Broken Trust

by Jill Williamson

  “I like hammering,” Isabel said, oddly loud. “It’s good for venting out your anger at stupid boys who think they are smarter than everyone else.”

  I met Grace’s gaze and we both cringed.

  Gabe wisely did not respond. I hadn’t heard how the breakup had gone but clearly Isabel wasn’t pleased.

  In the end, I sucked at flintknapping. When I’d first heard about making weapons from rocks, I’d thought, “That sounds amazing!” But it was the Cording OST all over again.

  Tedious and tedious-er.

  I got some nice shards at first, but I always ended up pulverizing them. Also, I somehow managed to stab my thumb through my glove, which at first I thought was nothing until I saw the tip of my glove soaked with blood. I had to go into the house and get a Band-Aid from Mary, who teased me that I was supposed to be making weapons not cutting myself with them.

  Yeah, yeah. Ha-ha. I sucked. They could all laugh it up.

  After the hammerstones, we got to try some of the other tools. Then Mr. S showed us how to remove the bottom of a glass bottle by shaking a nail inside it. We all got to try that for ourselves with the goal of flintknapping that glass circle into an arrowhead.

  I did manage to break out the bottom of my bottle, but I shattered the thing on my second strike at making the arrowhead. Apparently, I was only good with my hands if I was holding a basketball or a computer mouse. How was I going to survive in the wild for five days? I’d have to eat like a pig the week before. That way if I never found food in the woods, at least I’d survive on my own body fat.

  ****

  That Friday night, as I was fast-forwarding through hours of my webcam footage of the various real estate locations, I struck oil.

  First of all, Friday night… Summer… Seventeen-year-old with a car. Why was I home watching footage of empty buildings?

  Because Grace, Isabel, and Arianna had gone to Anaheim for some two-day woman-conference thing with their moms. Lukas was babysitting his uncle’s kids because his uncle and dad had tickets to see a comedian in Hollywood. And Gabe and his family were in Anaheim while Gabe performed in an honors orchestra—part of his scholarship to Biola’s music program.

  Since everyone I knew had abandoned me, tonight seemed like a great time to catch up on my web cam footage. And like I said, oil. Struck by me.

  At 11:56 p.m. the property at 112 West Rose was totally empty. Fast-forward to 12:08 a. m. and a group of men started hauling in boxes. They taped cardboard over the windows facing the street and set to work—cooking meth, from the look of it.

  I called Mr. S’s house and got the machine. Because he was in Anaheim. Right. I tried his cell. Voicemail. Gabe also did not answer. I seemed to remember them saying they might do Disneyland Friday night, so they were probably standing in line for Space Mountain or something right about now.

  So I called Kimbal.

  My uncle actually picked up. I wondered if he and Jessica were still an item. I wondered if she was with him right then.

  Shudder.

  “You put a webcam in the West Rose property?” Kimbal asked. “When?”

  “A few months back. Prière approved the expense.”

  Silence. Breathing, actually. Then, “I can’t believe you’d do this. Just West Rose?”

  “Don’t freak out. I set up the cameras before dawn. No one was around.”

  “Spencer, meth cookers work all night. You could have walked in on them. You could have gotten yourself killed.”

  This wasn’t my first rodeo. “I wouldn’t have walked in on them. I’m not dumb.”

  “I want you off this case. It’s too dangerous.”

  He was so missing the point right now. “I’m sitting at my desk, watching a video feed. It’s not dangerous. And, no offense, but you’re not my handler anymore.”

  More breathing. I braced myself for the whole, “I’m your uncle, I care about you” lecture. Instead I got, “You put cameras at any of the other properties?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Which ones?”

  “All of them.”

  “All of what?”

  “Every vacant commercial property in the Sayles’ roster. Sixteen total.”

  “Sixteen properties?” His voice had gone all high-pitched and weird, like I’d just confessed to putting a camera in his shower.

  “The red card came from Prière. It’s a totally legit mission. Plus you were there when I set up the cameras. The sedan was, anyway. I wasn’t in any danger.”

  “Okay. It’s fine. I was probably off that night and no one thought it important enough to tell me. I just… You shouldn’t be risking yourself like this. I’ll go check out the West Rose property right now. Get some sleep.”

  It was only 12:15. “Can I come with you?”

  “You really going to ask that?”

  I stifled a sigh. “Just let me know what happens, okay?”

  “Will do, kid.” He hung up.

  I sat there for a minute, my heart thudding in my chest. Kimbal was ticked. Upset that Prière had assigned me something without telling him, I guess. Kimbal wasn’t part of our training program, but he was assigned to keep me safe. But if the Sloans hadn’t thought my sneaking in and out of commercial properties that night worth worrying about, why did Kimbal? Was he just being overprotective?

  My phone rang. Kimbal.

  “Hey.”

  “You have this video saved on your computer?”

  “Yeah. It’s on the regional Mission League servers too.”

  “I need your footage. All of it. For evidence. I’ll be by in five minutes to pick it up.”

  “What about the meth cookers?”

  “I made a call. It’s being handled. Have the footage on a flash drive for me.”

