A/N: sorry for the double alert but I'm reformatting :) I won't be able to update consistently but I do want to start writing this again! Thank you a for reading and reviewing :)
In the end, it was the rain that roused Alex from a deep, thorough, and wholly unflattering contemplation of Galen Troy's character. He stood from his desk to draw the blinds and sat back on his bed, staring at the carpet. All the ideas he was able to conjure involved using someone as bait, and that was the one thing he refused to touch, not after what Troy did to Catie, someone Alex barely knew.
The look of utter terror on her face was burned into his mind, and it blazed at him whenever he tried to close his eyes. She was scared, so scared, and it was his fault. Why had he let her go outsided? Why had he tried to push her away when of course she would be feeling unsteady and disoriented?
He reached up and ran his hands through his hair, smoothing it back from his forehead as he tried to think. If only there was someone he could bounce ideas off - well, there was always Ben or Wolf, but they probably wouldn't listen - or who he could ask for ideas.
As intelligent and successful as Ben and Wolf were, they still thought he was . . . fragile. Wavering, even. And okay, Alex hadn't shown them his best with the August affair back in London, but now he was really trying, and that hadn't stopped things from spiraling out of control faster than he could handle. He had spent this entire game catching up, reacting to the pictures of Danielle, reacting to the Arab's death, reacting to Catie's injury, reacting to Troy. He wanted to act, to claw and drag himself ahead of Troy for one moment, just enough to get back some semblance of the control he had sorely missed.
He was used to being able to improvise on the spot and to only being responsible for himself, but now the wrong improvisations could kill someone else, someone he cared about.
A knock on the door drew Alex out of his musings.
"Yeah?"
Danielle stuck her head in and smiled at him. "How are you?"
"I'm fine, how are you? With seeing Troy again, and-"
"Honestly?" She shook her head as something faltered in her face and Alex felt an all-too-familiar twist of concern for her. "I'm really scared. For you. And also because of when he - when he was in August's -"
Alex stood. "Come on, sit down." he moved to the floor and she sat opposite him with her chin in her hands. "Danielle, I'd be a little more worried if you weren't scared."
"Yeah." She sniffed, a watery smile on her face. "I don't know, I guess it's just that Catie's house seemed so safe and removed from everything. . . it was easy to imagine that none of it was really happening."
"And then you wake up and there's a certifiable psychopath standing outside."
"You were outside too." Her lower lip trembled. "That was terrifying. He had Catie and I thought - I thought for sure you were gonna die, because you're like that. You'd have taken that gun to the face for her, or a bullet." She gave him a searching glance through narrowed eyes. "I can tell."
"Dani." Alex reached over and squeezed her hand. "I'm not planning on dying anytime soon, don't worry. Besides, Catie's in one piece. She's worse off than me."
"How's your hand?"
"Annoyingly painful but healing."
Danielle looked over his shoulder at something and got to her feet, wandering over to his desk. There were pages of paper covered with half-coherent notes and the envelope that held the pictures of her in it. Alex realized he should tell her about those, so he jumped to his feet and hurried to place his hand on the envelope just as she reached for it.
She gave him a questioning look. "What's in there?"
"I meant to tell you about these," Alex began. "Honestly, I did. But things piled up and I forgot. These are the reason I brought you here." He removed his hand and she took the envelope, unceremoniously overturning it and letting the pictures fall out onto her desk.
Danielle's face remained mostly impassive as she flipped through each one, smearing fingerprints on the glossy images, but Alex did see her lips twitch once or twice. She was becoming more adept at masking her emotions, not as candid as she used to be. Alex wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"I have a stalker?" she finally asked, holding up a picture of her leaving the grocer.
"It was just to scare me, probably into going back to London to be with you," Alex said, halfway lying. He still had his doubts over whether or not the pictures were supposed to be a catalyst to get him to bring Danielle to the States.
"Ah. So you decided to bring me here because of this? And here I was, thinking you had finally relented in your overbearing ways." Grinning, she bumped her shoulder into his. "No, I figured there was something up."
"Hey," Alex tried to defend himself. "It wasn't entirely thoughtless. I thought you'd get along with Catie."
