The Connection (The Claudia Belle Series Book 3)

by C. S Luis

  “So much for dinner,” he disappointedly added. “But I’m glad we discovered what a—”

  But he didn’t finish. I noticed Claudia immediately step forward and stand beside us both.

  “Perhaps you can join us for dinner instead tonight, Dr. Black,” she offered; suddenly I was caught off-guard that she wanted me around so much.

  Michael blinked as if her suggestion had been a great one.

  “What a great idea. Oh yes, you must join us, especially after what you did for Claudia. It would be an honor to have you join us for dinner. It’s the least I can do to show you my thanks,” Michael said again, and Claudia smiled, gazing up at me, urging me to say yes.

  I didn’t know what to say. Of course, I wanted to stay, but the Man in Blue didn’t like the idea that I was becoming too close to them. I was getting involved with their lives, and, not only that, it was starting to affect me.

  I hesitated a bit, and then Claudia grabbed hold of my hand, making me tremble when she did. “Please say you will Dr. Black.”

  The famous John Slater smirked and greeted her, and my eyes filled with intoxication. I had a hard time responding. My lips were having a hard time forming words, well, at least ones that made sense.

  “How can I say no to you?” I grinned. She blushed, and I gripped her hand and kissed it.

  John, you didn’t?

  Yes, I did. In return, she hugged me tightly. I wasn’t prepared for that either. Claudia looked delighted.

  I pulled away despite my desire not to.

  “Great!” Michael exclaimed, breaking my attention away.

  “So, we’ll see you tonight!” I nodded with a great, big smirk on my face. I think she made me blush for the first time.

  I made my way to the door.

  “You can count on it,” I softly said, opening the door. I was leaving until Claudia’s soft voice froze me on the spot. I looked back.

  “Don’t forget the wine, Dr. Black,” she simply said, smiling back.

  I winked. “I won’t. Enjoy the CD.” I waved farewell to Michael as I stepped out the door.

  I walked out the house and onto the steps, stopping briefly; she wanted to see me again, I thought proudly, and she trusted me. It sure made a man feel good inside.

  I took a deep breath and walked down the path towards my awaiting Shelby, got in, and started her up, slightly glancing towards the house. I would be back. Now I was contemplating what I would wear; perhaps I would wear a dark red or maroon silk shirt with a black blazer and black tie. She, after all, liked red, and I thought she’d like maroon even more. The big smirk resurfaced on my face, and I gazed at my reflection in the car rearview mirror.

  She trusts you.

  It might as well have been she loves you because it was all the same to John Slater.

  I shook the thought from my head. But for whatever reason I couldn’t fight the sensations coursing through my veins, the confusion and the cloudiness that over-impacted my mind within those few moments of standing before her. That had always seemed to send my feelings and reasoning into a swirl of denial. I didn’t want to do this, not to her or myself. I didn’t want to continue this phony life. She trusted me and I had yet to be truthful to her.

  You’re getting too involved with these people. This will not end well.

  But I didn’t have the strength to listen to my voice of reasoning any longer.

  I sped into the open street, happier than I had ever been. She was warming up to me, and we were becoming more than mere strangers. I stopped by the local cell phone store and picked up a prepaid phone, and then I purchased a bottle of Concannon, Crimson & Clover wine from a nearby grocery store. It was the only place I could usually find my favorite wine. I also picked up a bouquet of daisies for Claudia; I figured they were the appropriate flower for friends, and I knew she liked daisies best. Armed with what I needed, I paid for the wine and the daisies and headed out to the car.

  On my way back to the house, I soon realized my laptop was still at the office. I still had time. I could head there and get it and then head over to Michael’s for dinner. But I then realized I had to stop at my house and grab a few things and of course get a little cleaned up before my very important dinner. I put the daisies and wine on the kitchen table and rushed upstairs and into the bedroom.

  I took off all of my clothing and then raced into the bathroom and removed the shirt and turned on the faucet. I splashed water on my face, brushed my teeth, shaved, and put on some cologne since unfortunately there was no time to take a shower.

