by Sal Bianchi
“Okay,” I called a little louder than was normal, to make sure Nick would hear me wherever he was in the house. “I’m leaving now. Have a nice evening, Ellie.”
“Just get out!” Shane roared. If Nick hadn’t heard me, there was no doubt he’d heard that. I only hoped he’d finish whatever he was doing and sneak out soon.
I was barely out the door before Shane slammed it shut behind me. I could hear him and Ellie arguing inside, but unless I suspected there was some kind of domestic violence going on, I didn’t have any legal standing to stay here.
I sighed as I made my way back to the car. It was an unspoken secret that one of the reasons the director allowed Nick to work with the SDCT was because of situations like this.
As a federal agent, I was bound by the restrictions of the law. If I were to break the law by executing a search without a warrant or getting too rough with a suspect, I could lose my job. The entire agency could face repercussions because of something I did while on the job.
Nick, on the other hand, wasn’t officially affiliated with us. If he got caught doing something stupid, he’d be the only one getting in trouble. It was just a matter of claiming that the SDCT never authorized him to act that way, and we would probably get away with a slap on the wrist or less.
Of course, no one ever said anything about that. It was the elephant in the room that everyone ignored because, ultimately, it was beneficial to us to have a mercenary who was willing to get his hands dirty for our sake. It made me feel awful, to be honest. We were seriously skirting the law here, and even worse, Nick would be the one bearing all the blame if things ever went south. He always insisted that he was too good to get caught, but I couldn’t help but worry that his luck was bound to run out, eventually.
I fidgeted nervously as I waited for some sign of him. I was about to give in and call him when I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I snapped my head around toward the rear of the house and saw Nick sprinting around the side of the house and toward the car.
I leaned over to push the passenger side door open as he approached at a rapid pace. He didn’t look injured or anything, which was a relief.
“Drive,” he instructed as he jumped into the car and pulled the door shut behind him with a slam.
I was curious about what he’d been up to, but now wasn’t the time for questions. I did as he asked and quickly started the car before flooring the gas pedal. Whatever he’d just done, I could only hope that it had been worth it.
19
Nick
“I’m sorry,” I suddenly interrupted Jase’s interview with Ellie. “I don’t suppose I could use your bathroom?”
Ellie shot me a look of surprise, and Jase was glaring at me with a mix of anger and confusion. I knew that I was probably interrupting at a bad time, but I’d suddenly had an idea, and I needed to move quickly before Shane got home.
“Oh, of course,” Ellie sniffled. “I’ll show you where it is. Just a minute, Agent Park.”
She stood and led me out of the living room and down a narrow hall.
“It’s this room on the left,” she informed me as she wiped her eyes clean and took a deep, steadying breath before returning to the living room. I mentally apologized to Jase. I could tell that he’d been trying to wear her down to get her to admit whatever it was she was hiding, but we probably wouldn’t get an opportunity like this again.
I took a moment to check and make sure that I couldn’t be seen from the living room before creeping my way slowly down the hallway. Since Shane wasn’t here, this would be a good time for me to search his room for any signs that he’d been in communication with Ryan Rothschild.
The first room I came across was filled with tubs full of fabrics, yarn, and other craft supplies. As much as I would have liked to search every room thoroughly, I didn’t know how much time I had, so I needed to be quick.
The house was small, and there was only one other door at the end of the hallway. I crept toward it silently before turning the doorknob as quietly as I could. I pulled up on the door as I opened it so the hinges wouldn’t creak as it moved and then slipped inside as soon as the gap was wide enough.
This was obviously Shane and Ellie’s bedroom. There was a queen-sized bed in one corner, with a small, wooden crib at the end. The room was cluttered in a cozy way. There were unused baby toys and clothes stacked in piles at one corner, and a small vanity with some cosmetics strewn across the tabletop. A laundry hamper overflowing with clothes sat by the edge of the bed, and a battered acoustic guitar was propped up against the door of the closet. I scanned over everything in the room quickly until my gaze landed on the laptop sitting on the nightstand by the bed.
I stalked over to the bed and quickly opened the laptop. If there were any records of Shane having interacted with Ryan at any point, they’d most likely be on here. I turned the laptop on and waited nervously as it booted up. To my relief, it didn’t prompt me for a password.
I dug through my pockets until I felt my fingers close around the small device I needed. Dante had given me this USB drive. According to him, there was a program on it that would extract the contents of a computer’s hard drive in just a few minutes. I’d never used it before, but this seemed like a great opportunity to try it out.
I plugged the drive into the computer and was immediately greeted by a notification asking for permission to run the extraction program. I clicked yes and watched as the program quickly scanned and downloaded files. The progress bar at the bottom of the screen was already at four percent, which meant that it really would only take a few minutes for the program to finish running.
I grinned with relief. All I had to do now was wait for the program to finish doing its thing, and then I could “anonymously” send the information over to the SDCT. As long as they claimed not to know who the informant was, the information should be admissible in court.