"Yes, Catie." There was a spark in her eyes. Alex knew that look. It told him something provocative was coming. "Do you like her?"
Well, he wasn't expecting that, but knowing Danielle, he should have. "I think most people do. I'm going to make coffee. Want some?"
"You never answered my question!" she protested as he turned and jogged down the stairs, almost running into Catie who happened to be crossing the kitchen at that very moment with a dish of something that smelled incredible in her hands. "Sorry," she shifted the dish to one arm and tilted her head to the side. "What question?"
"Something about school," Alex quickly lied. "Have you seen Wo - Luke?"
"In the living room with Dad," replied Catie. "They kicked us all out."
"Oh really? Where are the kids?"
"Sunroom. I wouldn't go in there, they're playing Apples to Apples with - what's his name? Ben?"
Alex grinned at the image of Ben babysitting the younger Blakemores, and figured that he had been excluded from whatever was being discussed by Agent Blakemore and Wolf so he could claim plausible deniability of any operation if MI6 re-acknowledged his existence. That option was long gone for him, so he knocked on the door to the living room and opened it without waiting for a reply.
Blakemore and Luke were sitting across from each other at the coffee table, Blakemore pensively staring at a piece of paper in front of him with his injured leg stretched out flat on the floor and Wolf leaning forward with a restless tension in his posture.
"Alex." Blakemore looked up at him, seemingly unsurprised. "I was hoping you'd be down soon. We have a proposal for you."
What? Wolf gave Alex an unreadable glance with his brow furrowed, which served to make Alex's suspicions rise. "What is it?" He maneuvered around the couch to sit at the end closer to Blakemore so he could read the piece of paper that captivated the American's attention. There was a name and address scrawled across the top.
Jillian Baker
1209 Woodridge Drive
Arlington, Virginia
"Troy has a sister," Wolf began, clasping his hands together. "Best we can tell, she severed all contact with him over a decade ago. Married an accountant. Two kids, a boy and a girl. She lives about forty-five minutes away."
Alex braced his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. "Are we going to see her?"
"What's interesting," Blakemore cut in as Wolf was about to speak. "Are the police reports for her neighborhood. She's made several calls to the emergency line citing trespassers, vandalism, and threats made to her. Oddly enough, she denies that she knows who may be doing these things."
It has to be Troy, Alex thought. He had no trouble imagining Troy to be the kind of man to shake down his own sister for money if the need arose.
"We think she gave him the money for that bank transfer," Wolf said. "Under duress. If we can get her to testify or sign an affidavit, that's enough to arrest Troy without us being involved."
Smart. Get Troy on intimidation, vandalism, and battery and he goes to jail with no mention of MI6 or the FBI, which would protect everyone in the Blakemore's house.
"He'll know it's us," said Alex after a short silence. "He'll know."
"Probably," Mr. Blakemore agreed. "I'm sending you, Luke, Danielle and Sebastian out to Arlington tomorrow. Today, Alex, there's something else I want you to do."
"What is it?" Alex was hoping he would be able to do some research or recon somewhere. The restless itch to get moving on the case had plagued him since last night and he was ready to do something, anything, to get ahead of Troy.
"Convince my eldest daughter that she needs stitches. Her head's been bleeding all morning."
Oh. Alex barely stifled a sigh. "Yes, sir."
Danielle let her foot slide off the sostenuto pedal on the piano, resulting in a soft thunk as it ratcheted back up into place. The sustained chord still reverberated through the room while the sonata's final triad faded away. She abruptly stood and nudged the bench back under the keyboard with her leg before turning to pace around the room. An uneasy restlessness had pervaded her motions since last night and no matter how many times she walked around the house to reassure herself that everyone was inside and alive, she couldn't shake the dread that something else was going to happen. Perhaps she was becoming paranoid.
"You done?" Alex's voice was muffled by the sunroom door. He knocked once, softly, before the knob twisted.
"Yeah," Danielle replied, crossing her arms over her chest. "What's up?"
He stepped smoothly into the room and shut the door behind him. "I have a question for you."
"You have that look on your face. What are you going to ask me to do that you don't want to ask me to do?"
With a tight grin, he sat down in one of the plastic lounge chairs. "What on earth makes you think-"
"Alex."
