* * *
Agent Diamond followed Yukiko into the modestly furnished church office. Yukiko walked over to the phone and started dialing while Diamond, on a hunch, looked into the wastebaskets.
She pulled a battered copy of Writer’s Digest out of a wastebasket. A quick flip through the magazine showed her that sections had been cut out of it. She took the folded construction paper letter out of her jacket pocket and compared the fonts used in the letter to those around the missing sections in the magazine, and found several matches.
She looked at the magazine. It had been addressed to one Reid Phillips.
Yukiko was still on the phone, so she helped herself to an empty file folder and stuck the magazine and construction paper letter into the folder.
She wandered out of the office. In the hallway there was a series of group photographs of the Church of Our Holy Rosary’s councils, one each year for the past decade. Diamond looked at the current year’s photograph, and the small typed legend taped to the wall beside it.
Aha, she thought. There you are.
Reid Phillips was a balding, heavyset man pictured in the photograph in a green sleeveless cardigan. Diamond snapped a picture of the photograph with her cell phone, then made her way outside to where Diane was standing, still collecting money for the egg decorating.
“Do you know this man?” she asked Diane, showing her Reid’s picture.
“Why yes, that’s Reid,” Diane said, frowning. Diamond looked around quickly, but could not see Charming Guy. She dismissed this thought as soon as it came—Charming Guy was an experienced field agent, he would know how to handle any trouble that might come his way from the operator of the drone.
“Do you think we need to cancel the event?” Diane asked. “We seem to be getting a lot of young people, so it’s going well, I think, but it’s ten to three and the note said—”
Diamond shook her head. “I think things will be fine,” she said. “Tell me about Reid—how well do you know him?”
Diane scratched her head.
“He’s new,” she said. “Started coming with his teenage son, Trevor, last year, and joined the council a short while after. A very nice man, he always brings homemade fudge cookies.”
“Is he here today?” Diamond asked.
“Why, no,” Diane replied. “His son is, though. He’s been making the punch.”
Diamond’s eyes narrowed.
“Thank you, Diane,” she said, and ran toward the entrance to the egg decorating event.
Fifty Shades of Easter Page 2