by C. L. Stone
“We did leave quickly,” Mr. Buble said. He turned his attention to David. “Victor was one of the teens spending the night here with Nathan Griffin. Nathan’s at a hotel now, safe. When there was a sign of trouble, I came to get them out for the night. We didn’t see anything, although you’re welcome to ask.”
“Good call. Leaving and not confronting a possible burglar is often the best solution. You never know if they might be violent.” He gave Victor a thumbs up. “Don’t worry. Usually house insurance can take care of damages and anything of value that was taken. It’s more important everyone is safe.”
Victor couldn’t believe it. “We haven’t been gone that long.” Although as he said it, maybe they had been in the car driving around longer than he thought. It still seemed like a lot was done in a short amount of time.
“There might have been at least semi-professional thieves were at work here,” David said, examining the hole in the wall in the closet. “They knew better than to crack any safe on site. Easier to just tear it out of the wall and open it somewhere else.” He backed up, returning to the main bedroom. “If your security cameras have footage of any of it, I can take it as evidence, start a report.”
The video... Victor nodded, and David continued, but he was only partially listening.
Erica. If there was any chance it was her... If she had been involved at all, she might show up on the camera footage. He should have opened the cameras up and watched while on the road. They should still be saved, but he could have saved time and known what to say...
He couldn’t imagine her stealing, though. It didn’t make any sense.
Victor and Mr. Buble moved on to examining what was taken, which was fortunate. Victor would need time to go through any footage.
Mr. Buble stood aside while Victor had done his best to describe items that had been missing from the house. “Nathan would know more than I would.”
“Mr. Griffin will have to be notified,” Mr. Buble said. “Unfortunately, this is something we have to let the police handle. He can’t be left in the dark about it.”
David gave a solemn nod. “Sorry. Yes. This is my territory now. But mostly I just have to file a report unless there’s reason to believe anyone you know had something to do with this.”
“I can’t think of anyone,” Victor said. Unfortunately, this was very unlike Volto. He often worked alone. And he wasn’t likely to just steal. He’d ample opportunity to do so, in any of their houses, including the Morgan house. However, anything he’d ever taken before was something very specific, pictures or data. Nothing actually monetarily valuable.
Mrs. Ruiz returned, looking in on them from the doorway. “There’s a trail. A lot of heavy footprints, through the woods. They used the back gate to get in and get out.”
But then they would have had to come out at the other side where the diner was. Wasn’t that the only exit point for those woods? Victor wasn’t sure, he’d have to check with Nathan.
David motioned toward the backyard. “It had to be at least a couple of people, maybe a small team. Carrying everything out the back way to not draw too much suspicion.”
They left David to start taking pictures and figure out where to start with his report.
Mr. Buble motioned for Victor to come with him out of the bedroom.
“Someone had to have known this house to do this,” Victor said. “The safe, the back gate, where the cameras are... And they got lucky we left instead of staying or calling the police immediately. It’s very strange.”
“Then we better let David work. Meanwhile, we should make a list of who it could possibly be.”
They left Mrs. Ruiz and David to talk in the bedroom while he guided Victor to Nathan’s bedroom on the far end. This one had less damage, probably because most of what Nathan owned had already been boxed up in the living room, ready for thieves to come and take it all.
“This isn’t good,” Victor murmured. “There was Academy equipment in the false bottom of the trunk they took. And there might have been some of that in Nathan’s boxes.”
“Anything in the equipment?”
“No, I always keep them clean. It’s always monitoring equipment, not recording. And... other tools. But expensive and they’ll be wondering why we had all of it.”
“It’ll all be prepped to sell, likely online,” Mr. Buble said. “It’s more important that there wasn’t anything they’d find that could lead them to... us.” He said with some delicacy to indicate he meant the Academy. “We can keep an eye on internet listings. It’ll possibly trace back to who stole everything.” He waved a hand shortly. “However, I need you to look for that mask. We need to find it.”
Victor considered the likely locations of where Nathan hid it and then went to the closet. While it had been gone through, there was heavy gym equipment still inside in boxes in the back.
Victor did his best, trying to shove one of the heavier boxes out of the way, and Mr. Buble assisted until they found a very small handle attached to the wall, painted white to blend in.
Victor pulled and part of the wall easily came open. The drawer was deep and wide, enough to place laptops, spare burner phones, cash and listening equipment, and more.
Among the items was the Volto mask, white, with the mechanism near the mouth to change voice tones and patterns. There was a hard drive, too, near the top, a small one they often used to copy others’ hard drives with.
Victor picked up both. “Should we take the other stuff?”
“Put it back how it was for now,” Mr. Buble said quietly, and quickly dropped the drive in his pocket and the mask secured in the waist of his pants, tucking his white shirt to hide that it was there.
They’d just put the cardboard box back into place to hide the drawer when David’s voice echoed in the hallway nearby.
“I’ll have to take pictures,” he was saying to Mrs. Ruiz. “You can watch but over there, where you’re not going to be caught in the reflection of anything.”
“We should all go,” Mr. Buble said in a louder tone. He carefully walked back to the hallway. “I should check on Nathan and the others and let them know. You’ll be calling this in to the precinct, won’t you?”