"Okay." He sighed heavily. "Long, long story short. Do you want to go to Arlington tomorrow?"
The next morning dawned dreary and overcast as grey clouds covered the sky. A crisp, bitter chill hung in the air, and the Blakemore twins had been in the garage since the early hours of the morning waxing their sleds in hope of snow.
Sebastian had pulled up to the curb in a faded blue station wagon around seven in the morning. Alex let Danielle sit up next to him, where she turned the heat on full blast despite having borrowed a heavy coat from Catie.
Once they were safely on highway 66, Sebastian glanced over at Danielle.
"Danielle, talk to me. What are we doing today?"
"We're going to visit Jillian Baker and her family, because she's Troy's sister and might know where he can be found. What if Troy's there?"
"We've had someone on the house for about thirty-six hours," Sebastian replied. "No sign of him. Now, why are you coming?"
"Because given the number of emergency calls made, you'll look less intimidating if I'm there instead of Luke."
"Not exactly what I was thinking, but fair enough."
"Less intimidating until she starts talking," Alex muttered from the backseat.
Danielle glanced in the mirror on her visor, her eyes flashing at him. "I'm sorry, Alex, did you say something?"
"Absolutely not."
"Excellent."
The house was modest in size but not in mortgage, as Arlington was known as one of the more expensive cities to own property in close to D.C. It was filled with commuters and government workers who made their livings on the hill or in corporate but couldn't afford to live in the city itself. Such was the nature of government work.
Jillian Baker lived in a corner lot that had been remodeled and added onto enough times that the structure had the lumpy, misshapen appearance of an architectural project gone awry. Brown shingles covered the undulating roof while the exterior was comprised of white vinyl siding and peeling brick. The windows looked new, double-paned glass with sturdy shutters that actually locked. The door had two layers as well; there was a storm door, the bottom half metal with a panel of screen on the upper half, and a thick wooden door behind that. Each door had a separate locking system.
The front yard was almost nonexistent; between two large bushes on either side of the porch steps and the publicly owned sidewalk, there was a strip of dead grass about a meter in depth that was littered with toys. A faded yellow plastic duck, a wagon of some sort, a sparkly wand with bedraggled streamers lying on the ground. There was no sign of life or inhabitation. The house was designed to keep people out and to hide the people within. Alex couldn't tell if any lights were on inside.
"Kind of creepy," Danielle said quietly.
Alex felt her fingers curl around his wrist for a second and he squeezed her hand. "Maybe they're away for the holiday."
Sebastian shut the driver's door with an obtrusively loud bang that resonated in the silent street. He shoved his keys into his pocket, strode around the front of the car, and ascended the porch stairs. Alex ushered Danielle ahead after him, glancing once more over his shoulder to see if there was anyone watching.
The woman who opened the door looked nothing like the criminal who was her brother. She had light brown hair that fell over her shoulders in ringlets and warm blue eyes flecked with grey. She wore a tan sweater and jeans, and an adorable baby with a single wisp of dark hair and wide blue eyes was perched on her hip.
"Can I help you?" she offered kindly.
Alex didn't trust himself to say anything, taken aback. How could this woman be related to Troy?
"We've come about your brother, Ma'am," Sebastian said, already reaching into his jacket for his ID.
Instantly her face hardened. She moved back towards the door, ready to close it. "I haven't seen him in years, and I told you and all his other friends - I don't have his money."
"Unfortunately, we're not his friends." Sebastian showed her his ID, and some of the tension left her posture.
"Oh, thank God," she said, leaning against the door frame. Alex noticed the heavy circles under her eyes. "I'm Jillian. Please, come in."
The doorway led to an open floor, with a kitchen to the left painted in yellow and ivory and a living room to the right with hardwood floor, some kind of Oriental rug, and mismatched furniture. A fireplace was set into the living room wall with a gas fire blazing. Children's toys covered the living room floor and various crayon drawings held places of honor on the fridge.
"Let me get my husband," she murmured as she wrenched the double lock on the door to the side. "He can tell you more about Galen than I can."
Jillian quickly fetched her husband, a tall man of lean physique with black hair and a day's worth of stubble on his jaw who introduced himself as Augustus Baker, and disappeared into the kitchen to make coffee. Offering to help, Danielle hurried after her.
