Page 33 of Unraveling Connections

Ipoint at him and then look at the others, “See proof that she doesn’t understand us.”

Peter scoffs, “She is a cat. She most likely understood you and decided to do it anyway.”

I can’t help but laugh at that. “Yeah, that’s more likely what happened.”

“I don’t know what’s going on right now, and quite frankly, I don’t feel like I’m going to care until I have coffee in me,” Cash says.

That makes all of us laugh. Cash is as grumpy as Ever in the morning without his coffee. None of us bother to explain what we were talking about to him since he’s not lying, and he really doesn’t care.

Pete and I work in companionable silence and when it comes time to take everything and start putting it on the table, Trick and Cash get up to help without me having to ask them to. The smells of breakfast must be doing the trick and waking them up because everyone is awake and sitting around the table by the time the table is fully set and all the food laid on it.

Smiling to myself I take my seat; it’s like magic how everyone appears. No one is dressed, everyone is in comfy clothes or pyjamas and we definitely all needed the late start today.

“Shadow is up in my room,” Ever says to Peter once she has started her second cup of coffee.

“I figured she would be she loves you,” Pete replies.

“She pushed me off the bed,” Cash grumbles.

There is a beat of silence before everyone bursts out laughing.

Ever lifts her mug so that it’s obscuring her smile and shrugs, “She wanted cuddles.”

“I wanted cuddles,” Cash retorts, with a twinkle in his eyes and an over-exaggerated pout on his lips.

Ever loses it and starts giggling, her laughter is infectious, and soon has everyone, including Cash laughing along with her.

"Dude, you're lucky she didn't kick you out when you came in this morning,” Trick replies with a laugh.

After that, everyone quickly turns their attention to eating, and the conversation pretty much stops for a while, as it always does when we first start eating. Around halfway through the meal, Cash turns to Trick.

“So, we’re all going through footage today?”

Trick nods and finishes his mouthful of food before he answers, “Yeah. We will go through as much as possible. I was thinking that we should check it a couple of hours before we arrived when HQ noticed that the cameras went down and thought it was us, and maybe even the days leading up to when we were there to see if there were any glitches on the cameras toindicate that someone was looking for things in the house before then.”

Riot nods in agreement as he says, “That is a really good idea. There is a chance that they have been going through the house for days trying to find the location of that file.”

“Exactly,” Trick nods.

“I’ve split the footage up equally and sent email links to all of you over the secure network.” Peter explains and then adds, “If you give me an hour, I can go back and split the data three days before as well to see if anyone came back.”

“Wow, thanks, Pete, that would be great,” Trick replies.

“No problem. I couldn’t sleep so thought I may as well do something productive with my extra time awake instead of watching TV, I still watched TV, but I worked too,” Pete replies with a chuckle.

“Everything okay?” I ask him concerned, although I am pretty sure I know why he couldn’t sleep.

“Yeah, I’m just missing Eli. The limited contact that we have when we go on jobs doesn’t help. I haven’t spoken to him for a few days.” Peter explains.

“He should be checking in today or tomorrow. I will make sure he gives you a call afterward.” Trick replies, and then adds, “Hopefully, it will be safe enough if he’s managed to call in an update.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Peter replies. He stands up from the table and grabs his plate, “I will go and get on with the footage, while you guys finish up. As I said, it hopefully won’t take me too long, and then we can all get started.”

“Thanks man,” Cash replies this time. Once Pete’s left the room he adds, “I was thinking that it might be a good idea to put a request in with Mr R to talk to the guy that we sent back with those other agents. He was pretty chatty so there is a good chance that he may give us the information that we need.”

Trick nods, “Good idea, and it is certainly worth a shot. I will message him now and put the request in. Obviously, I still want to go through all of the footage; he could lie to us or give us false information. It will all be easier if we have something to corroborate it against.”

“Exactly,” Cash replies. “Although he didn’t seem shy of telling us shit before, I mean, he told us to be careful with the file.”

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