“Not for me,” Jude replied. He didn't enjoy speaking about his personal life with Dixon and Shannon. But in this situation, it couldn't be helped. “Gemma is the one for me. I know it would have been better for me, career-wise, if that wasn't true. But it is true.”
The older agents frowned.
“The FBI takes a hard stance on this, Jude,” Dixon stated.
“I know, sir.”
“We can't have agents compromising themselves or others because of love or lust.”
“I told him not to go this route weeks ago,” Shannon said.
“The fact that Scent-sible is currently inactive is a technicality,” Dixon said. “That won't give you a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
“I understand.”
“Think of all that you've invested to get where you are,” Dixon said. “The application and selection process. The academy. Years of work. Undercover training. You're an outstanding agent. You have a bright future ahead of you at the Bureau. I'd hate to see you jeopardize all that.”
“Think of all the good you can do with us here in the years to come,” Shannon added.
“I'd like to do good here in the years to come,” Jude acknowledged. “But I won't give Gemma up. Whatever consequences there are for that, I'll accept.”
“I'll have to speak with those higher up the food chain.” Dixon sighed. “This doesn't give me any pleasure, Jude, but until a decision about your future with the FBI has been reached, I'm placing you on administrative leave.”
Jude's gut hardened.
He hated this.
Yet he regretted nothing.
* * *
In Bayview, Gemma entered Marigold Manor with a two-fold goal: spend time with Gracie; search for a clue.
She purposely arrived forty minutes before Gracie's beloved arts and crafts session. That way, they had plenty of time to catch up before they escorted her great-grandmother to arts and crafts.
Once again, Gracie asked if Gemma had learned what had gone wrong between herself and Paul all those years ago. Again, Gemma had told her she was still working to find out.
After Gracie left, it didn't take Gemma long to locate the cardboard box in Gracie's closet. She set the box in the middle of the rug and went through each piece of Gracie and Paul's wedding clothes. Tie, gloves, pocket square. Slip, crinoline, wedding dress. When possible, she turned the dusty items inside out. In every case, she went over them inch by inch, sneezing occasionally. She found no clues.
Turning the box and opening every flap, Gemma searched the cardboard itself for a clue. Maybe a code written in faint pencil? But no.
Disappointed, she repacked the things into the box. The letters and photos weren’t with the other items, so she peeked inside Gracie's bedside dresser and found them in the second drawer. Gemma switched on a lamp, and held each letter up to it, eyeing both sides like a customs inspector eyes passports. No clues.
She peered at the first photo, turned it over. Then the second photo. When she turned that one over, she saw again the hand-drawn border around the date. Very ornate. Hearts, flowers, leaves, and . . . She held it even closer to the lamp light. Symbols?
What looked like a number two emerged from the design. Impossible to tell if that was an intentional two or just a creative flourish. She noticed that the border didn't close on the top left corner. If she started there and moved to the right—
Oh! An oval was camouflaged in the doodle. That oval could be a zero. She moved farther along the border and found a seven.
Her heartrate picked up speed.
She pulled out her phone and typed each digit she discovered into a note.
By the time she'd made it around the border, she had a line of nine numbers. She typed parentheses around the first three digits. Two-zero-seven was Bayview's area code. She didn't have enough remaining numbers, however, to complete a full phone number. Which hopefully meant she'd overlooked a number that was still hiding in the design.
Running her fingernail along the border, she went back over it, and found a number four she'd missed the first time. “Gotcha,” she whispered. She added the four where it fell in the order, then input a dash in the right spot.
A phone number. Gracie loved puzzles. Embedding numbers in a hand-drawn doodle was right in Gracie's wheelhouse.
