by Lisa Harris
“Wouldn’t you?” Leland asked. “Let me see what I can do about the information you seek.”
“Please don’t tell Stella or anyone in the FBI.”
“Just stay alive, Earl.”
“I try my best. I want to hug you but it might not be appropriate.”
“Is it? So hug me, man. It’s not like we’re an item or anything.” Leland put down her coffee mug.
“That will get me in trouble with Dario.” Earl laughed.
“Dario?” Leland’s eyes widened.
“He’s got a thing for you.” Earl gave her a big-brother bear hug.
“Does he?” Leland sounded perplexed. “How do you know?”
“I know men.”
“Remind me to ask for relationship advice from someone who can’t hang on to a girlfriend for more than a couple of months.” Leland returned to her cup of coffee.
Earl laughed. “That’s because I knew they wouldn’t work out. I’m going to know when I meet the one. I’ll know right away or soon enough.”
Leland didn’t reply.
Earl glanced over his shoulder. Sienna walked past the break room door.
“When do you think you might have something?” Earl asked.
“Depends on what I can find.”
“Great. Thanks.” Earl rushed toward Sienna, who was sitting down on one of the sofas. She kicked off her shoes and lay down.
“Are you okay?” Earl asked, kneeling at the sofa so that he was at eye level with Sienna.
“I have a bad headache.” Sienna’s voice was low. “Do you have Tylenol or something?”
“I’ll see what I can find.” Earl caught Leland before she left the area.
A couple of minutes later, he returned with a bottled water and two tablets, only to find Sienna softly sobbing.
Earl gently helped her sit up. He sat down next to her.
“Thank you.” After Sienna drank the water, she said, “I have a feeling that Dana is dead. Another fake agent got her. Maybe even the same fake Perez.”
“We don’t know.”
“That’s our problem, isn’t it? We don’t know anything.” Sienna made a fist and pounded Earl’s thigh. “Oh sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
Earl wrapped his hand over Sienna’s fist and held it on his thigh.
“We had a long day and now it looks like we might have a long night too,” Earl said. “Shall we pray for God’s peace and help?”
“Please.” Sienna curled up her legs and closed her eyes.
Before Earl finished his prayer, Sienna had fallen asleep against his arm. He gently put her down on the sofa. He found a cushion to prop up her head. And a soft throw to cover the rest of her.
Sitting on the other end of the sofa, Earl finished praying in silence, asking God for wisdom and direction.
He couldn’t sleep.
He thought of Leland’s coffee. He went to the break room and took the entire carafe with him, together with the largest mug he could find on the shelf.
He walked back down the hallway. Entering the workroom, he saw Stella, Cayson, and other Binary Systems employees in a meeting behind a glass door. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. It seemed that the company never slept.
Leland was at her workstation. She waved to him. “Got something here.”
Earl grabbed a nearby chair and sat down. “What did you find?”
“What we suspected. Dana Nesbitt is in WITSEC. The US Marshals took over once the ambulance was delivered.” Leland pointed to the street cam outside Atlanta.
“You traced the ambulance all the way to Newnan?”
“Yep.”
“She’s alive.”
“As far as I can tell. That was a cruel plan if it was a ruse.”
“Cruel? How?” Leland asked. “Keeps Dana and her baby alive.”
“Made Sienna sad.”
Leland smiled. “You care for her.”
“Sure. I care for everyone I work with, including you.”
“Not the same way you care for her. I can see it in your face.”
“Come on.” Earl laughed.
“You don’t believe in love at first sight?” Leland chuckled.
“Not at all.”
Before Leland could ask him any more questions, Cayson and Stella came out of their meeting.
Earl followed Cayson back to his workstation. “Anything yet?”
“Nothing.” Cayson sat down. “You might want to get some sleep. Keep an eye on your girlfriend so she doesn’t run off again.”
“How did you know she ran?” Earl asked.
“I told him.” Stella walked toward them with a mug of coffee in her hand. “Word gets around. Every agent has been informed that you two have gone dark.”
