Page 10 of Unraveling Connections

I roll my eyes but can’t keep the amused smile off my face as I start clicking through the video feeds, “Do you remember what time Pete said that the cameras were tripped?”

“I don’t think he did say,” Jensen replies, pulling out his phone and pressing a few buttons before holding it up to face.

I am assuming that he’s calling Pete to ask, and I lean back in my chair. There is no point in trying to go through the footage when Pete can tell us exactly when it happened and save us time.

“Did he know?” I ask when he hangs up.

Jensen nods as he leans over me and starts tapping away on the computer, putting in the time that Peter just told us.

“Huh, I wasn’t expecting someone to actually have been here,” I mutter as we watch a woman wander around the house. “She seems familiar with the place though.”

Jensen leans closer to the screen, and I fight the urge to lick him, since his neck is right there, now is not the time.

Frowning he says, “She should know her way around this place, she used to live here, that's Luc’s mom.”

“What?” I ask as I move closer and squint at the screen, “fucking hell, you’re right.”

“Well, of all the people I was expecting, she wasn’t even in the top ten,” Jensen says.

“No.” I agree, “I thought she was on some island somewhere and had been since Luc’s father went to prison?”

“She’s supposed to be,” Jensen replies, and then once again pulls out his phone, “I’ll call Alaric just to double check, but I’d be very surprised if she was in the country and the organization knew about it.”

I nod as my eyebrows dip down into a frown. She shouldn’t be here, as Jensen said; she should still be on an island somewhere, keeping out of the mess that her husband made, but as I watch her move through the house with purpose, she doesn’t turn on any lights, not that she would need to since she knows the house and can walk around with ease without them on but if you weren’t doing anything questionable, you would turn the lights on, wouldn’t you? Not only is that fishy, but the cameras that Alaric set up didn’t pick her up, which means she knew they were there and disabled them somehow.

Which is not something that I was aware that she knew how to do, if anything, I would have expected her to do what we thought she was doing and stay on an island enjoying life and her newly found freedom. The fact that she is here, and she knows things that would be considered out of character for her suggests that we should have looked at Luc’s mother a lot closer.

I would have been inclined to believe that she was just coming back maybe for nostalgia reasons or because there was something left here that she wanted, however unless Alaric confirms otherwise, then we have no record of her being in the country, which means she most likely flew in under the radar and there’s not many reasons why you would do that.

Of course, the other piece of damning evidence that makes it blazingly clear that she isn’t here for a simple trip down memory lane is that I am currently watching her move through the house with purpose and head straight for the room where Luc led us.

The room with the floor safe.

Somehow, I manage to flip through the cameras and find the right one, rewinding it enough that I can see when she enters the room. Someone must have closed the safe after we emptied and bagged everything to be sent to headquarters so that they could test not only the file, which we knew had poison on it but also the other contents just to make sure that none of that was coated in poison either. Without missing a beat, I watch as Luc’s mom moves over to the exact position that the safe is in and then drops to her knees. She carefully runs her hands over the carpet until she finds the edge of the square piece that lifts up and then pulls it.

Chapter Four

Ever

Iwatch as she smiles triumphantly and then starts to put the code in for the safe, there is no hesitation, no checking she's got it right, she simply knows it. Her smile falls as she sees that the safe is empty, and I lean back in my chair with a frown.

“If she was working with Hunt, then why would Hunt send the first guy to try and get to the file?” Jensen questions, finished with his phone call and clearly having watched the screen for long enough to see the same things that I did.

“Exactly. We can assume that if Luc’s father was working with Hunt, then there is a big possibility that Luc’s mom knew him or knew of him.” I start, wondering aloud.

“True,” Jensen replies curiously.

“So, it could be entirely possible that something in her life has recently changed, and she is clever enough to realize the leverage that she has with a file like that? She could use it to bribe him, or she could sell it back to him.”

“The second option wouldn’t be very smart of her because she would be the only person who knows what is in that file in order to bribe him with the information. Hunt’s not stupid enough to leave her alive. If she handed the file over to him, she would be signing her death warrant.” I give him a look, and he adds, “But I see what you mean, and it’s possible that she thought that way.”

“It would explain why one of Hunt’s guys was sent here first. What did Alaric say?” I ask, changing the subject.

“There is no record of her coming into the country, and as far as all their intelligence is aware, she is still on the island living the quiet life.”

“That’s possibly even more concerning; it not only means that she’s come into the country undetected, but it means that she knows how to do it.”

“She may have picked up some things from being married to Luc’s dad,” Jensen suggests.

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