“Right here,” said River handing her a steaming cup. “Good morning.”
“Gosh, I didn’t even see you with all these people. Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” said Jak. “Priscilla I’m one of the team leaders for Shadow Warriors, our new division. You were exhausted when they returned and we brought you to River’s cottage to sleep.”
“Sleep. I just slept, right?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “I’m not into taking advantage of women while they sleep.” Priscilla flinched and Margo stared at her son.
“I didn’t mean,” she started. River held up a hand, shaking his head.
“I didn’t mean to snap,” he said apologetically.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m feeling a little disoriented this morning. I went to sleep on a plane and woke up – here. Where is here?” she asked.
“You’re at my family’s home,” said Jak. “This entire community, the property, what you see here belonged to my great-grandparents. They provided a safe space for our grandparents, parents, and others to retire and form the security companies that we’ve owned.”
“I see. So, you won’t tell me where I am?” she asked.
“For now, no. When the time is right, we’ll tell you everything but as you can imagine we don’t want to anyone to know where we live,” said Mary. “Honey, if you’ll forgive us all, while you were sleeping we checked your phone and laptop for tracking devices.”
“You didn’t have to worry about that. It’s something the bureau checks often,” she said staring at their faces. Except their faces told her she was wrong.
“There were multiple tracking software programs running on both devices,” said another man. He stepped from behind River, slightly smaller but still very handsome. “I’m AJ. I work with our tech and comms teams. You had a tracking system that’s owned by the bureau on both your phone and laptop, also on your personal laptop. I’m pretty sure it’s standard issue stuff.”
“They damn sure didn’t tell me that they would track my personal laptop,” she frowned.
“No, I don’t suspect that they did. The other tracking software was a bit more alarming. One was simple, something you could buy anywhere. It was being run from your partner’s personal laptop. We deleted it immediately.”
“Celine? Or whatever her name is. She was tracking me?”
“She was, honey,” said River. “There were two others as well and the team is looking into those. Someone wanted to know where you were at all times.”
“I think I need to sit down,” she said reaching for the counter. Mary and Margo led her to the sofa, the others following and taking seats around her. “Why? Why would anyone want to track me?”
“We’re not sure it was actually you they were following but maybe the other woman,” said AJ. “That will take us a bit of time to figure out but rest assured, we will figure it out.”
“That’s not helping me,” she said staring at him. AJ gave a small smirk and nod.
“I’m sure it doesn’t. We’re trying to find out who she was and why you were being followed. They could be unrelated. Either way, we want to know who the woman actually was.”
“Has anyone spoken to Todd? Todd Greene my deputy director.” The others all looked at River who knelt in front of her.
“Todd made a statement this morning at a press conference. He claimed that Celine Johnstone was murdered in her home by a random, unknown individual who was attempting to burglarize her home. He further commented that, and I quote, ‘she fought bravely attempting to fight off the attacker’, end quote.”
“That’s all a lie. There was no evidence that she fought the attacker. In fact, if I had to guess, she knew the attacker.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Wes from the corner of the room. She looked up at one of the many doppelgangers and tilted her head to the side.
“Well, for one thing there was no sign of forced entry. The door was ajar but it appeared that she opened it, or someone had the key.”
“Good. What else?” asked Patrick.
“Well, she was face down on the bed and items were strewn around her. That tells me that she was murdered and then the house was ransacked. It didn’t appear that she was dragged forcibly to the bedroom, which again indicates to me that she allowed the attacker to follow her up there.”
“Very good,” smirked Angel. “You all have this. If you need any help from me, let me know. Priscilla? Welcome to the family, honey.”
“Oh, I don’t, I mean I’m not sure,” she started. Mary just laughed taking her husband’s hand.