“What is this?” I jumped as I heard an unfamiliar voice yell from the living room. I tensed as I realized that Shane must have just gotten home. I glanced down at the progress bar. It was still only at thirty-seven percent. I needed more time, but if I got caught trespassing right now, not only would this information be unusable, but I’d be in legal trouble as well.
I could hear Jase saying something, but I couldn’t make out the words from this distance.
“Get out of my house, now!” Shane yelled. I checked the progress bar again. It was at fifty-two percent now, but that still wasn’t enough. Whatever pertinent information was on here could very well be in the forty-eight percent that hadn’t yet been downloaded. I gritted my teeth and looked around frantically for my escape. I needed to be ready to leave at any moment.
“Okay, I’m leaving now,” I heard Jase yell, his voice unusually stiff and tense. It must have been his attempt to warn me that my time was running out. I crept over to the window at the end of the bedroom, grateful that this was a single-story house. As I slowly inched the window open to avoid making noise, I could hear Shane and Ellie arguing in the living room.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the will, Shane?” I heard Ellie yell as I crept back to the computer. It was at eighty percent, and I silently urged it to go faster.
“What are you talking about?” Shane yelled in response.
“That agent told me that your dad was going to remove you from the will!” she yelled. “Why didn’t you tell me? How am I supposed to trust you?”
“What, you think I killed him?” Shane retorted. He sounded angry.
“I don’t know!” Ellie screamed. “I don’t know what to think! I’ve been feeling confused for the past month, and then those two show up, and… wait, there was another one with him.”
Crap. I’d run out of time. I glanced down at the computer. It was only at ninety percent, but it would have to do. I yanked the USB out of the port and put the laptop back on the nightstand where it had been before. I could hear yelling and thundering footsteps coming toward the bedroom, so I rushed to
ward the window I’d opened earlier.
I climbed out as quickly as I could and turned around just in time to see the door beginning to swing open. I pulled the window shut from the outside and fell into a low crouch beneath the window. My heart was pounding as I remained completely still, straining my ears for any sounds coming from inside.
“Do you see him anywhere?” Shane roared, and I breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t managed to spot me as I was climbing out the window after all. I crept low to the ground until I was certain that I was out of view of the window, then jumped to my feet and took off toward the front of the house at a sprint.
I could see Jase already sitting in the car. He leaned over to push the door open for me, and I sped up as much as I could. I dove into the car at full speed and yanked the door shut behind me with a loud thud.
“Drive,” I huffed, out of breath after the impromptu sprint. Jase looked bewildered, but didn’t waste time asking any questions. Instead, he just started the car and took off. Once we were out of sight of the house, he slowed down again. This was a residential neighborhood, after all, and it was probably dangerous to speed around when there were kids out playing.
“Okay,” Jase sighed once we were finally out of the neighborhood and back onto the highway. “What did you do?”
“You know I can’t say,” I muttered as I fiddled with the USB drive I still had clutched in my hand. What I’d done was illegal, there were no two ways about it. I’d searched Shane’s home without a warrant, and I’d broken into his computer and stolen his information. If I told Jase, it could potentially jeopardize the case, or worse, his career. As long as he could honestly say that he had no idea what I was doing, he’d be okay. For all he knew, I was in the bathroom the whole time.
“Whatever,” Jase scoffed. “As if you haven’t told me about half the stuff you’ve pulled while you’re on the job. I literally listened in on an illegal wire with you yesterday.”
I frowned at his argument. He had a point. I wasn’t under any illusions about what my role within the SDCT was. I was here because I was willing to bend the rules to get results. I’d agreed to those terms, and I was all right with having to face whatever consequences came with that, but that didn’t mean I wanted to drag Jase down with me.
“Yeah, well, let’s just get back to the office,” I replied. “I need to talk with Stein. He can give you the details after I do.”
Jase threw me an unimpressed glare. I realized how dumb it was to do this in such a roundabout way, but at least this way, everything would be clean on paper. I almost laughed as I thought about how similar the SDCT was to the mafia in this regard. It was a pretty common tactic within the mafia to do things in a really complicated way just so that crimes couldn’t be traced back to the original source. Things like money laundering and protection rackets were all done so that, if the feds ever did come knocking, everything would look good on the surface.
In a way, I wasn’t doing anything differently than I had before when I was still working with the mafia. Only this time, I was working for the good guys.
20
Jase
As soon as we’d gotten back to the office, Nick rushed off to give the USB he’d been holding the entire drive to Stein. I assumed he’d probably used it to rip information off of Shane’s computer or something, but I knew better than to ask for details. He was right when he’d said that he couldn’t tell me about it.
The law was complex when it came to informants and people working as agents of a federal law enforcement agency. If an informant called us with information pertaining to a crime, we could keep their identity a secret. Furthermore, we didn’t actually have to know how the informant had come across this information. In fact, a lot of the time, it was better if we didn’t know. This was because, if someone had information regarding a criminal matter, there was a good chance they were involved in that crime in some way. Either that, or they had broken the law in their quest to obtain that information.