“Something was off about the safe house operation.”
“You don’t trust Kimball.”
“Sienna doesn’t trust her.”
“You have no opinion.”
“I have no idea who to believe. I trust you, and you say?” Earl asked.
“I say that you need to trust Agent Kimball. No matter how it looks.” Stella sipped coffee.
No matter how it looks? “What does that mean?”
“Remember our friend Jake?”
Earl nodded. FBI Special Agent Jake Kessler was in deep undercover for three years chasing down the world’s most notorious terrorist, Molyneux.
In fact, her web was so far-reaching that every agency was still dealing with the fallout. Of course, Jake became a hero, although he moved to another entity. Now he was chasing after cybercriminals, as Stella was.
“Hey, thanks for taking time out of your schedule to help us,” Earl said to her.
“You happened to show up at the right time,” Stella said. “We have a lull in our project right now. Besides, I’m just an observer this time, and I need something to do. Anything else I can help you with while I watch Cayson work?”
Cayson chuckled. “What? You don’t like to watch me work?”
Stella grinned. “I’d rather watch paint dry, but the FBI wants to make sure that our interests are protected.”
“This network is in Europe,” Cayson said. “Oops. I said too much already.”
“You can trust Earl. We all do,” Stella said. “The question is whether Sienna trusts you, Earl.”
“I don’t know if she does.” Earl thought he and Sienna were getting along well enough, but beyond that, he wasn’t entirely sure. “I suspect there are still things that she hasn’t told Helen when they talked, and hasn’t told me on the drive here.”
“What exactly has she done?” Stella asked.
“She was telling on her boss, and if he finds out she has contacted the FBI about the embezzlements and shell companies, what do you think he might do to her to save his job and reputation?” Earl asked.
“If she no longer trusts Kimball, then she might feel that her whistleblowing is backfiring.”
“Who else can she turn to?”
“I don’t know how you can get her to trust you right away,” Stella said.
“I told her to trust God for me.”
“Good advice. Meanwhile, let me dig around and see if I can assist in some way.”
“Thank you, Stella.” Earl fist-bumped with Stella and then made his way back to the lounge, praying for ways to get Sienna to trust him.
He recalled what Sienna had told him on the drive from Conyers.
I’m afraid of what might happen to me, to my family.
If her family was safe, then Sienna would worry less, right?
In the lounge, Sienna was still sleeping on the sofa. She looked peaceful but tired.
Earl sat across from her, and logged in to his laptop. He chatted with a security company that sometimes did work for Hu Knows, Inc., and asked for personnel to keep an eye on Uncle Tabbebo and Sienna’s mom in Chattanooga.
When they named their daily rate, Earl almost whistled. The price had gone up. Helen would hit the ceiling when she sa
w the bill.
But what is the price of life?
Across the coffee table between the two sofas, Sienna’s eyes opened.
“Has Cayson found anything?” she asked.
Earl shook his head. “Not yet, but he’s working on it.”
“We must go to the conference,” Sienna said. “Mr. Ford will think something is wrong if I don’t show up. If I can get him to say something that the FBI can use against him, then my job is done.”
“Dana was shot. Arun is dead. Your old boyfriend Rocco is also dead. You might be next.” Earl wasn’t trying to scare her, but facts didn’t change.
“I don’t trust the FBI anymore if they let a fake agent infiltrate their ranks.”
“The FBI I know is better trained than that,” Earl said. “I wonder if they let her in for a reason.”
“What would be the reason?” Sienna brushed her hair with her fingers. “They said they would protect me, but they let that man point a gun at me in Dana’s house, remember?”
“Thank God you’re okay.”
“If you hadn’t gotten there in time…” Her voice trailed off.
Suddenly Sienna sat up, bed head and all. Her eyes widened. “My mom and uncle.”
“Taken care of,” Earl said calmly. For once, he was ahead of Sienna—by a few minutes.
“What?”