Alex and Sebastian sat on the couch as Augustus sat in an armchair across from them, staring pensively into the fire.
"She hates talking about Galen," Augustus said after she left. "And rightly so. He tormented her."
"So he has a history of violent or threatening behavior?" asked Sebastian.
Alex had been ready to voice the same question. The subtle changes in Jillian Baker at the very mention of her brother's name were sign enough that she disliked - or feared - him.
"He's . . . persistent. We've been married for five years - got married right after college - and he would harass her for money, even though she barely had any. When she was younger, he would push her around. She still has a scar on her arm from one incident." Augustus paused to take in a heavy breath and cup his face in his hands. "Jillian cut him off. Completely. We moved here from Maryland without telling anyone, but two weeks ago . . . she and the kids were out, thank God, but he came by. With a gun. And he wanted money."
His interest piqued, Alex leaned forward on the couch. "I'm assuming you gave it to him."
"Of course!" Augustus stared at him as if he were insane. "He knew where my daughter goes to preschool, the parks where the kids play. I don't know how far he's tracked Jillian, but for her sake. . ."
"Sounds like him."
"Have you met him?"
"Twice. One for lunch, the other time when he was trying to kill me."
Seemingly unsurprised, Augustus gave a single grave nod. His dark eyes suddenly locked onto Alex's face with a scrutinizing intensity that felt both inquisitive and suspicious. The suspicion was understandable; a teenager showing up out of the blue privy to a somewhat official investigation of the United States Government wasn't a typical occurrence in the suburbs.
After a few seconds that seemed to last an eternity, Augustus spoke. "You're the musician from the theater. The one that blew up."
Alex nodded with a grim smile.
"And your sister?"
"The same."
"That was Galen."
". . .Yes. He tried to shoot me in the aftermath." Alex forced the words out as smoothly as possible, as if thinking of the theater didn't instantly shove the smell of burning wood back into his memory or the screams of the injured, terrified, and dying. The newer wound in his stomach twinged with a phantom pain, one that the rest of his body remembered with acute precision. So many things had changed after that night. . . but now was not the time to think such thoughts, so Alex simply finished his sentence with a hard stare at the fraying rug beneath his feet.
"I'm sorry to hear," Augustus said quietly. "That's horrible."
"Well," Sebastian said in the tone of one attempting to pull a conversation back on topic. "Have you seen Galen since? He was dumped here by the authorities from England a few months ago and sent to prison, which he obviously escaped from. Do you know anything about that?"
"Jillian and I had no idea he was in jail until we saw he'd escaped."
"Funny," Sebastian muttered as he wrote a quick line on his notepad. "That's what everyone's been saying lately."
Danielle was more than happy to offer to help Jillian, originally because she didn't want to have to dredge up any memories of Troy - Troy in the theater, Troy in August's mansion, anything - and found it vaguely unsettling that Jillian's husband turned out to be named Augustus. His name was too close to August's; it was too close to home.
She held Kolbe, the Baker's youngest child and only son, on her hip while Jillian hurriedly prepared coffee, more for her own benefit than the guests, which Danielle understood. She'd spent countless hours in the kitchen or in the practice room to avoid having to face people who had been with her last spring, for the sickness, the pseudo kidnapping, and the fire. After trying her best to bury those memories to the depths of her subconscious, she still hadn't managed to keep her hands from shaking every time one of them fought its way to the surface. Because of that, she was evading being in Alex's presence for any such discussions. He would just worry unnecessarily, because she was fine. Struggling, but fine. She had to be fine.
"I hope they'll forgive me for hiding in here," Jillian said softly, her voice gentle. "I hate Galen. I know it sounds awful, but part of me was almost beginning to hope he was dead."
Danielle nodded, reaching up to rescue a lock of her hair from Kolbe's chubby fists. He gurgled in response with a wide, toothless smile, and she couldn't stop herself from smiling back at him. "No, I understand. It's hard. Just when you think someone's gone and you start feeling happy again, they reappear and try to drag you back under."
"Exactly."
