A Better Life

by Liza O'Connor

  Braddock evidently didn’t appreciate his smile and felt compelled to throw out a worst-case scenario. “What happens when they exceed our ability to control them? You’re going to have rogue children doing whatever they want.”

  Hamilton stared at Braddock. “Do you think I’d ever allow that? Not a chance. However, I don’t believe that scenario will ever occur. Angel and her favored men seem to have excellent control of her boys.”

  “For now. But the Culp boy proves how quickly things can change.”

  “If left unattended. These boys will be fathered, mothered, and monitored their whole lives.”

  “What happens when they wish to leave the facility?”

  “Hopefully, that will not happen. But if they insist…” His neck bent to the right. Braddock could interpret that however he liked. No way in hell Hamilton was going to say aloud what would happen to such valuable assets if they wanted to leave. To let them walk out the door would be the equivalent of letting a nuclear bomb wander about a mall.

  Chapter 15

  Angel stared at Leon in concern. “You got these orders directly from the director?”

  Leon nodded, then frowned. “If you have any doubt, call the director for verification.”

  She bit her bottom lip. She didn’t want to hurt Leon’s feelings, but she had been tricked into performing unauthorized work before and it cost her Stevie’s dad.

  She covered Leon’s hands. “I would like to clarify a few matters with him. That doesn’t mean I don’t trust you.”

  “I understand. I’d want to do the same if I were in your shoes.”

  She hugged him for being so understanding. His hands fluttered about her body, uncertain of where they should land.

  Never in all her life had she ever worked so hard to draw a man in. While Leon clearly liked her, getting him to ‘love’ her was proving most difficult.

  She gave up the battle and went to the phone. The director picked up on the first ring.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but I just want to clarify our work assignment today. It seems to be in a different direction.”

  “It is.”

  “Can you give me some idea what you’re looking for? It will improve my chances of finding an anomaly.”

  When he didn’t respond, she added. “I will do my best if you can’t tell me, but my chances of success aren’t as good if I don’t know what I’m looking for. That’s kind of the linchpin to how I work.”

  “Of course. Davenport will be there in a moment to bring you to my office, where I will explain this assignment in more detail.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  She hung up and smiled at Leon. “The director wants to tell me in his office.”

  Leon frowned. “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?’

  Davenport entered the room. “Angel come with me. Leon, have your team continue working on the trails from yesterday.”

  As they walked down the hall to the director’s office, Angel asked her daily question. “How’s Tom?”

  “He’s good. Spends most of his day in the gym.”

  “That means he’s either bored or worried.”

  “He’s definitely bored.”

  “How much longer will he be in quarantine?”

  “Don’t know.” His hand rubbed the center of her back. “Just be patient.”

  “I’m trying, but the boys really miss him.”

  Davenport nodded. “Derrick and I struggle to fill his shoes in that department…and others.”

  Angel couldn’t argue with that. “You might if you ever slept anymore.”

  “Job comes first, Angel.”

  She nodded. She would never want it otherwise. She loved that Davenport was dedicated to his profession. He was a soldier to the core, incorruptible, and inexhaustible.

  He led her into Hamilton’s office and left.

  She studied the director. His brow was furrowed more than normal today.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked as she sat down in the chair before his desk.

  “There’s always a problem.” He leaned back. “How are you?”

  “Good.”

  “And the boys?”

  “They miss Tom…I miss Tom, but we’re being patient.”

  “He will return when he clears quarantine.”

  She frowned. “Did something bad happen when he left to get his daughter? Is Anna okay?”

  “She’s fine. I believe having her dad show up really helped her cope. However, Toby has a problem.”

  That surprised her. Toby was such a rock. He was very much like his father.

  “His new step-father, Sam Anderson, is having negative influence on him.”

  “Sadie remarried?” She found that incomprehensible. Sadie was a devout Catholic. She didn’t believe in divorce.

  “Not legally, but they had a wedding, and Sadie changed her name, so the boy thinks they are married.”

  “Is he upset with his mother? It would only be natural since they’re Catholic. He’d see her remarriage as a serious sin.”

  “Actually, I missed that nuance. Which only makes his behavior even odder.”

  “Can you tell me? I know him very well.”

  As Angel listened to the boy’s conversation with his father, Angel realized if this was Toby’s true feelings then she didn’t know the boy at all.

  “Is it possible for me to talk to Tom? I know he’s in quarantine, but does he have a phone?”

  “Can you tell me how this might help us?”

  “I don’t think Sadie would marry anyone else…ever. She never wanted nor accepted the divorce. Tom got it against her wishes, and she told the judge he’d burn in hell for granting her husband a divorce. According to her, their union was made by God and no man had authority to break it.”

  “Interesting. I’ll try to arrange you an hour to talk to him. But right now, I need you to help us figure out what Sam Anderson holds on his boss, Aaron Hurd.”