  I then went back into the bedroom. I opened the closet door and took out my black suit and a clean, maroon dress shirt. I searched the dresser for clean underwear and then grabbed a tie hanging on the back of the closet door. I walked over to the bathroom mirror and put on the shirt, buttoning it up and adding the tie. Next I climbed into the pair of black slacks and then sprayed on just a bit more cologne for good luck. I got a bit of mousse and spread it in my palms and through my hair. Then pulled a nice jacket over the shirt to complete the look.

  Again I looked at myself, and the piercing green eyes of a gentleman killer looked back at me. The Man in Blue wasn’t happy we were going; he was never happy except when we were killing and hunting.

  Bryce will find out you’ve been holding out on him and—

  And what?

  I glared over at myself. I owed him nothing. He’s not going to hurt her; she didn’t deserve that. Now smiling, I looked again. You want this just like me, I told myself. You know it, but you know how to better hide it.

  “Ready or not, here I come,” I said and walked out of the bathroom and made my way down the stairs, grabbing the flowers and wine off of the kitchen table. Again I looked at my watch, stepping out of the house with my items. I had plenty of time.

  I arrived at Milton and pulled into the parking lot. The retrieval team was still poking around. I came from the other direction to avoid their eyes, but of course they still noticed me. They glanced over at John Slater jumping out of his car and heading towards the building, and once contact was established, they proceeded to their work again.

  At the far left end, a crane was being used to pull the cars out of the hole, and the last one was being loaded up on top of a large truck along with the rest. The team examined the hole, but from the looks of it, they seemed to be packing it up. What kind of information could you get from a hole? But knowing The Company, they could probably get just about anything. Those that had lost cars in the chaos had not been teachers but people that shouldn’t have been parked in the school parking lot in the first place. The ADA had paid them off, and that had shut them up quickly. Money could always shut mouths and buy friends.

  The police officer, the phony one, caught sight of me again through those phony shades of his, and he smiled.

  “Roberts,” I uttered under my breath as I moved up the steps towards the entrance and inside. I walked down the long hallway and entered the main office and finally my office, unlocking the door. I walked in immediately, coming around my desk and dropping onto the seat. I checked my watch. I had time. I had to get in touch with my contact and Intel regarding my suspicion about the beady man calling himself Christian Vega.

  I got onto my laptop immediately; I had to be careful when using The Company’s computers, especially regarding personnel searches. But I only checked my messages on the ADA website; so far there was nothing and no news from The Man in White. I knew if he wanted me he would find me or call me.

  I logged off, got on the prepaid phone, and began to dial. The phone rang and at the third ring I heard a click, and before I firmly spoke into the mouthpiece, I heard a man’s voice say, “Jason Bates.”

  “It’s John, Jason,” I firmly said.

  “John? Why are you contacting me on this line? Oh shit, don’t tell me—”

  “Relax Jason.” There was a brief pause.

  “John I thought I told you never to contact me on this line. Shit, you trying to give me
a heart attack? You’ve been off the grid a while.”

  But it wasn’t a question.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” I interrupted. I was not one for small talk. I wanted to get to the point already.

  “Ah, the great John Slater needs a favor. And from the sounds of it, it’s personal. Am I correct?” His laugher filled the other end of the phone. I didn’t answer, nor did I find it amusing.

  “I take that as a yes,” he again said.

  “You owe me, Jason,” I immediately answered; there was a small pause.

  “I need you to look up a name for me. Christian Vega. C-H-R—” I began even though I didn’t hear a sound from him for a moment.

  “Yeah, yeah; I got it. Christian Vega,” Jason said at the other end. “You know I can get in a lot of trouble for doing this, John. What’s this all about anyway?”

  “It’s best you don’t know. As you said, you can get in a lot of trouble,” I responded.

  “Is this for whatever Director Nicholson has you working on?”

  “You could say that,” I simply answered.

