When she was alone, she sat back, her hand on her stomach.
Me and you and your big sis will have some serious talks while you grow up about making sure you choose your own paths.
ChapterNineteen
Jacinta Segura
Abundio wasat work when the gate bell rang.Before Jacinta could make it to the front door, one of their men was already walking out to investigate.
He returned a moment later with a cardboard document envelope.
“What is it?”She asked, holding her hand out for it.
The men had quickly learned not to buck her orders, per Abundio’s orders.Despite it having Abundio’s name on it, he handed it to her.
“Thank you.”She turned and headed to the home office, intrigued by the fact that it came from Australia and felt inordinately light.
Hmm.
Inside she found a single piece of standard paper, black text, laser-printed, if she had to guess.
At the top was printed Cyrillic text followed by a note in English:
?????????????? ??????
We have no quarrel with you.If you wish answers, follow in your nephew’s footsteps.Your business with Jake and Carl Peterson and Ray Doland does not involve us.Our business with Ray Dorland has been satisfactorily concluded.This is your only caution.
She grabbed her phone and used the camera to translate the text.Unsurprisingly, it was Russian.
CEASE IMMEDIATELY
She sat back in her chair, studying it, wondering what it meant and suspecting it had something to do with whatever Miranda had also been working on before her “departure.”
The little she’d gleaned about Manuel, mostly overheard bits and pieces when Abundio thought she was asleep or otherwise engaged, drew a picture of highly focused madness.The disappearance of his men, and then the disappearance of Manuel and two of Abundio’s men.
Wait!
She scrolled through the hidden notes app on her personal phone, the phone Abundio didn’t know about, and skimmed through information she’d noted.
Yes!Carl Peterson was one of Abundio’s men who’d disappeared with Manuel.
Excited, she took a picture of the paper and envelope and quickly headed upstairs with them.Studying her dresser, she pulled open the bottom drawer, where her pre-pregnancy jeans and shorts lay folded, and tucked it underneath the paper lining the bottom of the drawer.Then she replaced the jeans—nothing looked out of place—and closed the drawer.
Her heart pounded as she headed downstairs again and quickly printed up some geological reports she’d been looking at yesterday from one of their researchers, stapling the pages together.
If Abundio asked about the delivery, she’d have a ready answer to show him.She still ordered reports in his name just to cut through any procrastination in response, and he knew it.
Yet another instance of it.
What she was more interested in was his laptop, which he’d left on the desk in the home office.Opening it, she closed her eyes and set her fingers on the keyboard, trying to remember the keystrokes she’d seen him make to unlock it.
On the third attempt, she got it and quickly noted the password in her phone app.
Glancing at the time, she knew she had less than an hour before he returned home.She found a thumb drive in her laptop bag.Onto it she copied information from several folders helpfully put right on the desktop.That took her very little time, with it all gathered in one place.She didn’t have time to go through it, but what she did see… intrigued her.
Quickly skimming through the rest of the common folders, she didn’t see anything else that caught her attention.
She’d just powered off his laptop and stuck the thumb drive back in the bottom of her bag when she heard the sound of the gate out back start sliding open.
