Cross

11 | How to Solve the Case

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

               Chapter Eleven

"TO: Agent Beta (Zamira); Hey, when are we meeting up?"

I waited for her response as I sat in an unused meeting room on the fifth floor of the Headquarters. After we had acquired the contact information of Kieran's relatives, I couldn't have run out of the apartment any faster than I did. Although we hadn't accomplished much, the rough morning I had weighed down on my shoulders and I felt a terrible migraine coming on. After convincing Agent Lam that we should end for the day and go over all the pertinent information and devise a plan the following day – which just so happened to be Tuesday – I finally allowed myself to take a break from all of the chaos of the past two days. Prior to being an agent, I never knew how many events could occur within a forty-eight hour span.

Monday had been terrible – when wasn't it? – but on the bright side, there had been no vague, semi-threatening note from Blaze waiting for me once I got home. Surprisingly, neither was my father. That reminded me –

"TO: Dad; Good morning."

I tapped my fingers against the long, rectangular table lying in the middle of the room, surrounded by multiple chairs, as I waited for a response. Within a few seconds, I received three messages all at once. My heart jumped at the sound of the simultaneous notifications before I rolled my eyes at my own paranoia.

I clicked on the first one. "From: Agent Lam (Susana); Sorry, running a little late. Rosie's with me."

Replying to her, I wrote, "How late?"

While I waited for her to respond, I moved down in the list of messages.

"From: Agent Beta (Zamira); ... Idk. I'm pretty busy with Sam – this case is awful, I'm telling you!"

I responded, saying, "I feel bad for you. Wish I could help."

Immediately, I received a response from her. "Dw about it. I'll handle it. But, umm, we can meet up sometime after 4...idk. What do you think?"

I thought about her suggestion for a second before replying. "Okay. Np. Starbucks, right?"

I hadn't forgotten the place we planned on meeting, but it seemed like a good idea to confirm it with her once more, since she often changed her mind last minute. Giving her some time to respond, I checked on the new messages that had arrived while I was talking to her.

"From: Agent Lam (Susana); Be there in fifteen minutes. Traffic's bad this morning."

Not seeing a reason to respond, I quickly glanced at the time on my phone and moved on to the few messages I had received from my father.

"From: Dad; Morning, sweetie. Did you eat on time?"

More messages followed afterwards. "Sorry, I wasn't home yesterday to make you something."

I was more than glad that he brought up the elephant in the room before I had the chance to. Energized, my fingers slid on my phone screen, typing up a response. "Yeah, I noticed. Where were you?"

I didn't want to seem accusatory, but in the few months I had spent with him, he hadn't left the house all that much. For the most part, every morning I left for work and every night I came home, he'd be there, cooking, reading, sleeping, doing anything but being gone.

He was quick to respond. "I got a call from Paul. He wanted to catch up. I'm sorry for leaving you alone at home."

My eyebrows scrunched. Paul? I couldn't think of any reason why Agent Matthew would want to meet up with my father out of the blue six months after he had been rescued. That too, with the excuse of catching up?