Treasure in a Box
"Hello Agent Go." Ann Possible said, "I made some more lemon squares." Sheila smiled at that. Nothing could make her look flustered, Sheila bet. At least it wasn't snowing anymore—granted snow in September had been pretty unusual, but still… there were people in bikinis on Santa Monica beach right now.
Not here, unless you wanted to get a dandy case of hypothermia. When this case was over, Sheila was returning to California, taking some vacation days and going to toast in the nice, warm, sun.
"No thank you," Sheila said. "You mentioned that you had some extra information?" She paused, and let a little steel enter her voice. "Some information that you didn't feel needed to be shared with me immediately?"
"We've been in a case of rather… severe shock, dear." Ann said, not sounding shocked at all. They entered the living room where Doctor Possible, Doctor Renton and four other people were. Two younger boys (the twins, Sheila thought), Felix and a blonde haired teen of about Felix's age.
"And these are?" Tom asked.
"Leaving." Dr. Possible said, "But since they're going to be out for a long time, I thought that the twins might need some supervision…"
"Dad!" Both twins said.
"Told you, you shouldn't have sent the Quickie Mart into orbit." The blonde said. Then he looked at Sheila. His eyes widened in a combination of surprise, interest and teenage lust.
"Ron Stoppable at your service!" Sheila groaned. Being pretty (And she was, her modesty came in not saying the truth: drop dead gorgeous), she had people trying to pick her up all the time.
But teenagers? Gah.
"Agent Go of the FBI, at yours. Anything you want to confess?"
"Um…." He looked at something in his pocket…a talking naked pink thing? Focus on the mission, Sheila.
"We'll be back tonight!" Felix said, extending a pair of manipulators from his wheelchair and pushing Ron out. "C'mon Cassanova…"
"Hey, I was making a connection!" Ron said.
"Right into jail, you were…" Came the fading voice of one of the twins.
"Sorry about that." Dr. Renton said. ":But well, sometimes the twins need someone to, err… moderate their desires."
"And your son and his friend will do that?" Tom raised his eyebrows. "Good kids."
"Yes, they are, very good. Ronald was Kim's closest friend…while she was here." James said, keeping any emotion out of his voice, but not his eyes.
"Yes, but what's the new information?" Sheila asked. James handed her a small box. A laptop, Sheila suddenly realized, looking a bit old fashioned.
"I made this for my wife." He said quietly. "I had honestly forgotten about it, because, well, she wasn't here, and in any case, I had designed it to give her complete privacy—without the passwords, I couldn't begin to decrypt the information." He shrugged, "But maybe…"
"Right. Captain Computation, front and center." Sheila said. Wade was there, looking at it interestedly.
"Wow, this is advanced—for the time, I mean."
"I built it for our fourth anniversary." James said, "Using some of the space center technology."
"How's the encryption?" James and Wade started talking in Greek. Or maybe Aramaic. Oh wait. She'd heard that language before: Geek.
"And they'll keep doing this?" Sheila asked Ann, noting that Dr. Renton was evidently following the conversation with ease.
"If the discussion's between James and Sarah, or James and the twins are any indication… they could be doing this for hours."
"And he only remembered it now?"
"He only allowed himself to remember it now." Ann looked at Sheila, and spoke in a lower voice. "Agent Go, I wasn't kidding you when I said that he very nearly didn't survive."
"I understand." Sheila said, "But is there anything else that has been forgotten?"
"No. I spent the last several hours going over everything that happened—and if there is anything left of help, it is in that machine."
"OK."
"Got it!" Wade said.
"You have to be kidding!" James Possible said.
"No, it was pretty easy—see, my laptop works on fifth level quantum processor algorithms, using a Geible Matrix program system, and your security, I mean it was really good, for the time, but.." And with that, Wade entered Geekese, which Dr.s Possible and Renton understood.
Sheila, Tom and Ann, not being bilingual in Geek looked blank, until Sheila put her finger to her mouth and whistled.
"We can read it?"
"Yeah." Wade said, looking annoyed.
"Than dump a copy to your computer, and bring the original over here." She paused, "I'm sorry." Sheila said to James. "There may be pretty personal stuff in here—but I have to see it."
"I understand." James said.
"OK…" Sheila looked at the screen. Evidently James Possible had understood that his wife might be among the geek-tech challenged in the world, and the screen was pretty much standard windows… at least like it was back then.
"Ok… well, here's a diary." Sheila said, "And a medical journal." She paused, looking at the family. Best to get the hardest out of the way first. "We'll start with the personal diary… three weeks before the…faked death."
Sheila flipped through page after page, skimming them. Comments about how James is helping with the twins, how the twins won't sleep, how Kimmie's trying to help, even if sometimes it makes more work… she quickly went through those, so that James wouldn't get a chance to read them.
Because I don't think we need to have him replaying might have beens over again.
Then she got to a section… Sheila stopped, looked and looked again.
"Son of a bitch…" She whispered. "Son of a Bitch!" She paused, and went to the medical journal, going for the same days, and sat back. The others were looking at Sheila, wondering why she suddenly looked…
Old. Ann Possible fit in looking at the agent.
For this. Sheila's brain gibbered. Here it is—not why they've ended up where they have, or why Kim is what she is…but what started it. Such a small, disgusting thing…
"Agent Go?" Dr. Possible asked.
"Your wife treated an…injury." She said, quietly, "On the than DA of Middleton."
"I remember that…" Ann said. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"It was a…bite. A small bite on the inner thigh. The kind a child would make." Sheila paused, "Cindy put it here—the last entry…that she was thinking of going to someone else… about where our good DA got the bite from."
"Where?"
"Asia. Bangkok area." Sheila said, still reading. "I really wish she had come to one of us that very second, but…hell. New mother, good mother, she probably didn't understand."
"Understand what?" James said.
"Sex tourism?" Tom said.
"I bet." Sheila said. Then, to James and Sarah (Ann seemed to be quite aware of what she was talking about.). "It's a…tourist trade. Go to place where the parents are poor, the authorities are easy to bribe and…people back home… don't need to find out about your appetites."
"What sor-" Sarah asked. Sheila cut her off.
"The pedophiliac sort of appetites. The sexual appetites that require victims rather than partners." She felt sick now. "The sort of appetites that even the hint of in the public could utterly destroy you. Very bad for some ambitious upcoming DA… very, very bad…"
"Jesus. He's the odds on favorite for the AG…" Tom said. "Sheila, he'll have all the security clearances for every investigation, every operation…if he's dirty…" Tom sat back. "Hell, he's already been in a position to screw us over…" The full dimensions of the disaster slowly became apparent on the Agent's face.
"But…but why not just kill them?" Ann said, ignoring the intake of breath from her son and his companion.
"I think he expected that they would be dead—it would be the smart thing from his point of view…" Sheila said, and paused, "But think—he's not been caught except by chance. That means he doesn't throw his weight around, overtly, yet he couldn't let Cindy's case come up in front of a court. No, not with the possibility of some bulldog of a defense attorney."
"So he got help." Sheila nodded at Tom's point.
"Yeah, Help." A sharks smile, "Help that kept at least one of them alive, and now we know why. A hold on even a normal DA is pretty good, if you're smart, but an up and comer like Derek Carstairs?" She whistled, "Pure, 24 caret gold."
"And the assassin bit?"
"Good luck for someone—Kimmie had a talent." She didn't notice James' wince at her appropriation of Kim's name. "Good luck for us—the one loose thread that led to all of this."
"But who is it?" James asked. Sheila sighed.
"That's… not clear yet." Then a sharklike smile, "So we have to start pulling on the end of the case we do have."
TBC.