“You can’t believe everything Bethany says,” came the smooth professorial voice. “But most of it is true,” he said with a wide smile.
Bethany gave him a slight elbow to the ribs and the group had a laugh.
The doorbell broke up the laughter and Marcellous stated that he would get the door. The other three took seats with Bethany and Troy sitting next to each other on the loveseat and Jasmyn sitting at the right arm of the sofa.
“You’re just in time,” came the voice of Marcellous as he entered into the room. Agent Dabria walked in carrying a gift bag in light pastel colors that said “Congrats on your baby”. Behind her stood Detective Sampson carrying a bottle of wine with a bow affixed around its neck.
The three stood once again and exchanged pleasantries before retiring to their seats. Donatella sat next to Jasmyn while Detective Sampson walked into the kitchen to aid Marcellous in the final stages of lunch.
Donatella, still skeptical of the woman who had inserted herself into Jasmyn’s life, asked, “Bethany and Troy – Jasmyn said you are interested in moving into the Grant’s old home, how is that going?”
“Well,” Bethany said with a Cheshire cat grin, “We were going to wait to share the news, but – we are scheduled to close on the house in two weeks.”
“That’s amazing,” Jasmyn almost squealed with glee. “I’m so happy that we will be neighbors, you are going to love the neighborhood.”
Yes, as am I, Donatella thought. It’ll help me to keep a closer eye on you.
“You hear that Marcellous – we are going to have some new neighbors!”
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” came the distant voice from the kitchen.
Not missing a beat, Donatella continued, “So, what do you guys do for a living?”
“Troy teaches creative writing at the university. I work as a consultant with a focus on project management.”
“Interesting,” Donatella said in her southern drawl. Jasmyn had heard that “interesting” before and glanced over at her.
“How long have you been in project management?”
“Well,” Bethany said looking at Jasmyn and then back at Donatella. “I’ve worked as a PM for the past 11 years. I spent the first couple of years working for Yum Brands and then moved into consulting so I could work in different verticals. I’ve worked in everything from retail to financial to manufacturing. My current position is with a tech company.”
Donatella raised her eyebrow, and Jasmyn noticed this movement. Before she could pepper Bethany with any other questions, Jasmyn interjected.
“Donatella works for the FBI and she cannot help but ask a lot of questions.”
“Wow! A real live FBI agent. Any cases you are working on that we can know about?”
“No,” she replied flatly, looking back over at Jasmyn who was giving her the “don’t you start eyes.” She realized she would not have any other questions answered, so she moved on.
“Jasmyn – I brought you a gift, please open it.”
She smiled and gratefully took the package, “You didn’t have to do this, but I will always accept a gift.”
She pulled out the top tissue paper and pushed aside the rest. At the bottom of the bag was a jewelry box. She noticed the box didn’t have any markings, but she had seen her fair share of jewelry boxes and was curious to know what was inside.
Jasmyn turned the case around and pulled open the lid. Her eyes lit up with excitement when she laid her eyes on the object inside.
“Donatella – this is too much,” she said pulling the bracelet from the box. It was a Pandora bracelet with three charms each separated with a spacer. The first charm was of a mother, the second of a father, and the third of a baby.
“Go ahead and put it on, I’m sure it’ll fit.”
Jasmyn sat the box on the cushion next to her and fumbled a couple of times with the latch. She was finally able to catch the latch just right between her nails, lay the bracelet on her wrist and then her wrist to her leg. With a practiced motion she was able to secure the bracelet after only two tries. She shook her wrist a couple of times and the bracelet slid into place.
“It’s beautiful,” she said with a tear forming in her eye. “Thank you so much!” She stood up from her seat and walked over to give the special agent a hug.
“You’re welcome. I hope that you will wear it all the time.”
“I will,” came the hurried reply. “I’ll absolutely wear it all the time.”
“Lunch is served,” bellowed the voice from the kitchen. “Come and get it.”
“You ain’t got to tell me twice. One thing you don’t do is get between a pregnant woman and her food. Come on, Bethany, let’s go have some of this delicious food.”
“Aye, aye, captain!”
The group made their way from the family room to the kitchen where Marcellous lay out a spread from both the grill and the oven.
“Babe, this looks great. Thank you for pulling this together.”
“Yes, this looks amazing Marcellous. You’ll have to give me the recipe for the baked beans,” chimed in Detective Sampson.
“Family secrets people. Y’all ain’t gonna have my grandma coming back from the afterlife to smite me for giving out her recipes. But I will give a toast. Everybody grab a glass.”
The men all grabbed the necks of their beers and the women, including Donatella, raised a glass of water.
“To friends, old and new. To good health. And to bringing the little ones into this world safe and sound.”
Everyone clinked their glasses, “Cheers!”
Agent Dabria and Detective Sampson pulled up to Sal Grandson’s apartment. The exchange of words had been sparse since leaving the Thompson’s house but Sampson could sense something underneath the surface. Donatella placed the car into park before speaking.
“I’m not so sure my suspicions about Bethany Evans are correct. Although her insertion into Jasmyn’s life comes at an inopportune time, she seems to be on the up and up.”