  Upon learning a great deal about Sam and his boss, Angel returned to the lab, and with Leon’s help, looked at each man’s bank records, credit history, and medical records, searching for any hint of an anomaly. Finding nothing, she tried a new tactic and studied credit card purchases four years prior and current. She flagged that Sam’s foot size shrunk by a half size upon returning from Africa. Also, his restaurants changed and his interest in books changed. Before, he was a sci-fi buff, but when he returned, he bought mostly college text books even though he was not attending classes. The topics were potentially disturbing: advance computer science and engineering books for Electrical Grid structures and Nuclear plants.

  Convinced Sam Anderson was up to no good, she refocused on the man who hated him, but hired him back when he returned from Africa.

  Finding nothing, she continued to move back in his past. Twelve years prior, Hurd’s pension fund received a two-million-dollar rollover from an outside source. According to his company’s records it was his pension from his prior job, and while his prior company no longer existed, their filings with SEC did not support that claim.

  Once she had dug about in the other executive’s finances, she called Hamilton and asked for a meeting. She believed she had found why Hurd was being blackmailed.

  ***

  Angel had to walk through her evidence several times before they were convinced.

  “But you can’t prove this transfer is wrong,” Braddock challenged.

  “No. Not unless someone kept the ledgers of this defunct company. However, I can tell you what I think happened. Mr. Hurd was the CFO of a failing company. He, and Mr. Ott, the CEO, conspired to remove millions from the company before it fell into bankruptcy. They did so by funneling the money into the pension accounts and then out to a third-party pension firm where later they retrieved it and move it into their new job’s pension funds, a perk which this bank offered to executives.”

  “But how did Sam Anderson find out about this?”

  “I’ve no idea. Nor do
I understand why the group in charge of the bankruptcy didn’t find it. They are supposed to scrutinize all the money leaving the company in the last six months before a bankruptcy.”

  “So, someone in the bankruptcy team missed this?” Braddock asked.

  “Big time.”

  He stood up. “That’s just what I needed.”

  Angel watched him leave. “I think he left happy.”

  Hamilton patted her hand. “He did indeed.”

  “About my request to speak to Tom—”

  “Let’s wait and let Braddock follow up on this lead.”

  “But we need Tom’s input in this matter. I have a different theory about what’s happening here, but the only one who can say if it has merit is Tom.”

  “Tell me your theory.”

  Angel’s heart trembled in fear. “Why won’t you let me speak to Tom?” For the first time the possibility that Hamilton had been lying about Tom being in quarantine rose to her conscious thought. “Is he dead?” She could barely speak those last words as tears swelled in her eyes.

  “No!” Hamilton stated quickly. “Tom is alive, here at the facility.”

  “Then why can’t I speak to him?”

  “Because I wish to keep him out of the investigation. He’s too emotionally involved.”

  “So am I, but you’ve still made good use of me. Tom knows his wife and son. I need to talk to him about this marriage because, in my mind, it opens up a whole new explanation to Toby’s aberrant behavior.”

  “What avenue?”

  “I’m not saying unless Tom comes up with the same conclusion on his own.”

  Hamilton’s eyebrows rose in challenge.

  “This lies outside the perimeters of my job. You have no right to be angry at me,” she responded, wishing she could just let them solve the matter on their own…only she feared they would solve it incorrectly.

  “I will patch you in from here,” Hamilton finally stated.

  That it was so easy…that he could have let her speak to Tom from day one... infuriated her, but she tried her hardest not to reveal how upset she was at this betrayal. But she damn sure would never trust him again.

  He turned the monitor towards her. ‘I’m engaging the camera on the computer, so Tom will be able to see you.”

  Her heart fluttered when all she saw was a well-worn recliner. Her expression must have alerted Hamilton something was wrong. He turned the monitor around, then turned it back to her. “Tom, please return to your room at once.” He then met her worried eyes. “He spends a great deal of time in the gym.”

  A moment later, she saw Tom rush to the room and come to a complete halt when he saw her on his TV. A happy smile lit up his face, followed quickly by worry. “Angel is something wrong?”

  “It’s about Toby.”

  He sat down on the front of his chair and leaned forward. “What’s happened now?”

  “Mr. Hamilton updated me on the situation.”

  He sighed heavily in relief. “Then Toby’s still alive?”

  She looked at Hamilton and he nodded. “Mr. Hamilton says he is.” She no longer trusted the man enough to make his words hers.

  Tom rubbed his face with his hands. “I still can’t believe he has changed so fundamentally in such a short time.”

  Nor could she. “Tom, I’m struggling with the possibility of Sadie remarrying. It’s against your religion and I remember you telling me…”

  “Her religion was everything to her.” He shook his head. “Thank God I wasn’t actually driving when Toby told me. She is such a hypocrite! First about Tommy, then about getting a divorce.”

  Angel knew exactly what his referral to Tommy was about. Sadie had kicked him out of her house on the presumption that Tommy was fathered by Tom because of his name. Yet, twenty years before, Anna had been fathered by another policeman on the force, but Tom had never once called her on that matter.

  “I agree with you, but that doesn’t explain Toby’s reaction to this marriage. He has always supported Sadie’s refusal to divorce you. He called it a cardinal sin.”

  “He certainly did until Sam came along. To be honest, in this matter I thought Sadie would remain unmarried for the rest of her life. Her religion means a lot to her.”