  “It isn’t, is it?” He uttered with a bit of regret.

  “Jason, the name please,” I impatiently said.

  “Alright. Hold your horses. I’m getting to it.” I heard a few clicks and muttering.

  “I’m sending it to your laptop now.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” I said.

  “God damn, John. First Jack and now you. Well, it’s too long to send to your phone. Hey, if you get caught with this—”

  But I interrupted him. “Yeah, I know; we didn’t have this conversation. Now what about Jack? What did he want?” I simply asked. What did my old contact from Mexico want? I hadn’t seen him in quite a while.

  “I’d rather not say. He swore me to secrecy. But if you really want to know…” Jason was never really good at keeping his mouth shut, which made me question why I trusted him now. Well, for one because he knew who he was dealing with and, two, because if he knew what was best for him he’d keep his mouth shut. No one wanted to be at the receiving end of The Man in White’s fury, especially Jason, who was a bit of a coward. He wasn’t a field man; he was a tech, working behind the lines and in front of the computer. He was our hacker, our researcher, and our computer genius. He was my go-to guy most of the time; we could almost be considered a team, but I worked alone, so just almost.

  “On second thought, I’d rather not know,” I said.

  “You sure?” He asked with a chuckle.

  “Positive,” I answered. “Now will you hurry up? I have someplace to be,” I said while looking at my watch.

  “Oh, a hot date?” He uttered. I could already picture the grin on his face from the tone of his voice.

  “Nothing like that,” I said with a frown and a roll of the eyes.

  “Oh, really? You, John? Sure, I believe it,” he said again, over some serious clicking in the background.

  Okay, so I had a very bad reputation, well not a bad one, just a man’s reputation, and a dream every co-worker of mine had. They liked my social life. And sometimes they referred to me as the James Bond of the ADA.

  “Interesting; according to this your man is dead,” Jason said, and then more clicking continued. “Hmm, but looks like your dead man has been busy too.”

  I was getting impatient. “And?”

  “He’s been collecting veteran benefits from the looks of this. Says here he was injured in Iraq back in 2003; strange, I have a file here that claims he was missing in action in 2004, but apparently then he reappears in 2006, applying for veteran benefits as an injured vet. Thanks to our great government documentation he must have slipped through the cracks. Only in America.”

  I frowned. I wanted to see the paperwork The Company had, and why hadn’t I received any of this? Probably because it was technically irrelevant to my mission.

  “Jason,” I began to say impatiently into the mouthpiece.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know you’re in a hurry. I’m sending everything I have on this guy. It’s incredibly long. I’ve created an account you can access through any computer. I’d advise you try the public library.”

  “I don’t have time for all that. Can’t you just patch it through my laptop and bypass The Company’s mainframe and make it undetectable to their connection?”

  “Of course I can. I hope you’re not forgetting who you’re talking to,” he said. “But it’s just—”

  “Then do it,” I interrupted.

  “Okey-dokey, boss,” he simply said. I heard a few more clicks.

  “Done. Don’t say I never did anything for you. You’ll have 24 hours before the website no longer exists.”

  “More than enough time,” I uttered. I needed a copy, so instead I’d just save the file on my flash drive. Problem was I was risking getting detected.

  I took out the flash drive from within my pocket, put it in the laptop, and brought up the web page Jason had setup. The material was all there, what Jason had read and more: dates, jobs taken under Christian’s social, everything one does or wherever one puts or writes; his social on credit cards, job applications, even rentals. This guy had been busy, just as Jason had indicated.

  In fact, he had taken jobs in various schools and from the looks of it, had been a suspect of a robbery of charity money. Although he was never actually or officially charged with taking the money, phony Vega was asked to resign. Apparently his bad reputation didn’t follow him, and he came down to Texas, where he started using the name Christian Vega.

  The more I looked into his whereabouts, the closer I got to discovering who he really was.

