Don't ask me how much reading I did in the last few weeks. The answer is too depressing. I think I'm further behind than ever. Oh well. One day I'll have time for everything. Bwahahahahaha. Not.
They were on their third tank of gas when they finally cruised into the sprawling Chicago metropolis. Bella looked out of her window and saw two airliners on parallel final approaches sinking toward the skyline, their windshields reflecting the orange glow of the evening sun.
"Flying would have been so much faster," she grumbled.
"I know. The people on that plane could very well have left Seattle after lunch time today," Agent Masen added helpfully.
She gave him a black look and rolled her shoulders to work the kinks out of her neck. "Is there anything I should be doing while you're out on your errand tonight?"
"Sleep. Watch Jeopardy. Whatever you want, really."
"Now I wish I had brought a book. I feel like reading."
"I don't have any books, but you can borrow my computer. I'm sure you can find something interesting to read."
"Seriously? You'd let me use your laptop? Aren't you afraid I'll read something I'm not supposed to see?"
"If you can find and open the file, you can read it."
"That sounds a little bit like a challenge," Bella teased.
Masen shrugged. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.
They crept down a freeway off ramp and into the city, their tiny black car completely dwarfed by the towering buildings. Bella could feel the tension rolling off her partner. She couldn't tell if he was preoccupied with thoughts about his appointment, or if there was something about being in the city that was bothering him. She felt the stifling, suffocating weight of claustrophobia sinking into her chest.
They were counting down the minutes to their next performance. Bella checked the mirror. Her eye makeup was a bit smudged, giving her a slightly tragic look. She reapplied her lipstick and mussed her hair. With her heavy eyeliner, pale skin and the dark circles under her eyes, she looked a bit wild. She slipped her feet back into her shoes and closed her eyes as they pulled up to the hotel. Masen's darkening mood had already set the tone, so finding Marie only took her a moment. When she opened her eyes a few heartbeats later, the transformation was complete.
Just like their arrival in Sheridan the night before, Mr. Cullen owned the space from the moment he crossed the threshold, demanding immediate service with a single look. The hotel was a true five-star establishment. Compared to their last stop, the clientele was better dressed, the employees were more deferential, even the air smelled more expensive. But the looks people cast their way were more guarded.
After he checked them in, Edward Cullen tucked Marie's hand into the crook of his elbow and they passed through the lobby like any other couple. Well. . . almost. His pace was a bit too fast for her shorter stride, and an observant bystander would notice that she wasn't leaning into him for closeness or support; her head and shoulders were angled away.
When the hotel room door closed behind them several minutes later, Bella allowed her cover to melt away. She grinned up at her partner. Her smile didn't stick. She could see he was still in character.
Bella took a couple of steps back and watched as he rifled through his luggage. It only took him a few minutes to shave, change his clothes and fix his hair. She watched him strap a piece to his left ankle and tuck a folding blade into his right pocket. They hadn't been on the list Mahardy approved, so she assumed they were personal items. Edward Cullen took his laptop out of its case, set it up on the desk and turned to go. He barely spared her a glance as he left the room dressed in beige slacks and a black button-down shirt with the collar casually open and sleeves rolled up to expose his designer watch and powerful forearms.
At first, she was at a loss for what do. She decided to take advantage of the rare moment of privacy to have a long bath. She had hoped that it would help her relax, but her brain wouldn't stop whirring. Masen had given her free license to use his laptop, and now her curiosity was burning to explore it. Bella drained the tub while the water was still hot, wrapped herself in an ultra-plush bathrobe and sat down at the executive-style desk before Masen's computer. She opened it and waited for it to power up. A minute later, a password screen appeared.
"You have got to be kidding me," she muttered, feeling cheated. She couldn't begin to fathom what her secretive partner could have used as a password.
Bella drummed her fingertips on the desk as she thought. What kind of password would Agent Masen choose? Would he choose a random assortment of keys or an everyday word? Would it be something connected to work or completely atypical? She started typing a couple of times but quickly deleted the letters.
Moments before she gave it up as a bad job, she noticed a note scribbled on the hotel stationery in the corner of the desk. The writing was angular but uniform. Disciplined. Just like everything else about him.
