I always hated jigsaw puzzles. Probably stems from when I was younger and my older brother would swap out half of the pieces with a different puzzle, leaving me completely frustrated.
I approached the lockers, telling myself I would dig up Robin and kill her again if this wasn’t the end of this wild goose chase. She’d led me through enough to reasonably distance herself from the evidence. I stuck the key in the locker and opened the door, braced for anything from an explosion to an empty locker. I didn’t realize I had closed my eyes and braced myself for a blast until a moment later, when nothing happened and everything was black. I cracked an eye open, steeling myself for disappointment. But I was rewarded by the sight of a large metal box. It was unlocked, and when I flipped it open I saw that it contained a mixture of jump drives, pictures, and paper documents. I sighed in relief, closed the box, and high-tailed it out of the airport. Getting the car started was easier a second time, but I was tired and nervous and my hands were fumbling. People who saw me walking up to an expensive Mercedes, covered in dirt and carrying a suspicious looking box, gave me curious looks. But in today’s society, everyone minds their own business, and these people were in too much of a hurry to bother with me so long as I didn’t seem an immediate threat to them. For once I was happy for the apathy and anonymity of a big city, and as the car roared to life and I left the parking lot, I wondered if I would be happy in a small town.
I put thoughts of the future out of my head and tried to concentrate on the case. Now that I had all the pieces, all that remained was assembling them into a semblance of a case against Nate. As long as I took him down, everything else would work itself out. I could retire, and others could take over the internal investigations. My mind wandered back to thinking about my future. I was bone-weary of this job and ready to hang it up. I was sure they’d offer me a nice cushy office job somewhere up the chain, or maybe a teaching position, but I wanted out. Even if Sandra wouldn’t take me back, I would set up shop somewhere and run a little computer business and be happy. Maybe not a small town, but not a big city, either. Someplace nice. No more lies, not more paranoia. Right after I solved this last case and hung that bastard Nate out to dry.
I drove back to the apartment, my arms and back screaming in agony. I desperately wanted a decent night’s sleep, but I didn’t have time. A hot shower and a pot of coffee would have to suffice. I parked the car a few blocks from the apartment, wiped down everything I’d touched, and left it unlocked. I probably left a few hairs behind, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that now. I was too tired and in too much of a hurry. I could always claim I’d once been in the car with Robin, if it came down to that. Hopefully it never would, and some crack head would steal the car and take it to a chop shop, or wreck it. If my luck would just hold a few more days.
I hopped into the shower and let the hot water sooth my aching muscles. The soap burned all the scrapes on my arms and hands, but it felt wonderful to be clean once again. After I finished washing, I turned the knob to cold and gritted my teeth as the icy water washed over me. It was cruel, but it had the effect I wanted. I felt marginally more awake as I stepped out and toweled myself off.
I reached under the sink to pull out my first aid kit, and was frozen by what I saw. Things weren’t exactly as I had left them. I reached into my pile of dirty clothes and grabbed my gun. Wearing nothing but a towel, I made a quick circuit around the apartment, but nothing else seemed out of place. Maybe I was too tired. Because who would break into a person’s apartment just to riffle through their first aid kit? Just to be on the safe side, though, I decided to forgo the ointment and band aids, just in case they had been tampered with. There are plenty of drugs that are transferred through the skin, and the scrapes weren’t that serious. Still, it left me wondering, and that thought stayed on the edges of my brain as I went though assembling the case against Nate.
I brewed a pot of extra-strong coffee and poured myself a cup, then grabbed a box of snack cakes from the cupboard. I crammed two of them in my mouth and had already refilled my coffee cup once before I’d gotten the table set up with my computer, the files from my safe, and the box I’d dug up at the construction site. I started on the last of these first, since I needed the most awake brain to deal with the newest information, and I didn’t think I had much time left before I crashed.
The box contained dozens of snapshots, all of which I carefully scanned in, labeled, and tagged. I put them in a folder and sealed it, signing my name across the seal and adding the time, date, and case information. The one thing they never tell you in all the spy movies and TV shows is the sheer amount of paperwork involved. It gets tiring, but I was going to be sure to dot every T and cross every I this time. Or whatever. I poured myself another cup of coffee and snarfed another snack cake. The caffeine and sugar would have to be enough to keep me going.
Next I tackled the jump drives, which contained audio recordings of a lot conversations the participants can’t have wanted saved for posterity. I recognized Robin’s voice, as well as Nate’s and George’s, and there were two men I didn’t recognize. They were careful to never use names, but from the conversations, I gathered that one of the men was Edward Gaust. And it sounded like the other was someone who worked closely with him. I painstakingly transcribed the conversations, cursing my lack of typing skills. It took a few hours, but at the end I printed those out, added tags, labels, and my signature, and sealed them in an envelope with the original jump drives.
I fixed another pot of coffee and drank half of it before I tackled the last part of the box, the documents. They were a mix of financial records, bills of sale, and a few memos. I arranged them on the table carefully, and was able to follow a very thin trail of money from Gaust’s sham businesses all the way to Nate’s pocket. It was flimsy in and of itself, but combined with the audio, the pictures, and the info I had gathered on George it was enough for the agency to condemn him. He may not ever be tried in a civilian court, but he’d be punished. And that would be enough for me.
I fell asleep with my head pillowed in my arms, drooling on the table. My dreams were strange and troubled, with quirky undertones. I was on a construction site, being chased by Nate and George. Except everything, including us, was made of Lego blocks. And there was a pygmy hedgehog. But I didn’t know what he was doing there. Then I was on a boat, but the whole ocean was full of bubble bath bubbles. It was actually rather relaxing, and I settled in to enjoy the ride. The ocean grew rough, and I started to get sea sick. I woke myself up heaving and panting, and I narrowly avoided throwing up all over the evidence. I forced my stomach to settle down and took deep breaths. I still felt unsteady, and my head swam from too much coffee, too much sugar, and not enough sleep. I looked at my watch and swore. Though I’d only been asleep a little over an hour, I had to get moving if I was going to get the evidence in a safe place in time. And then I still needed to lead Nate and his boys on a merry chase in order to give Daniel the time to do what he needed to.
I dragged myself upright, and instead of another cup of coffee I drank a large glass of water. Then I took a minute to fix myself a sandwich, though I didn’t have anything in the apartment other than peanut butter. I fixed myself a fluffer nutter on slightly old, crusty bread. It sat heavily in my stomach, but at least it wasn’t rumbling anymore. I drank another glass of water and sat back down at the table to write up my report.
I strung together all of the evidence in a continuous narrative, adding my own personal observations and the evidence we’d gathered as a team. It was a long report, but comprehensive. It was more than enough for a formal criminal investigation, though not yet enough for a conviction. I had no doubt, though, if given free rein, we could dig up more information. And if we could work with the police, I had no doubt we could both get what we wanted – Nate behind bars and Gaust’s empire dismantled.
I finished the report, printed it out, and added it to the pile of evidence. All of it went into the metal box, and I tucked it under my arm and went to hide it in a place that hopefully only I and Daniel would think to look.
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