  That didn’t jive with my instructions from Prière. “It’s Mission League property. I turn reports to Prière.”

  “Don’t argue with me, kid. This is my job. I’ll deal with Prière.”

  “But he said—”

  “Kid.”

  “Fine. I’ll have it ready.” Controlling much?

  “Be there in five.” Kimbal hung up.

  Kimbal had never gone all commando on me before, and I didn’t like the idea of forking over all my footage. So I copied everything onto a second flash drive and stuffed it in one of my basketball sneakers. Then I ejected the first flash drive and went to the front door to wait for Kimbal. He wasn’t long.

  He snatched the flash drive out of my hand and pushed past me into the house.

  “Where you going?”

  I followed him to my bedroom. He walked to my MacBook and started messing with it.

  “What are you doing?”

  He opened the web browser, which was still logged in to the Mission League feed. He picked up a pencil and yanked a sheet of paper from my printer, wrote something down. I stepped closer. The url. Why would he need that?

  He crammed the paper into his pocket and whirled on me, holding up the flash drive. “This your only copy?”

  “Yeah,” I lied.

  His eyes narrowed a bit. He looked me up and down, then pushed me up against the wall and frisked me.

  I froze, a lot freaked out. “What are you doing?”

  He stepped back, turned, and started going through my desk drawers.

  “Dude,” I said. “What’s the matter with you?”

  He found another flash drive and shoved it into my laptop. “I just have to be sure.”

  “Of what?”

  He ignored me. Checked the flash drive. Found nothing but English papers. Went back to searching.

  I glanced at my sneaker, glad I hadn’t put the thing in my pocket.

  “How do you save the feed?”

  “I use SnagIt to capture the feed then save it to the flash drive. Prière said they keep copies at HQ, so I erase it when I’m done.”

  Kimbal nodded and pushed past me and into the hallway. I followed him back to the front door. “I’ll let you know what I find out at
the property,” he said.

  “You’re going over there?”

  “I’m going to make sure they get shut down,” he said.

  I stopped on the threshold and held open the screen door. “Let me know what happens,” I said.

  “Will do.”

  I watched him drive away, confused. I went back inside and shut the door. Took a deep breath. Tried to calm down.

  What just happened there?

  I went back to my room, dug out the flash drive and copied the files to my desktop, then put the flash drive back in my shoe, which I moved to the floor of my closet. Shut the door.

  I was wired. I watched the West Rose footage again, then started going through the other files. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I just needed to be looking. Doing something to distract my mind.

  Grace texted me. back in the hotel for the nite

  Thankful for something else to think about, I took a break and texted with her for a while. I found myself analyzing everything she wrote for clues as to what she might be trying to learn about me for Prière’s assignment. I saw nothing. When she finally said goodnight, I went back to my footage. But there was nothing else there. The rest of the properties were vacant as always. So I watched the West Rose footage again. I scrolled through it six times, each time watching a different man to try and recognize someone. Nothing.

  By 2:43 a.m. Kimbal still hadn’t gotten back to me. I played Clash of Clans on my iPhone until my eyes stung. Then I went to bed.

  ****

  My ringtone woke me the next morning. I scrambled to find the phone in the folds of my blankets.

  It was Mr. S. “Spencer, you called last night? I’m sorry I missed it. Everything okay?”

  “I don’t know.” And I told him about the footage and about Kimbal and how weird he’d acted. “He never called me back. You think he’s okay?”

  “I’ll find out. Try not to worry. And, good work spotting this on your footage.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  I waited a half hour, then called my dear uncle myself. He answered on the second ring, sounding sleepy.

  “Why didn’t you call me back last night?” I asked.

  “It was after three by the time I was done.”

  “I was still awake. I was waiting for you to call back.”

  “Sorry, kid.”

  “Did you bust them?”

  “Place was totally empty. No sign of anyone.”

  “What? That’s impossible.”

  “You sure you had the right address?”

  “Yes, I’m sure!” But I wasn’t really. It had been late. What if I’d told Kimbal to check the wrong place?

  “Can you double check it?” he asked.

  “I…” Sure I could, but I’d let Kimbal believe I had given him all my footage. “I can check the live footage,” I said carefully, “but I gave you the recorded stuff. Bring back my flash drive and I can check the address by the floorplan. Jessica had those on file at the office.”

  “No, I gave the flash drive to a judge to get a warrant to search the place.”

  Did he think I was stupid? He’d been on his way over there when he left my house. He hadn’t been getting any warrant. “Forget it,” I said. “I’ll figure it out myself.”

  “You need to stay out of this,” he said. “That’s an order.”

  “You don’t get to order me.”

  “Prière will be calling you soon enough.”

  “Wow. So I ask you for help with my assignment and you go over my head and shut me down? Thanks for nothing,” I said, then hung up.

  What madness was this? Kimbal had taken his protective uncle routine one step too far. But I was smarter than he thought I was. If people were cooking meth in Pilot Point, someone was selling it. And I knew who to ask.

  I called my ex-best friend.

  To my shock, he actually answered. “What do you want?”