  Curiously, I began to wonder why The Company had so much on this guy. Then I realized Dr. Edwards was the one The Company had been following. It nearly frightened me, and the more I dug, the more I realized it was so. Claudia’s uncle’s real name was Christian. I read over the files. Christian had been killed in action, even though his body was never recovered to make DNA identification, according to The Company.

  Then, he resurfaced again in 2006, but the man they identified baring the first name of Felix Cortez wasn’t Christian, but a con man, reported missing after skipping on bail for a small part in a credit card fraud scam he had been involved in back in Oregon.

  Suddenly he disappeared, and Christian reappeared looking for veteran benefits; records listed him as living in Kentucky two years later, working in a high school. The Company was aware of this; they weren’t stupid, but he was irrelevant to what they really were looking for. Their interest was only heightened by Dr. Edwards’ investigation of the man I now knew as Felix Cortez, pretending to be Claudia’s uncle Christian. Bryce had failed to give me all this information; apparently he said it was irrelevant. But of course I had my ways of getting whatever else I needed to get. This hadn’t been the first time The Company had been interested in Milton or Dr. Edwards.

  There were records and records of him in school after school and investigations.

  What the fuck?

  What were they looking for, and what had I stepped into? Could Dr. Edwards have been Bryce’s source? It had never occurred to me; the whole idea of such a possibility. It never indicated him as the target, but I could see he wasn't ruled out.

  I plugged the flash drive into the USB port of my laptop and began to download the file as I read along.

  Before we hung up, Jason said, “Try not to save the file, not that you plan to, but try not to.”

  Too late, I thought, pulling the flash drive from out of the laptop USB port. “What happens if I do?” I curiously asked.

  “I can’t say it’ll be traceable, but I’m not to blame if it is. Although I encrypted the file, I can’t be blamed if it becomes unstable. You’re a smart boy. You know this.”

  Of course, unstable was just another method to keep ADA information inaccessible.

  “Right,” I uttered. “Thanks for your help, Jason.”

  “No biggie. Now go get laid, and do me a favor and fuck
a blonde this time.”

  Jason had a thing for blondes with puffy lips. They did nothing for me.

  “Sure,” I humored. “Just for you, pal.”

  “Fuck you. I know you only like brunettes,” he said, and I laughed.

  Just before he hung up, I had to ask him something else that was bothering me. “Jason, one last favor,” I said.

  He stopped and gasped a long sigh and said, “What now, John?”

  “Can you look up the name Nicholas Belle?” I asked.

  He paused. “Now, why does that sound familiar?” He again said, at which I wrinkled a brow curiously. “Sure, not a problem John, but can I send you the information later? I’ve got a rat, and I’d rather not sit on the line for too long. Catch my drift?”

  “Caught it. Send the file or whatever you can find when possible,” I said, knowing of possible taps.

  “Sure thing. Now go get laid, and don’t let me keep you,” he humored and then hung up. I continued to read, looking at the clock on the wall as I did.

  It seemed Dr. Edwards' interests became The Company's interests, and that's where the information of Cortez began; Edwards’ search for family. The Company only had information of such, but nothing revealing why they were watching Edwards, which made me very curious and nervous at the same time.

  This was odd. The Company had no family listed for Edwards: his mother was listed as deceased, and he was adopted but never married, and yet he did have a son. And Claudia had just met him only after the death of her parents. Had there been a falling out between Nicholas Belle and Edwards? What was the news there? There had to be more, especially regarding Nicholas Belle. Why did I sense that?

  I hoped Jason would get back to me quickly. I wanted to see what he would find, if anything, about Mr. Nicholas Belle. Maybe I was digging in all the wrong places. Maybe I was just hoping there was something on Nicholas Belle because of Claudia.

  The Company had no records; if they did, they were hidden or confidential. I didn't know. There were a lot of secrets in The Company that even I didn't have access to. And believe me, I didn't want to be a part of it. Most of the files Jason had sent were blacked out. Approaching this file and discovering these new things about Claudia’s grandfather were making me question what was happening here. Suddenly Jason’s warning regarding the tracing of the file made me regret saving it.