“I just talked to some associates of ours. They’re on their way to Chattanooga as we speak.”
“What time is it?”
“Uh, just a few minutes after three.”
“Only? I thought I slept all night.”
“It’s going to be a long night, so go back to sleep. I’ll let you know when Cayson finds something.”
“What if we miss our flight?”
“From the looks of it, we’ll most certainly miss our flight.” Earl closed his laptop. He dug into his messenger bag for a power cord, and plugged in his laptop. “You’ll need to come up with an excuse why you’re not on the same flight as Mr. Ford.”
“If I say I overslept, he will know it’s a lie. I never oversleep.”
“No?” Earl laughed. “I oversleep all the time.”
“By now he will know that Dana is in hiding and Arun is dead. He’ll be suspicious if I don’t show up at the airport.”
“I don’t want you to be in a public place for a while. I can’t protect you at the airport,” Earl said.
“You were okay flying with me.”
“That was before Arun blew up in his van. Now I’m trying to figure out how to keep you safe. I’m not sure we should even be at the resort.”
“It’s my last chance to record Mr. Ford. He’s going to let his guard down at Moss Grand Bahama. There will be other billionaires there, and he might even find a new girlfriend. He might be intoxicated and he’s going to talk.”
“A lot of ‘mights’ there.”
“Keep me safe, Mr. Young. That’s what my uncle paid you for.”
Chapter Ten
Sienna woke up at nine thirty, more than an hour after her flight left Atlanta. She wanted to scream, but no sound came from her mouth. This was the first time in a long time that she had been late for anything at work. She was sure she had set her alarm—
No, she hadn’t.
She didn’t have her phone with her. Earl’s friend had taken it when he hauled his SUV away.
She stared at the ceiling, remembered where she was. Then she closed her eyes.
The job was hers to lose, and she probably had.
“Lord Jesus, I have to trust that You are working this out for my good.” Her whispered prayer was interrupted by the smell of coffee wafting over her nose.
She opened one eye.
Earl placed a mug on the coffee table next to Sienna’s sofa. “Kona with a light shot of milk.”
“How did you know?”
“Profile.”
“Ah, yes. I forgot,” Sienna said. “You didn’t wake me up. We missed the flight.”
“I just got up myself.” Earl sat down on a nearby armchair. “We’ll have to come up with an excuse to take a later flight. The good news is that there are several flights to Freeport this weekend. The other good news is that your conference doesn’t start until Monday.”
“Everyone from GOOP will be there by today or tomorrow. Ford, Gavard, his wife, plus the board, and their investors,” Sienna said. “If I’m missing, they’ll ask questions.”
“Let’s see what the agenda is.” Earl scrolled down his phone. “Opening remarks by Finnegan Ford, and keynote by Zachary Gavard.”
“I’ll be working, so I’ll be with Mr. Ford all week,” Sienna said. “Maybe he’ll say something to me about Dana.”
“I can’t be with you at work all day long,” Earl said.
“Yeah, that would be awkward. I’ll be with Mr. Ford, probably in meeting rooms and at conferences.”
“However, I can put a tracker on you.” Earl produced a watch. “I just got this from Cayson. It’s top of the line. Never take it off.”
Sienna stretched out her left wrist so that Earl could put the watch on.
“It’s waterproof and actually tells time.” Earl smiled.
“But I can take it off.”
“Sure.”
Sienna took off the watch just to be sure she could. She put it back on again. “Thank you. I’d hate it if I can’t take it off.”
“Like an ankle monitor?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Sienna stared at the watch. It had a stainless steel band and a digital clock face. It wasn’t what she would have bought at the jeweler’s. “Couldn’t you just watch me through the security cameras?”
Earl shook his head. “When I contacted Moss Grand Bahama security, I found out they’re working with the FBI and the local police. I’m going to get a tour because I know the Chief of Security, but I don’t know if they’ll let me in the rest of the time.”
“You can play the role of the ultra-worried, paranoid boyfriend.”