However, because Nick had been brought on to consult on the case with us, he was technically bound by all the same rules and restrictions that we were. We couldn’t really claim that we had no idea how he’d gotten that information if we were the ones who had sent him to get it. This was the main reason that Nick often ran off and did things without giving me any warning or explanation afterward. This was the closest we could get to maintaining some semblance of deniability. Of course, it was all crap, but everyone in the office just looked the other way, and so far, we’d gotten away with it.
Now we were sitting in the break room while we waited for Stein to finish going over whatever he could pull from the USB. There were a few other agents hanging around in the break room, but most of them were giving us a wide berth. Aside from Chloe, most of the other agents seemed pretty wary of Nick, thanks in no small part to Bette.
“You wanna play crazy eights?” I asked. “I have a deck of cards in my bag.”
“Sure.” Nick shrugged.
“Let’s make it more interesting then,” I grinned as I pulled my wallet out of my bag as well as the deck of cards. “I’ll bet five dollars.”
“Crazy eights isn’t really a gambling game,” Nick chuckled.
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “But there are not that many fun card games for only two people.”
“Okay,” Nick hummed as he looked around the room before plucking a saltshaker off the counter next to him. “I bet this.”
“What?” I asked. “That’s not yours. You can’t bet that.”
“I don’t have any cash,” he retorted. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s not mine. As long as I don’t lose, I won’t have to give it to you.”
I stared at him in disbelief. In hindsight, trying to gamble with a former mobster was probably a stupid idea.
“Fine,” I huffed. “Let’s start. I’d like to see what your plan is when you lose, and you owe me a saltshaker that’s property of the SDCT.”
The smirk that Nick threw me was unnerving, like a shark eyeing its prey.
At least, that’s what I’d thought at first. Half an hour later, Nick had relieved me of my money, my wallet, my work bag, and my tie. After the last round, one of the newer agents, a fresh-faced kid named Roland Avery, had joined us. He was a twenty-three-year-old fresh out of college and barely old enough to be a federal agent, and he’d been here for a short enough time that it seemed Bette’s anti-Nick propaganda hadn’t reached him yet. I hoped we’d be able to steer him to our side before she did. Nick could use more allies here.
We’d switched to blackjack after Roland joined, but to my dismay, Nick was still winning every round and cleaning both of us out.
“Are you cheating?” I asked accusingly as I handed over the coffee cup I’d bet on our most recent round. I’d run out of things to give him and had just started betting stuff from around the break room too.
“Of course not,” Nick smirked. “You just have really easy tells.”
“What?” I scoffed. “No, I don’t. And how are you winning against both of us then?”
“I’m good at reading people,” Nick replied smugly. He was annoyingly cocky.
Now that I thought about it, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, especially after I'd watched him wipe the floor with the other players during that poker game the previous night. Still, I hadn't expected him to be so ruthless against his own best friend.
“Hey, did you really used to be a part of the mafia?” Roland suddenly asked without warning. “I heard some of the other agents talking about it.”
I snapped my head around to stare at him, shocked by how brazenly he’d just asked that. Most people reacted with shock or fear when they first heard about Nick being a former mafia member.
“Yeah,” Nick replied. “I left a few years ago, though.”
“Whoa, that’s sick.” Roland grinned. “I’m glad you’re on our side now.”
Nick and I both turned to look at Roland, surprised by the cheerful expression on his fac
e. Although most people didn't take it as far as Bette, none of the other agents had ever expressed that they were happy about having an ex-mobster working alongside them, except maybe Chloe.
“Nick, Agent Park,” Stein’s voice suddenly interrupted our conversation. “I’ve been looking for you. I got the results of the search ready. What is going on here?”
I followed his gaze down to the table. Cards were scattered across the surface, and an assortment of Roland’s and my things were gathered in piles on Nick’s side of the table.
“Ah, I see you boys got hustled, huh?” Stein chuckled. “Well, as much as I’d hate to interrupt your fun, we need to go over the data I managed to pull off of the USB.”
“It’s fine,” Nick replied as he shoved our things back across the table at us. “What did you find?”
“Well, a lot of it was corrupted,” he sighed. “Probably from when you yanked it out of the port before it finished.”
“Sorry,” Nick muttered. “I was trying to hurry before--”
He cut himself off and glanced at Roland. Of course, very few people were actually privy to the details about what Nick did as a part of his job. Roland especially would be clueless considering he’d just started here.
“Right,” Stein cleared his throat. “In any case, I wasn’t able to find anything directly relating to his father, but I did discover that he made a very large withdrawal from his bank about a month before his father died. Exactly five thousand dollars.”
“He had that much?” I frowned in confusion. “I thought the whole issue was that his dad had cut him off.”
“It was nearly everything he had,” Stein confirmed. “At least, it was, before he received the inheritance money. It completely cleaned out his bank account, and according to the bank records, he was even in the negative for a few weeks before the inheritance money came in.”