The kettle boiled, prompting Jillian to pour the hot water over coffee grounds in a large French press. After she finished, she leaned against the counter and pulled her hair over her shoulder as if subconsciously shielding herself. "Did you know him?"
"Your brother?"
A nod.
"No. But he knew someone who knew me. A drug dealer - I didn't do drugs," Danielle hurriedly added, realizing how that sounded. "My - my mother does. I ran away eventually, but he followed me. Because of her." That's the sketchiest thing you've said while you've been in this country. "I'm sorry about your brother. That must be so hard."
"It was, at the time, but. . . I don't like talking about Galen, and you know how much I dislike him." Pausing, Jillian pushed her hair behind her ears. "All the same, I've moved on. Mostly."
"How?" Danielle blurted and immediately wished she could take the question back. Her face burned with embarrassment.
"I'll take him," Jillian reached out to gently lift Kolbe into her arms. He smiled happily and reached out to play with the oval medal on her necklace. "Honestly? It's an ongoing process. Part of it is . . . you just have to realize that you can live your own life. I got married, had two kids - and everything changes then. It was - and still is - the best thing ever." She grinned as she disentangled her necklace from Kolbe's fingers with the aim of getting him to stop teething on the medal, then smoothed his wispy hair down.
Struck with a sudden surge of envy, Danielle bit her lip and looked away. Would she ever have a life like that? For the first time since she met Alex, she was starting to realize that she . . . didn't know what she wanted. Now that her life wasn't a matter of surviving day to day, perhaps she could afford to want other things besides music.
But I love music.
"Hey," Jillian said, drawing Danielle's attention back to where she was. "Everything gets better, it just takes time. Now, why don't you tell me what Galen has done? Besides escaping from jail."
Danielle blinked hard, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. "Okay. Well, he did the bombing at the theater in London. To get Alex. A few years ago, his wife died in an accident, and Tr - Galen - blames Alex for that."
"I didn't realize he was married."
"Were you ever aware that he worked for the government?"
Jillian thought for a few moments, her face pensive. She set her son down on the floor where he started crawling speedily for the living room. "No. But I can believe it. That would explain where he acquired some of his more expensive habits."
"Like what?"
"Drugs - cocaine, I think, from the amount of money he wanted - and gambling. Sometimes he'd come around and it was obvious someone had beat him up."
"Right." Danielle considered that piece of information for a few seconds, frowning, before filing it away for future discussion. "So he owed money?"
"Big time. And he wasn't afraid to try and get it from me - he knew I wouldn't make him pay me back," said Jillian.
"I see."
"How old are you?" Jillian seemed amused. "Aren't you a little young to work for the intelligence services?"
Grinning, Danielle quickly shook her head. "I'm not - I mean, I'm not working with them. I'm eighteen. Alex does. He's helped them before - back home - and he was here to testify against your brother in court, but when he escaped. . ."
"Ah, yes."
Just then, a knock on the door frame startled both women out of their conversation. Danielle glanced over her shoulder at Alex, who stood there with a blandly polite smile. "Thank you for your time, Mrs. Baker. May I check with you what your husband has told us to see if there's anything you can add?"
"Of course," Jillian Baker wiped her hands on her jeans and leaned against the counter.
Danielle slipped by Alex back into the living room, pulling the cuffs of her t-shirt down over her hands so that the black striping stretched around her rounded fist. She'd foolishly left her jacket in the car. Sebastian was still talking to Mr. Baker so she decided to wait by the door, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the wall. Her eyes were drawn to the hardwood floor under her feet. She had a hard time believing it was solid because right now it felt like the entire world was shifting under her feet, threatening to fling her off balance. Talking to Jillian had planted several thoughts in her mind that were best saved for thinking about when she was alone or late at night so Danielle tried to push them away without much success.
Within a few minutes, Alex left the kitchen. Upon seeing Alex finish up the last of the investigation-related questioning, Sebastian ended his conversation with Mr. Baker and, after promising to let them both know if anything happened relating to Troy, they left.
"Did you give them your card?" Alex asked as he wrenched open the passenger door of the car, which was sticking from the persistent cold weather.
"Yes," Sebastian replied. He sat down, adjusted his glasses, and turned the car on. "Told them to call if they hear anything from Troy."
