Jak stood and clapped his hands together so loudly, the entire room jumped. Priscilla was impressed and a little frightened with the sudden quiet.
“Hello,” she said calmly.
“Hey, Priscilla, how are you?” he said almost breathless.
“I’m well. Still a bit in shock but I’m taking time like you suggested.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Where are you, Priscilla?” he asked insistently. “We have a right to know where you are.”
“No. No, you don’t. I was told to take leave, to get away from the bureau and the work for a while, which is what I’m doing. I’m not required to tell you where I am.”
AJ held up his tablet with a message:
He’s trying to track your phone. We’ve blocked it and he’s getting pissed. Tell him you know.
Priscilla shook her head and the others all nodded for her to do it.
“Todd, why are you trying to track my phone?” she asked calmly. There was a sudden deadly silence on the other end of the phone. “Todd?”
“I’m here. You removed the other tracker,” he said calmly.
“Yes, I did. I’m not as stupid as you believed, obviously. Why were you tracking my phone? You didn’t have my permission for that, or my personal laptop. I’m not under any suspicion in this case. Why are you trying to find me?”
“Return to D.C., Priscilla.”
“Answer my question,” she said pushing him. “Why?”
“There are people here who need to question you about, Celine.”
“People? What people? I’m not a suspect. Anything they need to know about Celine, you would know.”
There was a familiar noise on the phone. One they’d all heard before. Priscilla covered her mouth with her hand, staring up at River with tears in her eyes.
“Todd?” she said quietly.
“Todd is no longer available,” said the voice with a slight British accent. “He assured me that he would be able to get you to cooperate. Obviously, he misunderstood your loyalty.”
“Who is this?” she asked.
“My name is unimportant. You have something that I need and I won’t stop until I find you and whoever is hiding you.” Priscilla stood abruptly and River, Patrick, and Wes all settled their hands on her shoulders, gently pushing her back to her seat.
“I have nothing that belonged to Celine or Todd. We weren’t those kinds of friends.”
“You definitely kept a tidy apartment,” he said. “Everything in perfect order. One would suspect that you’re a bit OCD.”
“I like neatness.”
“Like your father,” said the voice.
“How would you know my father unless he arrested you at some point.” The man laughed, the sounds of others chuckling as well.
“Your father wishes that he could have arrested me. It would have been the highlight of his career. Not tooting my own horn or anything.” There was silence once again and then he spoke once more. “Whatever you’ve done to your phone is quite impressive. No signal whatsoever. The only technology I’ve ever seen like that was from a group that I would dearly like to find.”
“I’m sure they’d like to find you as well. For me, I’ll be moving on, taking a permanent vacation,” said Priscilla calmly.