“Technically it’s not my jurisdiction at all,” he said. “But I can say I was at the diner, which I was, and was asked to come take a look, which I did. And I’m checking things out, which I am. And then I’ll give them a call. Without a perp to chase, this is all report writing. I can talk to whoever shows up. However, you can’t clean up until the report is done, and probably not until your insurance agent shows up and checks things out.”
Mr. Buble nodded. “We’ve looked for what might be missing.” He stopped, not offering to suggest they’d not touched anything. It was always best to avoid a direct lie when possible.
“Then everyone should leave. I’ll make the call. Better that I say things just right. You know how it is.”
Mr. Buble and Mrs. Ruiz got into the front seat of Mr. Buble’s car. Victor climbed into the back seat. The stress of going through the house, knowing everything... everything he’d brought over to the house... it was all gone. The trunk. The bags. It wasn’t the value, it was that he now had the clothes on his back and nothing else to his name. And he wasn’t even wearing his own clothes.
He felt he’d somehow done this. That he had tempted Volto and he responded, and this was how he did so. Quickly, he sent a text.
DEPTHAFFECTION: I had stuff stolen. Stuff from the info list that was a bribe for Volto. Did he get the whole list?
It only took a minute for him to answer.
DEPTHCRAWLER: I didn’t give him the whole list, just a sample. No response. Either he knew or wasn’t him.
Victor wasn’t sure.
DEPTHCRAWLER: Let me look around. Give me the address that was hit. And let me know what was taken.
Victor sent the Griffin house address.
“Anything I should know?” Mrs. Ruiz asked Mr. Buble in the car. “I distracted hi
m for as long as I could.”
“We got it,” Mr. Buble said, although he waited until they were back in the diner lot before producing the mask and the hard drive.
“That’s all?” Mrs. Ruiz asked, motioning to the mask. “I know a guy who knows a guy who can identify pieces, and we might find some origin points to check out.”
“I think we should hang on to the mask,” Victor said. “Maybe it was Volto and he was after this, but didn’t find it. Maybe we could use it somehow. Lure him somehow?”
“The drive we should take care of,” Mr. Buble said, looking back to Victor. “There’s no true evidence this had anything to do with Volto, and there might be private information best left alone.”
Victor agreed, embarrassed that Nathan and Sang had been a part of that. “I’m sure they had a good reason.”
“They could be right,” Mr. Buble said. “But they should have told the team, at minimum.”
Mrs. Ruiz gently laughed, following up with a sigh. “When you just start out, you try to be the hero, and also not bother anyone. You work it out eventually. Learn to trust others.”
Mrs. Ruiz got out, heading into the diner. Victor took over the passenger seat.
“So...” Victor started to say. “I have a confession. I might have triggered Volto to do this.”
“I’d be happy to hear the details.” Mr. Buble put the car into reverse and left the lot. “Here, I got this for you, too. You might need it.”
Mr. Buble pulled a couple of the Frappuccino coffee bottles from his jacket. They had a layer of condensation from being close to his body, but they were still cold.
Victor smirked. “I thought we shouldn’t be drinking them.”
“It’s going to be long hours on into the morning going through footage, and you can tell me what you know,” he said. “And we’re ramping up the hunt for a house.”
He was right. They lost their chance at taking their time. Mr. Griffin would be back soon. Nathan might actually have to contend with him on this. However, this was the end of the road for staying at Nathan’s house.
Victor felt bad for what happened, especially if this was his fault. He held his phone in his hands, pressing his palm to it, hoping his contact would find more information.
Cambiare
(To change)
Sang
I woke up sensing North and Silas next to me in the motel bed. I wasn’t sure how I knew, I just did. It wasn’t the scent, I hadn’t shifted and I was sure my nose had probably gotten used to it depending on how long they’d been there.
It was probably that Silas was a furnace, and North was a rock and pressed up close so I was pushing into Silas, and between the two, I was sweating.
Still, I didn’t move. I didn’t know where Dr. Green had gone, or where Nathan was. It was likely someone else was here, monitoring. I wasn’t totally motivated to get up and face the day yet.
If they’d only move away, I could get some cool air...
It was Silas who stirred first. He was quiet as could be, sitting up, pulling away. He sat for a while on the bed before he got up for the bathroom. As he moved, his ocean scent filled my nose, followed shortly but North’s musk, and the clean linen we were sleeping in. The scents mingled together. It was stronger when they moved around.
While he was gone, North’s strong arms enveloped me and I found myself underneath the sheets, nose to nose, but his eyes were closed.
I tucked myself into his chest, pressing my cheek to it. Still a little too warm for me but I tried not to think about it.
He tensed, just for a second, his grip at my back tightening. After a minute he settled again, and we remained like that, pressed to each other. Quiet. It was moments like this where I always felt safe and protected, when I was with one of them and everything was silent and still.
There was a flush and water running, and then Silas was back, his larger body crawling in behind me and making it so I naturally rolled back into him, save North’s arm still around me.