“You betcha. At other times, I’ll hang out by the pool and mingle with their significant others.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Earl pointed in the direction of a nearby hallway. “Disposable toothbrush and toothpaste kits are in the locker room, together with clean towels and soap for a shower if you need.”
“My clothes are in the safe house.”
“So are mine, but I have some spare shirts and shorts in my backpack. You can wear them if you want.” Earl sipped his coffee. Steam rose in front of his face. “We’ll shop via VPN as soon as we want, and we’ll send someone to do curbside pickup for us.”
Slowly, Sienna sat up. She massaged her neck. There was a kink there. “Maybe I pulled a muscle.”
“Or maybe it’s just stress. Would you like me to… Uh, never mind.”
“Normally, no. But since you’re supposed to be my boyfriend, why not?”
“I learned a few things in the Army.” Earl put down his coffee mug.
“First, let me brush my teeth so I can drink my coffee while it’s hot.” Sienna got up and walked to the locker room.
She returned a few minutes later to find Earl standing behind the sofa, waiting for her to sit down.
“You’re serious about it, aren’t you?” Sienna asked.
“Yep. Your neck will feel much better after this.” Earl rubbed his palms together to warm them up. “Where does it hurt?”
“Here.” Sienna pointed to the side of her neck. “And here.”
She sat there patiently as Earl massaged her neck up to the base of her head. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth of his hands.
A sliding door opened and Cayson Yang rushed in. His hair was askew and his tee shirt had what looked like coffee stain in the front of it. His flip-flops slapped the wood floor as he made his way to Sienna and Earl.
“Whassup?” Earl continued to massage Sienna’s neck. “Any news for us about the USB drive?”
“Not yet.” Cayson placed his tablet on the table in f
ront of Sienna. “First, very bad news. Your boss is dead.”
“What?” Sienna brushed Earl’s hands off her shoulder. “What did you say?”
Earl came around and sat on the sofa next to Sienna.
Cayson tapped Play on the video. On the screen, a reporter at the Miami International Airport was talking into the camera. Cayson rewound the video to the beginning.
“Breaking news at the Miami International Airport,” the reporter said. “A man has died onboard an Air Tropical Airline flight from Atlanta to Miami en route to Freeport in the Bahamas. Witnesses said they thought the man was taking a nap in his first-class seat on the two-hour flight. However, when the time came for them to put their seats upright, his girlfriend and the flight attendants discovered that the man had passed away.”
“Do we know who he is?” the newscaster asked.
“Yes. His girlfriend, Genevieve Reid, identified him as billionaire Finnegan Ford, CEO and co-founder of Gavard Owens Oppenheimer Properties, Inc., a real estate investment firm based out of Atlanta.”
“A co-founder? His name is not on the company name.”
“That’s observant of you, Sally,” the reporter said. “I don’t know why his name is not on there.”
“What do we know about Mr. Ford?”
“He leaves behind two daughters by his ex-wife. His girlfriend is not taking any questions.”
“Thank you, Amelia. That’s Amelia Soto reporting from the Miami International Airport,” the newscaster said. “We will bring you more news when it’s available.”
Cayson stopped the video. “That was a good question. Why isn’t Ford’s name on the company name?”
“Word around the water cooler said that it would have spelled GOOF,” Sienna replied. “The investors decided to salvage their acronym by replacing Ford with Properties.”
No one laughed.
Sienna kept her breathing steady. “I can’t believe it.”
Earl called Helen, who was monitoring intel for him and Sienna. Helen didn’t answer the phone. Earl left her a message.
Cayson waved to Agent Stella Evans as she walked through the door. “She knows.”
Stella stood by the sofa. Her hands were in her pant pockets. “You told her?”
“I showed them the local news from Miami.”
Stella turned to Sienna. “No word yet whether there was foul play, but the passenger manifest says Finnegan Ford and Genevieve Reid were onboard. I called the FBI office in Miami, and they confirmed it’s him at the coroner’s.”