  “Hello to you too, Kip,” I said.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  I took a breath. Time to pour on my acting skills. “Look, I’ve been thinking about what you said back at school. I’m starting to realize the basketball thing isn’t going to happen, and it’s killing me. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You put too much pressure on yourself. You need to relax.”

  “I know. You’re right. I just… I don’t know where to get anything anymore.”

  Kip laughed. “Yeah, your straight friends don’t have the right connections, do they?”

  “They really don’t.”

  Another chuckle. “Can you pay?”

  “I’ve got some cash.”

  “Good. What do you want? The skunk?”

  “Unless you got some ice cream.”

  “I can get you something better that that. Remember the brownies at my party?”

  iVitrax. A chill ran up my arms. Worlds were colliding. “You can get more of that?”

  “Tell you what. There’s a vending machine in the park. It’s kind of hidden, back behind that grove of skinny bushes by the tennis courts.”

  “I know the one.” I’d taken a picture there with some friends, a show choir garden gnome, and Nick Muren.

  “F5. Bottom right corner. It’s a box of Hot Tamales.”

  “F5?” I asked, wondering where this was going.

  “Yep. Press F5. It will ask for a code. Press 5565. It’s a buck an O. Mess up the code, it will eat your cash.”

  “5565. And if I don’t mess up?”

  “It’ll give you a bag of magic, fool. You didn’t hear about it from me.” The line went dead.

  iVitrax from a vending machine?

  And Nick was stocking the machines. Did he know what was in the box of Hot Tamales?

  I bet Kimatra Patel did.

  I got dressed and was in the living room before I remembered what “a buck an O” meant. One hundred bucks for an ounce of drugs.

  I didn’t have a hundred dollars.

  Figs!

  What now?

  Call Kimbal.

  No way. Kimbal was acting like a nut.

  I called Mr. S again. “Did you talk to Kimbal?”

  “Haven’t gotten through. I left him a couple messages.”

  “He answered for me.” I told him about the call, then what I’d learned from Kip. I also filled him in on how Kimatra Patel worked for SnackCo and had set up vending machines on all of the commercial properties that the Sayle agency represented. “She’s dating Nick,” I said, “and his summer job is filling vending machines.”

  “You’ve been busy since we last talked,” Mr. S said. “All this in your report for Prière?”

  “Not what happened tonight and this morning, but the rest of it is.”

  “That’s great. Spencer, excellent work, making all these connections. Finish your report and turn it in right away.”

  A thrill of pride made me smile, but I still didn’t know what to do about the drugs. “What about the vending machine in the park?”

  “That wasn’t your assignment. Setting up the cameras and monitoring the feeds, working at the agency, those were your assignments. This… you let the professionals do the rest.”

  “But, Mr. S—”

  “You do not need to buy any drugs to prove that they’re in there. Is that clear? Leave that to me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “I just… I don’t get it. Kimbal. What he did. He’s not making any sense.”

  The silence between us was so absolute I thought we’d been disconnected, and then: “People will always let you down, Spencer. Few of us set out to hurt or betray our love ones, but we’re imperfect, sinful creatures, and we mess up. People are fallible, but our God is not.”

  Yeah, that made sense, but it didn’t make me feel any better. “What should I do about my footage? Should I turn it in as usual to Prière? Kimbal thinks I gave him my only copy.”

  “Email it to me and I’ll forward it to Priè
re.”

  “Thanks, Mr. S,” I said. “I really appreciate this.”

  “No, Spencer. Thank you. Good work.”

  We hung up, and I emailed the footage immediately. Then I got to thinking… It was too early now, but tonight I’d go out and set up a camera overlooking that vending machine in the park. I wouldn’t touch the machine, not even to buy a Twix. I just needed to confirm who kept it stocked with Hot Tamales.

  ****

  I could get my own camera, no problem, but without the nifty Wi-Fi units from Prière and the server for them to feed to, I had no easy way to monitor the vending machine footage. I went online and found out how to build my own motion triggered spy cam using a motion detector and USB DVR. It had 4G of memory, so it should last a while, but it required soldering, so I had to go to Lukas for help. Between the two of us, we got my gadget up and running. The only problem was I couldn’t hack into the footage. I had to go back and get the camera when I wanted to see what it had recorded.

  Two days later, Mr. S called to let me know that my OTM was over. My footage had led to the arrest of Ron and Anita Sayle for drug trafficking.

  “Wait, how? Were they some of the meth cookers?”

  “No, but the authorities were able to ID one of the men in your footage. They picked him up and he made a deal, turned on his whole gang and the Sayles as well. The Sayles were the money. They hired the meth cookers and told them which properties they could set up in.”

  Wow. “So Kimbal did his job?”

  “On paper, yes, but the flash drive he turned in didn’t have the footage of the drug lab.”

  No way. “It was on there, Mr. S, I swear.”

  “And the files at the regional Mission League office were somehow wiped clean during the time period you said you saw the drug lab. If you hadn’t emailed me your footage, there would have been no evidence to analyze, no suspect to arrest, and no confession that led to charges against the Sayles.”

  Silence stretched over the line as that all sank in. “So Kimbal sabotaged it?”

  “We don’t know that.”

  Sure seemed like it to me. “What about Jessica?”