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Noah’s skeptical expression told of his reluctance to talk about such an individual.
“You know what? I think I will go check with Amelia on when Mr. Risner is due back.” Noah pulled out a small hand sanitizer bottle and flipped the lid open before pouring a dime-sized amount into the palm of his hand. “Are you going to be here for a while?”
“I think I will be,” Brook replied, suddenly having a change of heart. “Abe was going to introduce me to Norman. Right, Abe?”
Brook reached down and pulled her cell phone out of the side pocket of her purse. She had no idea how long it would be before Jim Risner decided that she shouldn’t have access to the residents at his facility. It would be wise to have things in place for when she was inevitably asked to leave.
“Right.” Abe lifted an eyebrow in question, but he played along with her ruse. “Brook here likes to play chess. I thought it would be fun to see if she could beat Norman.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
Noah had just finished rubbing the hand sanitizer over his hands when he quickly turned and exited Abe’s room. Brook took a moment and quickly constructed a text to the team, with an added directive for Bit. It was time to put together a suspect pool.
“You do make things interesting around here, Brook,” Abe replied with a wide smile. “I only have one question for you.”
“Only one?” Brook asked as she stood before collecting her dress coat and purse. She then waited for him to unlock the wheel of his chair before taking up her previous position behind him. “What’s your question, Abe?”
“Do you even know how to play chess?”
Chapter Seventeen
Bobby “Bit” Nowacki
February 2023
Wednesday — 8:57am
“Admitit,Bit,”Katesaid with a laugh. “You’re going to miss me.”
“That was never up for debate.”
Bit wanted to say more, but he didn’t want to be the one who rained on Kate’s parade. She’d worked hard to get into the FBI Academy, and it wouldn’t be fair to her to take away her joy.
He was the one who didn’t like change.
“I don’t leave for another eight weeks,” Kate reminded him as she sat down in the chair that he’d just vacated in front of his monitors. “You will send me boxes of my favorite candy every week, right? I’ve heard that mail is important to Bureau trainees. It’s twenty weeks of high intensity training, and I’ll need your support.”
Bit had spent the past ten minutes giving her instructions on what programs were running on each computer, the criteria of results that should be shared with the group, and when to raise the alarm. Each point of reference came with a different level of importance. He wouldn’t even be leaving the office if it wasn’t for the text that he’d received earlier regarding the van.
Bit liked to call the black Mercedes Sprinter his mobile office.
Anytime that he was able to utilize its features was like a day spent in heaven. From the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree HD day/night nine camera video surveillance of the area that surrounded the van to the Keysight N9423C Radio Frequency spectrum analyzer, he’d made sure that the tech van was a techie’s wet dream. There was even a precision GPS tracking beacon/transponder, a digital twenty-four channel video/audio recorder, and a full server suite with 1GB mobile internet uplink 550MB downlink back to S&E Investigations.
He’d see any results on his satellite server almost as soon as Kate, but he’d wanted to give her something to do while the rest of the team members were working the case. Being so close to the nursing home, he’d even be able to intercept any cell phone communications and text exchanges from anyone in the vicinity.
“You know it,” Bit replied as he shoved his tablet into his backpack. He’d triple-checked his office to make sure that he would have everything he needed for the remainder of the day. “I was thinking that maybe once you graduate from the academy that they might allow you to be some sort of liaison between our firm and the FBI.”
“I don’t know about that. For all I know, I’ll get sent to some field office in the middle Podunk, Idaho.” Kate whirled around in the chair to face him as he grabbed his jacket. “I haven’t worked up the courage yet, but I was thinking of asking Brook to put in a good word for me so that I don’t get stuck in Alaska or something.”
“You know, maybe I could hack into—“
“No, you won’t.”
“You weren’t supposed to hear that, Little T.” Bit shoved his arms into the sleeves of his jacket, not bothering to zip it closed. The van was parked in the attached garage. By the time he ran a check on all the systems, the interior would be warm enough that he wouldn’t even have to wear his jacket. “Besides, it was a joke. I’ve learned my lesson. No more hacking into secure government servers.”
“No, you haven’t learned your lesson,” Sylvie stated matter-of-factly with a frown. She had on her cream winter dress coat, matching scarf and gloves, and had opted not to put on a hat or earmuffs. Her blonde hair was contained in her usual bun at the base of her neck. “Kate, you know that I adore you, but I’d rather see you in Alaska then to have to visit Bit behind bars.”
“No one is going to prison,” Bit said as he hoisted the strap of his backpack onto his shoulder. “Kate, you have things under control here?”