"Stumped? What's your favorite phrase?"
Did he mean a quote? A catch phrase that she used in his presence? Or was he referring to some long ago trivia he had read in her file? No. It had to be something from their short time together. She didn't have a long list of 'favorites' from the past week. More annoyances than anything else.
The answer hit her with a jolt. Sarcasm. Of course. It was the only consistent trait her partner possessed.
Bella carefully typed in "Don't Worry," then clicked Enter. Bingo.
She recognized the desktop layout from working alongside Masen. She clicked on the Recycle Bin. It was empty. The internet browser history was wiped clean. She opened several applications but there were no recent files. The Documents and Photo folders were populated by files of gibberish. Bella leaned back in the chair and folded her arms across her chest. Was there a secondary password? Was everything encrypted and for his eyes only? If that were the case, surely he wouldn't have offered to let her mess around on his computer only to be frustrated and annoyed.
Bella continued digging for the key. She opened the Start Menu to see what programs were actively running. Using the web browser, she was able to identify the purpose behind all of the programs except one. She hesitated before disabling the operation. Even if she broke something, she was sure he could fix it. She ended the program and closed the window. The screen blinked three times and returned to normal. However, when she opened the Documents folder, the files had been renamed. Now they made sense.
She opened file after file, looking first out of curiosity, then to learn. Masen had taken Tanya's research one step further. His analysis of each player's history, relationships and motivation added depth to the Volturi criminal network. In her mind, she was no longer picturing a two-dimensional orb weaver's web. That was far too simple. The reason they had been unable to identify the spider in the center of the web was because there was no center. Only a gaping hole with strings of outrages and inhuman crimes swirling like a vortex around it.
Bella thought about the spiders that lived around her house growing up. The hobo spider was reclusive, lurking in the damp and the dark. If it ventured inside, it scurried beneath furniture or along the baseboards as soon as a person entered the room. It built its funnel-shaped webs between rocks and cracks or under the wood pile. Hidden away from sight, it lurked, waiting for its prey to trip into the funnel-web. . . then it would dart out to attack its victim, drag it back into the hole and devour it.
These people were everywhere, wandering around in plain sight. Happy, healthy, wealthy figures of American prosperity. It was an effective camouflage. Their evil side hid in darkness and only showed itself to their victims. If only a can of Raid was as lethal to them as their eight-legged counterparts!
As the hours ticked by, Bella lost interest in reading about their targets. It was all important and useful information, but her brain couldn't process any more. She wondered what else Masen could have tucked away in his computer. When she finished clicking in and out of the files in the Documents folder, she started exploring the program files. She had never been better than adequate in her coding classes. Information technology was as hard to grasp as quantum physics. At first it was interesting to see how complex the computer's backstage functions were. The sheer quantity of instructions that kept the computer programs functioning was staggering. Unfortunately, the amazement didn't last long. Click. . . click. . . click. She was getting bored. Killing time. Waiting for Masen to return.
At the back of her mind she wondered what other layers of security Masen had installed. Surely his computer wasn't this easy to hack. Everything she had read so far was mission-related. Meant for her eyes as much as his. Connected to the password she entered, perhaps. What else was hiding in the labyrinthine circuitry?
Somewhere in the maze of the Microsoft Office files she came across the fonts folder. Near the top of the list, her named jumped out at her. What did a 'Bella' font look like anyway? She opened the file and gasped. Tucked away where nobody else would think to look was her entire life story.
It was not light reading. The FBI had dug into more than her life and history. They had profiled her parents, her previous boyfriends, her neighbors and her closest friends. Everyone and everything that had played a significant role in her upbringing was spread out before her. It was invasive, true, but it was also eye-opening, just as she had predicted. She barely remembered the on-campus Greenpeace rally she had attended with a friend during freshman year of college, but there were photos of her there. She didn't know that her third boyfriend had dealt pot and ecstasy while they were dating. That shocked her. How had she not known? She was certain he hadn't used them himself. At least not in her presence.