North tugged me tighter, until I was basically being held up by him. “My turn,” he said in a deep and grumbling voice.
My cheeks were flushed and hot again.
Silas snaked an arm around my waist. “You had one, it’s my turn now. I need her.”
North chuffed against my shoulder, but then released me to Silas’s arm and turned, sitting up. “Have to get up anyway.” And he left for his turn at the bathroom.
Silas was beaming when I turned. He pulled me into him. “We had to agree that if we needed a moment, we’d get it if we asked.”
With me? My cheeks remained hot, and I was unsure what to say. I was sort of happy they worked out some sort of method... however it worked.
“Is anyone else here?” I murmured. I picked my head up, looking across the room. It didn’t seem like anyone else was here. The other bed was still made.
“Shh...” Silas said. And he swept a hand across my face as if to shut my eyes and my mouth. “My turn.”
I wanted to laugh. The last few days had been a whirlwind of trouble, and they were both savoring the first few moments of waking up. We all did that now. Those few moments we had to spare, when we were safe, even if just for now, and we took advantage of them while we could.
Silas’s face buried into my shoulder, and he kissed gently at my neck.
It was then I felt the light sting.
I absently rubbed at the spot, feeling a bruise.
Silas’s deep voice reverberated in his chest and seemed to echo through my body, with his lips pressed against my shoulder. “What?”
“Is there a bruise?” I asked.
He shifted, just a little. “I can’t tell.”
North returned, adjusting the waist of a pair of jeans, but still bare-chested. There was a distinct bruise mark on his chest, right over his heart.
I meant to look away, but I kept watching and his eyes met mine. The dark depths changed for a minute.
A sadness I wasn’t familiar seeing in him.
Silently, from the bed where Silas kept his eyes closed, I puzzled over the look, asking him without speaking what happened.
His shoulders dropped a little, and he frowned. “Nathan’s house was broken into,” he said.
“Shhh...” Silas said. “A few more minutes.”
He must have news if he was talking about it. I sat up though, pulling away from Silas and scooting to the edge of the bed. “Volto?”
“We don’t think so,” he said. “They stole stuff. A lot of things. It looks like multiple people. Volto said he worked alone. And at the moment, I really don’t think he went in on this, but he’s not blameless. Who else knew about the cameras besides him?”
I paused what I was doing before my feet touched the ground and stilled, shocked. Stolen. Things were stolen. That hadn’t happened before. “What?”
“A burglary,” he said. “We have the mask. And the drive you all took. They were hidden. Everything that was out though, Nathan’s packed boxes, the stuff Victor brought, nearly everything that looked expensive or could easily be moved out. Even the safe in the wall in the master bedroom’s closet. We were probably lucky Nathan’s secret Academy stash wasn’t accessed. They would have had Erica’s private information.”
Silas grumbled. “Shouldn’t have taken...”
“Too late now.” North cast a look at Silas, silently telling him to lay off.
My cheeks remained hot, and I stared at the empty bed, the pillows untouched. I wasn’t really seeing it, because I was consumed with what we had done. Not only was it clear we’d been hiding something, but what we did with Erica’s computer... even if we hadn’t looked at it yet. We should have told them.
What was worse was North not yelling at me. I took that to mean he was still stewing over the information. He didn’t usually keep his feelings to himself if he was disappointed or angry.
Had he not snuggled with me earlier? Or did he just learn about what happened while in the bathroom and now was angry?
It was hard to tell.
North crossed in front of me, going around the bed to pick up a black T-shirt off the floor. He straightened it, put it on, and then sat on the opposite bed. He scowled, bent forward, brushing his face with his hands. “We can’t go back at this point. We’re down a house.”
“We’re buying one,” Silas mumbled but sat up, pushing himself to sit up against the headboard. He sniffed hard. “It won’t be long.”
“It’ll still take time,” North said. “You can’t buy one in a day. And we might need to be more strategic. Mr. Griffin’s going to come back.” He didn’t look up but shook his head in his hands. “All gone to shit.”
I still hadn’t moved. The implications of what had happened numbed my senses. “How would they have known?” I asked. “The cameras... They saw them in the cameras, right?”
“Someone who knew the house enough to try and they went through in the dark and took out cameras. They knew they were there,” Silas said. “At least the majority. The ones that were still working, they’re going through footage, but it looks like they knew and just avoided those, turned their backs, or kept it too dark for cameras to pick up.”
“So... it wasn’t Volto?”
“I don’t know but we’re not on that job.” He coughed shortly once and picked himself up. “We have other things to do.”
I finally stood up, curious. “Looking for a house?”
“No. We’re following up on your lead. We’re going to prove Erica’s innocent.”
♥♥♥
North had us get ready and get into the black Jeep Wrangler parked near our hotel room. They’d brought extra clothes with them in a backpack and I was able to shower and dress in new soft jogging pants, a T-shirt, and a small hoodie. Silas wore a generic cotton baseball shirt and jeans. North in all black and black boots, the usual. Only he didn’t shave. The coarse hair often made him look older than he was.
The first place he stopped, after dropping off the room key and checking out, was a fast-food place, where we could order breakfast.
