Page 19 of Avenging Kelly

I saw my brother’s head lift and his eyes studied Kelly for a moment before he smiled. “So, Mathis had to surrender his phone every time he came to visit you in prison?”

Bells sounded off in my brain as if I were in front of a church on Sunday morning. If Dallas were right, then anyone at Leavenworth in a position of authority could have had access to Mathis’ phone and anything on it… like texts between him and any of the operatives at GEA. They could have read his messages to Casper about Mia, copied his contact list, or even checked his internet search history. I needed to talk to Casper about that.

“I guess. I never thought about it. Yeah. I mean, sure, he woulda had to leave his phone,” Kelly responded as he shifted his glass toward Rafe for a refill.

Of course, the chef didn’t hesitate to top him off, settling into his fact-finding mission. “Okay, so tell me about this chip thing.”

Kelly chuckled and shook his head. “You’re tryin’ to trick me, Chef. I already told ya this stuff is classified.”

“Yeah, maybe, but if we’re going to figure all of this out, you’ve got to give us a little more information. That’s the only way we can find out who took your sister and killed Mathis. So, tell me about the chip,” Rafe insisted.

Much to my surprise, Kelly whipped off his thermal Henley and walked over to where Rafe was sitting. “Run your finger down the left side of my spine. You’ll feel a bump at C3 in the cervical curve. That’s where it is. It’s too close to my spinal cord to be removed. That’s what The Gambler says, anyway.”

“I, uh, I don’t really feel anything, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” Rafe responded.

“Who’s The Gambler?” I asked, though I was sure I already knew the answer, thanks to Ryan Fortner… Dr. Frances Ritchfield.

“She’s the doctor who… I can’t tell you that,” Kelly responded before he giggled like an over-served frat boy, stumbling around the table to take his seat again.

We really weren’t able to get much more information out of him, but maybe what we’d learned would trigger something else? It was a hope.

“Okay, I think he’s had enough,” I told Rafe as I took the glass out of Kelly’s hand and put it on the table next to mine that was still half full.

I pulled out his chair and helped him stand on legs as stable as wet noodles. “I’ll be back,” I announced to the others as I wrapped his left arm around my neck and guided us upstairs and to his room, where I pulled back the covers before I dumped him onto the bed.

“You’re gonna be in pain tomorrow,” I told him as I helped him slip off his shoes before pulling the sheet and blanket over him, still fully clothed.

I went to my room and grabbed my toiletry bag, fishing out a bottle of aspirin and sprinkling two in my hand before taking them back to Kelly’s room. He was already out, so I left the meds and a glass of water from his bathroom on his bedside table.

After I flipped on the light and pulled the bathroom door almost closed, I left Kelly to sleep it off and went downstairs to talk with my brother and Rafael. They were still sitting at the table where I’d left them, talking about Rafe’s worldly travels.

“So?” I asked, not caring that I was being rude by interrupting them.

“He sleeping?” Dallas asked.

“Passed out cold. He’s going to have a hell of a headache in the morning,” I commented.

“I’d bet. At least we know the op name and more about that chip,” Rafael replied.

“I doubt that’ll be much help. You’ll play hell finding anything about top-secret government ops on Google,” Dallas joked.

I turned to Rafe. “There was a satellite phone in that bag from the plane, right? Can we get a call out with the jammers working?”

Rafe blew out a long breath. “No, and I’m too afraid to turn them off. We have to figure out how to destroy that chip. It had to be embedded in the tissue near the spine or it’s damn small, because I didn’t feel anything when he directed me to the spot.”

“You’re a chef. Can’t you dig it out?” my brother, the asshole, asked, bringing a raucous laugh from Rafael.

“My skills are more suited to fileting salmon, not a man. From what I can tell, it’s in a dangerous position near the brainstem. One wrong move… well, I don’t have to spell it out. Someone knew what the hell they were doing when they injected it,” Rafe responded.

“We could turn off the jammers and let ‘em come, you know. Then we’d know who the hell the bogeyman is,” my brother suggested.

“Actually, we have another lead. I think The Gambler is Dr. Frances Ritchfield. Ever heard of her?” I questioned my two companions.

“No, but in the morning, I’ll go to the ranger’s station on the other side of the island and get a ride back to the mainland with the shift change. I’m going to get in touch with Nathaniel Crossley, the Italian office’s tech, to have him check her out since he’s not in the US. I think it might be too dangerous to use Casper for this, don’t you?” Rafe asked.

“Probably,” I agreed.

I had to hope Giuseppe’s IT guy could dig up something to give us something to go on, not matter how small. We couldn’t stay in hiding forever, could we?

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