"I never would've guessed he had a sister."
"Well, she's nothing like him."
Danielle huddled in the backseat and waited for the heat to reach her. The car was old, and lacked the efficient heating systems of more modern vehicles. Consequently, her fingers were stiff with the chill. She stared out the window as the suburbs slowly turned into browned, empty patches of grass, then highway.
The morning's endeavour had been fairly disappointing until Alex realized their car was being followed. Sure, it was nice to know more about Troy's habits, but Augustus Baker hadn't known of anything Troy had done aside from being in the CIA, a fact that Mrs. Baker had either not known, ignored, or made herself forget. However, the sudden influx of information did not yield anything substantial, anything that could be seized and acted upon.
"We're being followed," Alex said to Sebastian.
Sebastian stared in the rearview mirror of the car. "Is it the black Prius?"
"Yeah. It pulled onto Jillian's street as we were driving away. What are the chances it was just another neighbor who needed the interstate?"
"Let's see." Sebastian suddenly braked and switched lanes to take an earlier exit that lead south towards, according to the signage, Winchester. The car had barely stopped at the bottom of the ramp when the Prius appeared again, about two hundred feet behind them, also exiting.
Sebastian raised his eyebrows. "Okay, so the just-another-neighbor chances are approximately zero."
"Great. Here, get in this lane," Alex said, gesturing to a lane that led to an Exxon. "You get petrol-"
"Gasoline."
" -no - and Dani and I'll go inside for coffee or something."
Once the car was safely pulled up alongside one of the pumps, Alex twisted around in his seat to see Danielle's face. "Dani. Can I have your phone? Pull up your hair, or something."
She silently pulled it out of her pocket and handed it over. Alex popped off the back panel and removed the SIM card to hand to Sebastian. By the time he handed the rest of the phone back to her, she'd pulled her hair up into a bun. He blinked. She did look different.
Glancing in the mirror on his visor, he hurriedly tried to part his hair on the opposite side, which resulted in a mess, then opened the door. Danielle was right behind him, glancing at something on her phone.
"Who's in the Prius?" she whispered as Alex held the door to the small store for her.
"I don't know," he replied in a single breath. "I'm hoping to find out. Go get coffee. If anyone else comes in, ignore them."
Danielle nodded and wandered in the general direction of the coffee kiosk, pausing along the way to pull a jacket with the American seal embroidered on it off a rack of clothing and slip it on. It was too big for her but with her hair up and the front unzipped, could pass for a traveller's attire.
Once he was sure she was safe, Alex ducked behind a rack of protein bars so he could see the doors and keep an eye on her.
Within seconds the Prius also pulled over into a parking space instead of at a fuel pump. Alex could see Sebastian doing an excellent job of attempting to shove wrinkled bills into the slot for payment at his station, which was stalling for time.
The driver of the Prius stepped out and took a casual pace, strolling over to the store. His face was partially obscured by the hood of his jacket, but Alex didn't recognize him. Probably one of Troy's hired men. The driver seemed to have an athletic build, broad shoulders, on the taller side of average height. Tanned skin on his face, as if he'd spent a lot of time in the sun. Though his jacket was loose, the fabric on the back panel wrinkled around a spot at the base of his spine, and Alex surmised that he was carrying a gun.
After taking a long look around the space, the driver headed over to get coffee. Danielle was searching for the right sized lid for her cup. Alex heard a low murmur but couldn't distinguish individual words as the man said something to her, but Danielle shrugged in response and pointed at one of the specials listed on the pricing sign. She picked up her two coffees and started towards the cash register, where Alex met her and selected a large bag of some kind of snack food from the shelf.
The cashier was a tired-looking man of about sixty who rang up their purchases with an archaic machine that took an agonizing amount of time to process the data. Alex started to get nervous as each second ticked by. The longer they spent in the station, the higher the risk of them being noticed.
Danielle's seemed impassive belied only by her fingers, which drummed a relentless rhythm against her leg.