  Angel wiggled forward, wishing she could reach out and give him a hug, for his slumped shoulders and bowed head told her he desperately needed one.

  “Was she big on confessions?”

  “Oh yeah. Every Saturday morning, like clockwork.”

  “And this marriage…how would that go over when confessing her sins?”

  “It’d be a major setback. The act of entering a second marriage without getting the first annulled, is not a forgivable sin, thus she could never receive the Eucharist again.”

  “So, in Toby’s eyes, his mother would be living in mortal sin now?”

  “The old Toby, yes…” He then frowned. “Damn it all! My son was trying to tell me something was wrong, and I just wasn’t hearing him.”

  Hamilton rose and pulled up a chair beside Angel. “Tom, why do you think that?”

  “One, because Angel’s right. Toby would never support a marriage that would send his mother to hell. Secondly, because his behavior during the first half of the day was entirely different than the second half. He was abnormally quiet on the drive down to Norfolk, but when he hugged me before we got into the SUV at Princeton, his hug seemed more heartfelt than usual. Not less.”

  Tom’s head fell back as he stared at the ceiling. “It all changed when he received a phone call. God! How stupid could I be? My son’s aberrational behavior was an act, so I’d investigate Sam Anderson.”

  “Tom, this week your son told his new roommate that he preferred his step-father to you.”

  Tom stared at Angel. “That’s what clued you in, isn’t it?”

  Angel nodded. “Toby adores you. A love that strong can’t just disappear overnight.”

  Her words seemed to calm him a bit, but damn it, the poor man really needed a hug. She wished Hamilton would let him out of quarantine. He looked perfectly healthy to her.

  “Then why would he say it?” Hamilton challenged.

  “This roommate. Was he by chance new?” Tom asked.

  “Yes. We had a former roommate removed and an agent put in his place.”

  “Then he more than likely fears this is a spy for his new father. It’s better odds for him to play the matter this way. I will always forgive him, but he’s probably walking a thin line with this Anderson guy.”

  Anna nodded in agreement. “Tom, do you think Sadie is still going to confessions?”

  “If he’s allowing her to. Yes. And she’ll tell the priest everything. One of the reasons she can’t get an annulment over my indiscretion is because she confessed hers long ago.”

  “Which priest does she prefer?” a voice behind Angel asked.

  Angel jumped several inches up. Unfortunately, she had been sitting on the edge of her chair, thus landed hard on the floor.

  Braddock helped her up and resettled her in her chair. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  He then turned to Tom and waited for an answer.

  “Father Donavan at St. Michael’s.”

  Braddock wrote the name down. “This could be helpful, thanks.”

  He started to leave, but Hamilton stopped him.

  “Hold on, even I know a priest won’t tell you what’s said in the confessional.”

  Braddock snorted. “There are simple ways around that. But don’t ask me what I intend to do.”

  Angel knew exactly what he planned, and if it helped save Toby from whatever hell he was currently in, she supported bugging the confessionals.

  Once Braddock left again, Hamilton spoke to Tom. “So, let me understand. You do not believe your boy was trying to get you to send him forty-thousand dollars?”

  “I don’t know. I would really like to hear that conversation again, then I could evaluate the nuances with my new perspective. However, I
understand why I’ve been removed from the case. I’m too emotionally involved…not to mention in quarantine.”

  “Well that was the reason I was keeping you out of the loop, but Angel pointed out she was also emotionally involved, yet still managed to be helpful.”

  Tom smiled at Angel. His appreciation and love came through on the monitor. Of all the men she had ever loved, Tom was the only one who really grasped what she needed. However, he’d already told her he’d never be able to marry her because of Toby’s insistence in God’s eyes he remained married to Sadie.

  That’s why she knew something was off. Toby had been taught since a small child it was an unforgivable sin which would cast the sinner into hell. Tom must have been stressed and unable to think when Toby declared his step-father was a great guy, or he would have seen this at once.

  That night as she slept with Davenport, whom she suspected had specifically asked for time off to soothe her, she still struggled to understand why Sam Anderson had latched onto Sadie and Toby. What could he possibly want from them? Even if he wanted to take down the electrical grid and nuclear waste safety precautions, how could marrying Sadie move that objective along? It made no sense.

  Some major part of his plan was still unknown, and that frightened her.

  Chapter 16

  The next day when she returned to digging about Sam’s life, she found a hidden file. When she opened it, she was shocked by the warning within.

  Angel. We finally meet. Unless you hit on the hyperlink below in fifteen seconds, Toby Culp is dead. SA

  She jumped to the phone. “Mr. Hamilton I just received a message from Sam Anderson. I have to respond in eight seconds or he’ll kill Toby.

  “Do not respond.”

  “But—”

  “That is an order. Stay where you are!”

  Tears streamed down her face. Still holding the phone, she stepped closer to the monitor.

  His voice came over the speakers. “Leon, under no condition allow Angel to get near her computer.”

  Leon moved between her and her station. His face looked pained, but determined, his lips in a thin line of regret.

  The others stared at her in confusion.