“She did seem to be nice, and certainly didn’t seem to be a mastermind behind a nefarious plot. However,” Sampson continued as they climbed the stairs to Sal’s apartment, “I noticed something about her husband at the beginning of the conversation. It could have been my imagination, but I thought I saw him stiffen when Jasmyn mentioned you were an FBI agent. It could have been my imagination, and it could just be a normal response when in the presence of the FBI. I focused in on him the remainder of the evening and he seemed to be guarded.”
Donatella looked over to Sampson thinking back to the remainder of the afternoon.
“I had my focus on Bethany, so I did not pay him much attention. However, now that you mention it, he didn’t say much for the remainder of the afternoon. I wrote it off as part of his nature. I’m not certain he has anything to do with this case as it’s Jasmyn’s first time meeting him, but something to keep in mind for the future.”
They knocked on the door and within 10 seconds Sal stood their beckoning them inside.
“Special Agent Dabria and Detective Sampson, I’d like you to meet Jane Markowitz.”
Jane shook Sampson’s hand and reached out to embrace Donatella.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said squeezing with all her might. “Thank you for everything you did to ensure Sal came back home to me. I will forever be grateful to your heroics.”
Sampson raised his eyebrows at this display of affection and wondered what it was that Donatella had exactly done. This was the second time that someone alluded to the fact that she had saved his life; however, he had yet to understand exactly how. He would need to inquire more about that at a later date.
Jane continued, “Can I offer either of you anything to drink? We have wine and beer chilled in the fridge, or water if you are officially on duty.”
Both declined the offer and sat in the small living area. Once all four were situated in the room, the space felt suffocating. Almost as if they were all sitting in an MR
I machine.
Sal, the last to enter the room, held a sheet of paper in his hand. “We still have a deal, right?” he inquired holding the paper as a bargaining chip.
“Indeed,” came the smooth tone from Donatella. “A promise is a promise. If what you have propels the case forward, I will tell you about the cases and how they seem to be intertwined.”
Sal handed over the document while sitting on the edge of his chair. Sampson looked over the shoulder of Donatella. At the top of the paper sat the taped together scraps of paper Sal took from the offices of GIS.
The top line read “Br” followed by “ley”. The second line read “Wh” followed by “he?”.
Underneath the scraps of paper in Sal’s journalistic hand read the words, “Who is he?”.
“That’s about as far as we managed to get,” Sal offered. We think the first line is a person’s name but we could not figure out who “he” is.
Donatella took one last look at the document and slowly placed it on the table. Shocked, the entire group looked at her as her face had gone ashen.
“What is it?” Sal asked. “Do you know who he is?”
She looked at them each in turn starting with Sampson, then to Jane and finally Sal. The wheels in her brain were turning and each of them didn’t like the look in her eyes.
“What is it?” Sampson followed up.
“There is no he,” she said breaking the silence that had begun to build. “The last line isn’t ‘Who is he?’. The last line reads ‘Who is she?’.”
Sal and Jane both looked at each other stunned and tried to see how the agent had come to this conclusion. Staring at the paper yielded them no additional information. Sure, the “he” had been torn pretty close but they didn’t see any other marking that could lead them to believe the word was “she” instead of “he”.
Donatella continued, “Sal, Jane. You need to keep your distance from this matter. This isn’t a mere game being played.”
“Come on, Donatella. You cannot back out on me now. We had a deal and you made a promise. This seems to be some vital piece of information and you promised –”
Donatella interrupted Sal in mid-sentence, “The top line reads ‘Bree Buckley’. It appears Terri is using an alias, that of my goddaughter she abducted a few months ago. Veronica King is looking into Bree, better known as Terri, Buckley which means that Terri has had some interaction with Mrs. King.”
At the mention of Terri’s name, Sampson noticed Sal go stiff, similar to what Troy had done at the mention of Donatella working for the FBI.
“Sal – a promise is a promise and I will tell you all about the cases. And with this information, more than previously thought, you will need to keep up your end of the bargain and not print a word of this until the cases are solved.”
Sal nodded his head in agreement, though in the back of his mind he thought, I agreed to not print anything, but I never said I would give up the investigation.
“Good. I think I will take that wine after all and we will start with the death of Samantha Young.”
Part III
Reckoning
Chapter 16
May 20th – 9:00 p.m.
“D r. Peterson, you’re working awfully late this evening. Is everything ok?”
“Hey Bobby, everything is just fine,” Dr. Peterson said with a sigh and a chagrined expression on his face. “The restoration specialist we hired for a special project finished much earlier than expected. I came by to scrutinize the final product. After several rounds of discussion, he finally agreed to fix an additional corner of the masterpiece.”
“If anybody is going to keep them in line, I know you will,” Bobby countered with a smile. “I’m anxious to hear more details about the secret show. Come on Dr. P. When will you spill the beans?”
The doctor gave Bobby a tired yet genuine smile. “Bobby, my man, I promise you’ll be the first one I tell before the ink is even dry on the announcement.”
“That’s a deal, doc. Now you head on home and get some well-deserved rest and recharge those batteries over the weekend.”