Then, abruptly, the Prius driver left his coffee on the counter and went to the restroom. After hearing the door swing shut Alex went back after him and saw a handle on the outside of the door even though the hinges indicated that it opened by pushing. It was an old door, perhaps that accounted for the inconsistency, but no matter. That was exactly the opportunity Alex needed. He pivoted on his heel and scanned the inventory for a suitable item and saw a display of brushes and plastic blades to scrape ice and snow from car windshields. Running over and grabbing one, he shoved it horizontally through the handle so that when the driver pulled to open the door, it would hold fast, blocked by the brush.
By the time he hurried back to the register, his hair flopped over his eyes and Danielle was hovering near the door with a plastic bag and two coffees.
"Is he-"
"Go to the car!" Alex shoved his shoulder against the door to open it. "Hurry!"
Danielle ran across the parking lot and dove into the backseat of Sebastian's car, where Sebastian was calmly waiting as if they had all the time in the world. Once Alex fell into the passenger seat and yanked the door shut, Sebastian maneuvered the car out of the lot fast enough that the tires screeched against the road.
Once they were back on the highway, he looked over at Alex. "What happened?"
"Did you get the card-"
"Yup. We'll pull up the satellite on my laptop. It's encrypted."
"Do that back at the Blakemore's house," Alex said, falling back against the seat with a heavy sigh. He heard rustling as Danielle opened the bag of food he'd bought.
"What'd you get?" Sebastian asked with vested interest.
"Alex got Cheetos. They're pretty good."
"Eh. Incredibly fattening."
"Well," Danielle said through a mouthful of crunching. "My doctor said I needed to gain weight. Also, what did you do to my phone, Alex? And who was that guy? I think I just shoplifted the jacket, by the way." She pulled her hair out of its bun, shaking her head to make it fall over her shoulders.
"Ben put a tracking chip on our SIM cards," Alex said in response to her first question and he grinned at the astonished and insulted look she gave him. "And we have no idea who the guy was, but he was definitely tailing us. I wanted to look just different enough that he couldn't be sure who we were. Did you recognize him? What did he say to you?"
"I don't know. He asked which coffee was best."
"Nice job on the quick change," Sebastian said to Danielle. "With the hair and jacket. You know, you wouldn't be half bad in the Agency."
"Funny, Sebastian, but absolutely not," replied Alex before Danielle could say anything. There was no way in all of the earth that he would ever let Danielle be dragged into anything of the sort, like he was. This was a special circumstance.
Danielle kicked the back of his seat. "Thanks, Sebastian, but I'll pass."
"Shame to waste such talent," he said, but grinned so Danielle knew he was kidding. "So, what did you find out from Jillian Baker?"
"Let's hold off on that, actually," Alex cut in. "Once we're back at the house we can talk to Wolf and Ben, that way we only have to go through it once." He didn't miss the grateful glance that Danielle gave him. He'd noticed something was off with her after they left, and it concerned him. The last thing he wanted was for her to drag up old memories again. From what Augustus Baker had said, there was a good chance that Jillian Baker had a childhood similar to Danielle's, which Alex hadn't known. If he'd been aware, he wouldn't have asked Danielle to go.
As soon as they arrived back at the Blakemore's house, Alex, Danielle, and Sebastian convened with Wolf, Ben, and Mr. Blakemore up in Alex's room. The consensus was that there was no new information, although the trip out had been useful in proving that Troy had been able to procure some kind of transportation to move around northern Virginia and D.C.
"Any luck on the affidavit?" Mr. Blakemore asked.
Sebastian and Alex shared a glance, but Danielle spoke up before either one of them could admit that they hadn't asked.
"Not this time," she said quietly. "I don't think Mrs. Baker would have. She and Troy - she doesn't like him, at all, but she's distanced herself from him."
"Did she anything else?"
"Yeah. While he was in the CIA, he got into expensive - she called them expensive habits." Danielle twisted a piece of her hair around her finger and kept her eyes downcast. "Drugs. And gambling."
"Gambling?" Ben pushed himself away from the wall that he was leaning against to favor his recently injured leg. "Did he owe money?"
"A lot, I think."
"Interesting. Did her husband mention this?" asked Wolf.
"No," Alex said. "I don't think he knew."
"I'll check agency files," Sebastian said. "I can go into the office now. See if there are any records - reports, disciplinary action, the stuff."
"Did you know any of this?" Ben asked Mr. Blakemore.
