Page 47 of Frederick
How long would the council seek him out? Sure, it wasn’t as if we were going to simply give up on searching for him. Marco would go into a file of unresolved cases. But would we actively search for him like we were at the moment? I wasn’t sure.
“You bring up an interesting thought. What if he has already moved on? Do we even know what his next goal is? Has Salvatore and his team figured out any sort of pattern?”
I shook my hand because I simply did not know. Like so many things with this case, there were multiple different levels of it, and Marco and Riccardo Gallo were the absolute most dreadful portion of it.
“At this point, I think, instead of trying to find a needle in the haystack, which would be Marco, we should focus on locatingMalorie and then following her. If she is with him, she’ll lead us to him.” That was the best I had, and it wasn’t all that great. I wasn’t the first to voice those words, but we seem to keep coming back to them because we had been left very few other options.
Vaughn came into the conference room Warwick and I we’re sitting in. Evan trailed in with him, followed closely by Everest.
“There was another sighting,” Vaughn told us. That grabbed our attention, and immediately more Warwick and I were up and out of our seats.
“Where?” I asked.
“At the bank in Timber Valley. We have the video footage to back it up this time, and there’s not questioning that it’s here. Not only was Elizabeth seen there with Malorie, there’s a very clear view of both of them on multiple instances, and they were seen leaving together after spending several minutes with a teller.”
“Do we know what they were doing at the bank?” Warwick asked.
“Elizabeth pulled out a large sum of money and gave it to Malorie. After that they left together. When we checked outside cameras, we were only able to get a really good view from the ATM that was on the side of the building. That camera showed Malorie getting into a pickup while Elizabeth got into an SUV. There was a man that looked as if he could match Marco’s description, in the truck,” Vaughn told us.
I thought about this new information and wondered how useful it was going to be and helping us find them. “When was this? “
“Unfortunately, it was yesterday. For whatever reason watching Elizabeth or James’s bank accounts wasn’t a top priority. They had seemed as if they were, devastated by all of the news they were receiving regarding Marco. I don’t think anyone thought she would give them a bunch of cash in order to helpthem escape.” Vaughn shook his head. “What do they need cash for? Isn’t Marco supposed to be a warlock with magical powers? Why can’t he just do his magic thing and…proof?”
I looked at Warwick and raised an eyebrow. The same questions seem to be asked over and over. Next line “He hasn’t lost his powers somehow, has he?” Everest asked.
Warwick and I were shaking our heads in unison. “Not as far as anyone knows. We haven’t been able to get close enough to him in order to be able to bind his magic. That would be ideal, but he always seems to be one step ahead of us still.”
“How much information have we been sharing with James and Elizabeth? What if they’re telling Mallory who is warning Marco?” Everest asked.
“There is always that chance,” Warwick said. “The council has anticipated that to some level, and there, of course, has been some information that has been shared with them to see if it somehow gets back to the pair.”
“This is all just really frustrating,” Everest said. “And dumb.”
I had to bite my lower lip to keep from laughing. He wasn’t wrong. It was dumb. Just like previous assignments, they’re always seem to be someone that would forever be one step ahead of us. We had all of these capabilities, but yet we were reverted to doing things the way humans were forced to do them. We had to observe and take notes while hoping that we got a break in the case and we were able to catch our foe.
“With all of this new information, has there been an updated plan?” I asked.
Vaughn gave me a look of sorry. “No. We were just supposed to share the new news.”
I looked over at Warwick, completely unimpressed.
“If that isn’t just wonderful,” I said. I glanced at the clock on the wall, and decided I’d had enough. “Since there seems as if there is nothing for us to actually do, going to go home andspend the rest of the afternoon and evening with Dominic. We are getting closer to deciding on what it is that we want for the theme for our nursery, and that seems to be, a much more enjoyable way to spend the afternoon than sitting here making my brain hurt,” I told them. I stood and without a word from any of the others I left.
It was close to four afternoon anyway, and sure, I probably could find something to do somewhere in the council, but why? I still loved my job, and was excited that we were doing wonderful things. But this assignment was simply going nowhere. We didn’t know where Marco was, and unless we happened to get really lucky with a sighting that was reported to us quick enough, I didn’t think we would find him in the very near future.
I made it all the way to the front desk before someone caught up with me. I was surprised to see it was Benjamin. He was usually one of the last to leave.
“Is everything all right with Eli and the twins? I asked.
“As far as I know. I’ve just decided to take the rest of the afternoon off. I finished all of my paperwork, and unless the council decides to start sending enforcers back out into the field, I think we’re going to have some upset enforcers soon.”
I looked at Benjamin absolutely surprised. “I get it, I understand. They are after Marco and they really want him. But I agree completely. Is this our only assignment at the moment? Why? Surely there are other injustices that need to be dealt with. Why can’t some of us be sent on those?”
Benjamin glanced over at Slater before he offered me a tight smile. What did that mean? I hadn’t said anything in front of him that wasn’t allowed. Besides, Slater was actually a full enforcer. He had the same Clarence as most everyone else in the council, so why couldn’t we talk freely in front of him?”
“Trust me, I understand completely. It was much like this when we were searching for Justin. And then after he waslocated, when we were looking for Orson. The biggest difference between them and now is the fact that the council is fully staffed. We were run ragged with all of the time we spent out in the field.”
We checked out and said our farewell to Slater, before exiting the building. It was towards the end of March, and at our elevation, we still had a lot of snow and cold weather. Luckily, it wasn’t actively snowing at the moment.