“Will do, Bobby, and you make sure no one meddles with my prized artifacts.”
“With this state-of-the-art security system, we recently had installed, the cast from Ocean’s Eleven couldn’t find a way to break in here. Nonetheless, I think I’ll start my rounds early and make sure everything is locked up tight. Have a good weekend, doc.”
“You too, Bobby.”
Bobby opened the door leading to the garage allowing Dr. Peterson to exit. Bobby liked Dr. Peterson and liked working at the museum in general. He had worked the security detail for the last six months after an early retirement from the police force. His family physician advised him the stress of the police force would be his undoing and the best way to ensure his longevity was to find a less stressful job.
When his wife, Kara, heard the news, he knew his time on the force had come to an end. Bobby Cliff loved being an officer and doing what he could to protect the citizens of Cleveland. He decided if he couldn’t protect his people, he could protect his art.
A Cleveland, Ohio native, Bobby and his family attended all new art exhibits put on by the museum. His mother felt it was important for Bobby and his sister, Tiana, to be cultured. Early on he despised the trips to the museum; however, as he continued to grow, the exhibits began to grow on him.
He recalled going to the museum in the summer of 1977 to see The Milieu of Edvard Munch. He had not held out much for this showing; however, there was something different about this artist and how his work resonated with Bobby. The way the artist captured the raw human emotion with his brush strokes. His mother told him later that he was the artist who commissioned the famous painting, “The Scream”.
Bobby went to the library the next day so he could find this painting and there it was on microfilm, a picture of the painting. Edvard Munch went on to describe how the painting represented an infinite scream of nature.
It was at that moment Bobby’s interest in painting and art began to blossom. In a way, coming back to watch over the work of so many famous artists was like a homecoming for Bobby. He never truly felt like he was working because he spent so much time on the job learning about the artwork. Dr. Peterson, the head of the museum, had also taken a liking to Bobby.
He fed Bobby’s desire to know as many facts about art as he could handle. He gave Bobby a heads up for all new exhibits coming and made sure both Bobby and Kara had tickets to the first showing. Admittedly so, Bobby was the first security personnel that had an interest in the art and showed a true desire to keep everything safe.
Bobby could still recall the day the secret artifacts arrived at the museum. Dr. Peterson, normally a cheerful but reserved guy, was bouncing off of the walls. All he told Bobby was this was a big deal and that the Cleveland Museum of Art would be the first museum in the country, make that the world, to show off this collection.
Peterson’s excitement was contagious and before he knew it, Bobby was brimming with anticipation of this new exhibit, patiently awaiting his time to shine.
Bobby had been at the museum during the upgrades to the security system. This new system was some James Bond, Mission Impossible system that he didn’t begin to understand how it fully operated. What he did know was, the system came highly recommended and virtually impenetrable. Some of the guys that still worked on the force had come up against another system created by this company Global Insights Security and they literally had to call the corporate office to have the system shutdown as they prepared for a raid. The techs had reviewed all scenarios but could not find a way to penetrate it without the help of the GIS team.
Once the warrants had been signed and all legal avenues had been crossed, then and only then did GIS deactivate the system allowing the raid to take place. It made Bobby feel better knowing such a stellar system was watching over the prized artifacts as closely as he was.
Bobby continued to walk down the west wing of the 1916
building passing the Provenance restaurant making his way toward the down escalators. He hadn’t visited the lower level in a couple of days but he wanted to make his way over to the Exhibition Gallery where the exhibit was under lock and key.
As he passed through the atrium, he drift into thoughts of his attire for the event. He kept a tux on hand for such occasions, but Kara had made the comment that it was getting a little snug around the midsection the last time he wore it. He did his best to discount the comment but he knew it was true. He had taken the tux jacket to the tailor before the last event and was told this was the last time they would be able to let out the jacket. The next time he would need to go up a size, maybe two.
With Dr. Peterson’s excitement building day by day, he figured this was a good time to purchase a new one.
He hopped on the escalator swinging his flashlight like a security guard in those B-rated movies. The only difference between them and him was, Bobby also carried a gun. Being a former cop, he had a license to carry and he never left his house without his piece.
Midway down the smooth descent of the escalator, Bobby heard a metallic clang originate from down below. It gave him a moment of pause as Dr. Peterson was typically the last person to leave the museum.
May 20th – 9:00 p.m.
“And you’re sure we’re clear?” came the husky voice of Marc Blackstone speaking into the mic on his lapel. Blackstone, a career criminal, had been hired by The Syndicate a few years back due to his ability to infiltrate buildings unseen. He normally worked alone; however, because of the delicate nature of this assignment he was asked to bring along a partner. Typically, he would put up a fight, but not tonight.
His partner, a 5 foot 7 or 8 inches, he could never tell, black clad, fully curved, drop dead gorgeous woman, was his partner for the evening. He noted the intensity in her constantly roaming eyes though she hadn’t said much. Blackstone always had a way with the ladies, and after they pulled off this job, he planned to pull off her tight-fitting garments.
Hour of Reckoning (Donatella Book 2) Page 19