A deep shadow crossed Agent Blakemore's face as he absentmindedly rubbed the back of his neck. "I had my suspicions, once or twice. . . but I never witnessed any gambling or drugs, nothing conclusive. There were rumors, of course, but you know how those are."
Ben smoothed out the wrinkles in his Oxford shirt and adjusted the collar. "I have to head out. Update me."
"Where are you going?" Danielle looked up at him as he stepped over her outstretched legs. "To meet with another agent a representative from the hospital," he replied. "To discuss what happened with Catie."
She grimaced. "Good luck."
"Thanks. We need it."
Sebastian also stood and gathered up his phone and laptop. "I'll check the satellite from the office in case anyone decides to do a reverse tracking. That way the location will come up from Washington instead of your house."
"that's the last thing we need,"muttered Mr. Blakemore.
Alex wholeheartedly agreed. He refused to wait until disaster came to him again.
Four hours later, the verdict was in: Galen Troy had been suspected of gambling by his colleagues but there was never sufficient evidence to file a claim or an indictment against him. The first of the suspicions involved an assignment at an exclusive night club owned by a Saudi prince. The establishment itself was perfectly legal, but there were whispers about a kingpin in the metropolitan drug scene doing business there so the FBI investigated. It was there the rumors started, of money spent that was never recovered and debts too large for a government worker to play. According to the tracking chip and the satellite, the mystery Prius was parked in a garage near the Mayflower hotel. The hotel was more of a venue, and it was an expensive one.
"Wow," Danielle muttered from where she leaned over Alex's shoulder as they scrolled through pictures of the Mayflower online. "A ball there costs more than my human life."
"Where?" Catie perked up and got up from the couch. "Ooh, the Mayflower hotel. It's gorgeous, isn't it? Especially when they decorate it. Some famous violinist performed there once -Isaac something."
"Itzhak Perlman," Danielle and Alex responded in unison.
Sebastian had returned from the office and was waiting for clearance from the NSA to view satellite images of the Prius' location. He was enjoying a cup of Catie's closely-guarded pressed coffee by the door to the kitchen, and he raised his eyebrows, making them dangerously close to disappearing beneath his bushy hair. "That was creepy. You two are like drones."
Catie laughed and ran her fingers through her hair to push it back from her forehead, but the same section fell back over her eyes. Her resulting exasperated huff made Alex grin, which prompted her to whack him on the shoulder.
"Hey!" he protested. "It's not my fault you-"
"So, Danielle," Catie said loudly before he could finish. "You know how we were googling Alex the other day?"
"You were what?"
"Yeah," Danielle replied, her face lighting up. "We found that picture - excellent leverage-"
Alex knew exactly what picture they were talking about. It definitely didn't showcase one of the better moments of his musical career. Spurred by the memory of it, he elbowed Danielle aside and snatched his laptop off the coffee table before either of the girls could get to it.
"Hey!" Danielle called as he retreated to the kitchen.
Sebastian had followed him in search of the sink to dispose of his now-empty mug. "Am I imagining it, or is there something between you and-"
"You're imagining."
"Right." Just as he was about to continue, his phone rang. He answered it and listened to the voice on the other end for a total of six seconds. When he hung up, he swore bitterly.
"What's wrong?" Alex asked sharply.
Instead of answering, Sebastian pulled his laptop from his messenger bag and used it to connect to the state-sanctioned encrypted email server his team used. He opened a single message and turned the device towards Alex.
Alex's heart sank as he read the contents and by the time he finished he felt the first grip of ice-cold fear wrap around his insides.
"Cesium Chloride."
"It's a dirty bomb, Alex." Sebastian said with a haunted look on his face. "A shipment was intercepted but there may be more. It could render the city uninhabitable for months, even years, to say nothing of the radiation poisoning..."
"Where was it going to?" Alex asked slowly, feeling as if he were living a nightmare.
"Washington. The Mayflower hotel."
Alex's mouth went dry. "Where Troy is."
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Ava Simbelmyne - thanks so much! I'm glad you like it :)
note: I will now only be replying to guest reviews in the uploads. I'll reply to all logged in users in normal PM :) all reviews are welcomed and appreciated!