The more recent information included performance reports and instructor notes from her time in training. Those made her proud. She had worked her hardest and it had paid off. People who mattered had taken note. Then she reached more privileged information. Her lie detector transcripts and analysis. Her aptitude tests and corresponding placement recommendations. Her psych eval. . .
Her psychological profile was troubling. The shrinks didn't conclude that there was anything wrong with her, but seeing her mind and motivations methodically picked apart and categorized made her squeamish. INFJ. Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging.
Apparently that was a rare combination. She was mildly defensive about being categorized as an intuitive feeler. She was in law enforcement and those words, especially in combination with one another, sounded weak. However, she couldn't disagree with their assessment of her strengths and weaknesses. She was most comfortable with her parents or being left alone. She had never wanted or needed anyone else to be that close to her. She listened first and foremost to the voice inside her head that told her the answers before she even thought to ask the question. She followed her heart. But she had strong, almost immovable convictions about right and wrong and justice for the victims of abuse. If God had decided to custom-build a human being for their current mission, he would have built one just like her.
Was this the source of Masen's confidence and support? If so, why had he flippantly referred to her as Mahardy's last choice?
Bella stood up from the desk and stared off into space. Masen had wanted her to read this. She was almost certain of that. So why set her up on this wild goose chase? Couldn't he have just sat her down, opened the file and said, "Here. You should read this." Did she have to work for everything he gave her?
The door burst open without warning, cutting off all further speculation. Masen strode into the room. His face was rigid and his eyes flashed through the room, taking everything in with a glance. The mess he had left behind, the open computer, her standing awake, but not yet dressed.
"We need to move. Now." His heel struck the floor sharply twice, then he went to work, throwing items back into his bags.
Bella's body unfroze and she scrambled to get dressed. Two stomps. Not three. They were switching rooms, but the other team wasn't coming in with guns drawn. They had time. Maybe only minutes, but they could do it.
Bella swept the area with her eyes. Masen had already packed away his computer and was stacking their luggage by the door. There were two sharp knocks at the door. He waited. Two more knocks followed within five seconds, and he let them in. The couple was middle aged and dressed well, but comfortably. An upper-middle class couple taking a luxury weekend away.
The man's hair was cut in a military fashion, and he was tanned and muscular. A man of action. His 'wife' was completely nondescript. Bella saw women like her everywhere. In salons, at the grocery store, driving SUV's with teenagers in the back. However, the pair moved like trained operatives. Not an ounce of energy was wasted.
They dumped their own matched luggage in the living room, and the female partner went to work making the space look lived in with clothes hung in the closet, the contents of the mini-bar half-consumed in the living room, the bed clothes rumpled then remade haphazardly and toiletries scattered about the bathroom.
The 'husband' helped them carry their own luggage down one flight of stairs. Masen and the other man traded key cards and the switch was done. Bella expected them to leave immediately. Instead, Masen directed her to sit quietly while he unloaded his laptop. Working swiftly with his jaw clenched in concentration, he disassembled the computer, removed the hard drive and replaced it with a secondary piece of hardware from his luggage. He took the original hard drive to the bathroom. Through the open door, Bella watched him slip on rubber gloves before submerging the drive in a glass container filled with a viscous fluid. He covered it, placed it under the sink, then concealed it with the extra linens.
They waited. Bella listened for sounds from the floor above. The rooms were so well insulated that she could barely discern any sounds beyond the hum of the HVAC and the distant rush of water through pipes. When Masen's phone rang she startled.
"You were right. . . Yes. . . Okay. . . I'll call when we're clear. Got it. Thanks." He kept the phone to his ear, motioned her to the door with a tilt of his head, and they gathered their baggage.
For the next several minutes, she hustled as quietly as she could through the sleeping hotel, tottering on heels and loaded down with her bags. Masen used hand signals to tell her when to stop or go, taking his instructions from the person on the other line. Somebody was watching over them through the hotel's video surveillance system.
They took the elevator down to the second floor, then took the stairs to the parking garage, avoiding the lobby altogether. She didn't breathe easily again until they were back in the car, fleeing the city in total darkness. It was almost 3 AM. She knew the adrenaline would only carry them so far. At some point they would need sleep. For now, they were running. He didn't tell her what they were running from.