s even worse; I was a trained FBI agent. “We’ll make sure we have someone there to watch him return.” They wouldn’t make another move without him.
Now it was a waiting game.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
adam
We planted the note during the cover of night. Abby and I were on the morning shift. It was the same time yesterday that we saw the woman with the armed guard. I felt like I was holding my breath the whole shift, hoping that the door would open again. When it finally did, I heard Abby’s breath hitch beside me. The same woman was holding the same basket. The same asshole as yesterday followed her out and then took up his post, leaning against the stilted support to the house.
The tension between Abby and me was thick as we waited for her to lift the ripe melon we placed the note under. When her hand touched the large fruit, I saw her face scrunch up in confusion as her fingers made contact with the paper. She tugged it out from beneath the melon and kept the paper on the ground. I watched as she quickly read it, and then her head shot up to see if the guard had seen the paper. He looked oblivious as he stared at a boat that passed by us on the canal. With him temporarily distracted, the woman looked around and locked eyes with us. She nodded her head very slightly. If I wasn’t looking for it, I would have missed it entirely.
She then buried the note back into the dirt. It wasn’t like she could take it with her and get caught with it. She placed a non-ripe melon on top and then picked the one from the vine that had concealed our note. She looked at it like it was her salvation. It went in her basket, and then she continued walking through the garden.
When she was done, she picked up her basket and took it over to the armed guard, who let her back into the house. She was gone, and we had to hope she’d be able to make sure a door or window was left unlocked so that the FBI, or we, could sneak in without bringing any unwanted attention. I doubted that the other two buildings would be as easy to access; I doubted the occupants of each house were allowed time to socialize with each other so that they could share a message. We’d have to worry about accessing those two buildings when it came time to breach them.
“She found it,” Abby told our group over the radio.
“Perfect, now we hope she can do what we asked,” Christine said.
We were about to stand up and go inside to change out our shifts when I saw a blacked-out SUV pull up to the house. Abby let out a hiss as a man in a professional black suit and dark sunglasses stepped out of the car. Another man got out of the passenger side, and Abby nearly put her fist through the dock we were sitting on.
“What’s going on?” I asked her, but I had a sneaking suspicion. These were FBI agents.
“Those are agents. What are they doing here?” She was quiet for a moment before she added, “It’s just two of them. They’d be smart enough to bring way more than two agents to shut this shit down, if that’s what they planned to do…”
I read between the lines. “So you suspect they are here to assist Ricketts’ brother.”
She nodded. “I can’t think of any other reason. They clearly aren’t here to investigate. If they were, they would have had a warrant, and there would have been a whole bunch of suits—so that’s out.” Another minute passed before she spoke again. “How are they helping? Is it just exchanging information, or are they moving bodies? This is all information I need to specifically address in my report.”
“We’ll keep watching and figure it out. Do you need to notify Boss?” I asked.
“I do.” She pulled her phone out and started snapping photos of the SUV and made sure she got photos of the license plate, as well as far away photos, which included the houses in the compound. That way there would be no disputing the location of the SUV when the photos were taken.
“God, I would kill to have a bug in that house right now,” she mumbled.
I nodded, feeling the same. “Best we can do is document everything going on out here. Let’s stick around until the agents come out. You can record them getting into the vehicle. Do you know the agents personally?” I asked. I knew the FBI was a massive agency, so it was unlikely—but maybe she met one when she went rogue and scoped out their office.
“Dark hair dirtbag is the one I interviewed. He’s an arrogant ass,” she said with a hiss.
“That’s good news. You can identify him in your report. If he doesn’t have records on his computer or desk regarding his trip here, then you can correlate that to his involvement. They are required to keep records when they start an investigation, aren’t they?”
She simply nodded, because as quickly as the agents came, they were leaving. They walked briskly from the front door and back to their vehicle, scanning their surroundings on the way. Abby quickly grabbed my face and began to kiss me. The action obscured both our faces and made us look unsuspicious, as if we hadn’t even noticed them pull up.
Abby had her phone propped up between her thighs, so the agents had no idea that they were being recorded. The longer they stood there scanning, the more video we had to identify them. They got back into the vehicle and took off, and Abby pulled her face away from mine.
