Page 11 of Mad Max

“Yeah, just finishing up. Should be another fifteen minutes, and then I’ll make it back in time for Church. Yeah, see you then.”

I stare at the vest on the back of the guy who’s kneeling on my floor as he ends his call and grabs a screwdriver out of the bag beside him. The door’s wide open, and he’s messing with the lock. The patch on the back of his vest reads Hounds of the Reaper with a three-headed dog over two scythes, and I find the design oddly appealing.

“Don’t shoot the messenger, will you?”

“Huh?”

He looks over at me and nods to my gun. One I might be holding but won’t be shooting. His eyes linger on my legs a second longer than some would say is appropriate before he gives me a chin lift and goes back to work.

“Mad Max let me in. Told me to set you up with new locks. Should be another few minutes, and then I’ll be done.”

I’m not the swooning type. Not even the type to use the word. But there’s definitely a reaction happening inside me upon hearing he set me up with a new way to keep certain people out.

Who knew a beast could be sweet?

“Want something to drink?” I offer.

“Sure.”

I probably should have something else but Kool-Aid, but it’s my house, and I’ve honestly had more people over in the past twelve hours than the past three years. I grab him a blue one, since I just don’t see him liking grape for some reason and hand it over. He gives me a curious glance before he takes it and drinks it all in one go. I do the same with my red one. Love this drink. Beats coffee any day of the week in my book. Okay, anything beats coffee. That stuff is just gross. Yuck.

A few minutes more and the guy—who I think is Casper, if my memory works; well, that and the patch with his name on it—leaves. He gives me some speech about what type of lock it is and the bells and whistles, as it’s not just one you use with a single key. It’s got automatic locks, timers, and I swear some sort of radio. Or at least that’s what I heard. All I care about is that I just use it like any other door lock, and I don’t have to give a spare key to my landlord. I can now unlock the door for him from my phone when he calls and notifies me that he needs to come in for maintenance or something. Okay, so that part was cool to hear. The rest I didn’t really get or even care about.

After I put Remmi away—no reason not to name the gun I own; it makes sense to me since she’s my PIC, or partner in crime—I grab my laptop and plop myself on my couch. I wiggle a bit, half wondering if there’s an indent in it from the beast who last sat here, but soon ignore it as I start looking at my work emails.

Most people hate working long hours on Fridays, but with my job, I work when I need to. I don’t follow a typical schedule; if an email comes in that needs my attention, I reach out to the client and start working, even on weekends. Woohoo to running my own consulting firm. Consulting is a bit of a stretch from the truth of running polygraphs on those who need to know if someone is lying, but I like the ring of it. Also helps that no one works for me to contradict my title, so it’s a party of one I have to deal with. Only part that sucks is once a year when I have to pretend to be human resources and fill out so many damn reports about the company and set up the benefits. It’s good, but the paperwork is just a pain.

I’ve been working with one of my repeat clients on and off for the last six months. They have another person they want me to vet out the truth about. They have someone every few days, so I know the routine. They never tell me exactly what’s going on, but based on the questions they want me to ask, it’s obvious: human trafficking. But if the clients want to do the whole “pretend you don’t know what’s going on because we never said it out loud” thing, it’s fine. It’s their money. I get paid either way. Despite the number of people they send me, I never get all the answers they want. Not sure if the case is local or not. This client deals on a national level and usually just shows up for the appointments with people at my office. No clue if they flew in or drove across town. Not my job to know; I just ask questions and report the answers, and they take what they want from it. And the fact that they keep using me lets me know they aren’t discouraged with the results. They might not know who’s taking people, but now at least they know who’s not involved.

I jump into the prep for my newest interviewee and confirm the date and time the client is available. I get consumed by the details, and without even noticing I’m doing it, I find myself going over past interviews to find a connection. I’m not emotionally involved with what’s going on, probably half the reason the client keeps using me. My reputation is for being icelike. It’s not that I don’t care, but if it’s not affecting me directly, there’s no reason to get emotional over things outside my control. Even then, there isn’t a real reason to lose your head. Emotions do nothing but cloud judgment, and others see it and use it to control you.

My uncle taught me that. My parents pushed me as a kid, probably more than parents should, but it’s done now and there’s nothing to change. They were harsh to the point of being cruel with how they wanted me to know it all. They learned early that I was gifted, and my parents exploited that to their benefit. They were both smart in their own right, but I think half of it was jealousy too. No way should a child the age of ten be correcting them. They sent me off to boarding school, where more testing and instruction just distanced me from my peers even more.

When they died in a house fire because of bad wiring, my uncle was the only family I had left. To avoid going into the system, since I was only fourteen, I went to him. We established our routines pretty early. He was already thoroughly involved with the government then, and I was more like a house sitter than him watching over me. Which I preferred, since I had already graduated from college and was trying to find my way outside the academic world.

He didn’t coddle me, nor did he push me to be more than I already was. What he did do was challenge me. Or, more accurately, he showed me how to challenge myself. Schooling was easy—everything else was hard. His first challenge was to push out all emotions. Most of them weren’t hard to do, as I had no love for my parents. But anger was a bit difficult. I wasn’t mad that they left me, just mad at myself for not leaving them sooner. It was the toughest lesson he taught me, but one that’s served me well. Push the emotion out and see the bigger picture. Anger gave me nothing, but because my parents pushed me, I now own a successful international business, all before I’m twenty-five.

The bigger picture I’m looking at in front of me now has four specific areas to focus on. Not sure if the client is seeing the trend, but there are subtle differences that make them different. Seven interviews came from the East Coast and six from the West, four from the north border, and so far, only two from the south. Each person has some sort of connection with international borders, be it a crossing location or a port. The client might see this as one issue, but I see each as a separate entity that has a singular focus. Not a shared boss but a common result: the kidnapping and transportation of individuals out of the country.

I’m sure some victims are being taken to others inside this trafficking organization as well. But if the drop-off points occur at the exit points of the country, then keeping ties within the US should be a little easier to contain. Seems logical, at least to me, but I realize that sometimes even the client has become emotionally involved.

The ding of a new email notification pulls my attention away from me making plot points, hoping to use geographical location to narrow a higher target location the client can focus on. But the email isn’t from a client. It isn’t even on my work or personal accounts. It’s on my uncle’s.

I’ve monitored his account since before he got locked up. I stumbled upon it when I was living in his home those first few months after my parents’ deaths. He walked in on me using his computer, which he said I could, but I don’t think he was expecting to receive any work emails while I was on it. That’s the only reason I knew about his dark web account. He never seemed nervous about me knowing things. I think it was his own challenge to see what would happen.

But when he was arrested, and I was questioned about what I knew, I never spoke about this, nor did he. He encrypted and cleared out the emails each time he used it, so I never really studied them. I don’t know why I keep the link open. Since he was caught and tried for treason, nothing has come from him. Not till now.

:\\the Candy is gone\\:

I find myself biting my lip, not sure if I should reply or not. I still remember the messages I saw that first day. The back chatter was still visible, and no encryption was used. Jimmy didn’t start the encryption and deletion till after that, probably to save me from knowing more than I should but not hiding what he was doing. Showing he trusted me on some level, as he never took the computer away or told me to forget what I saw. But he was also not trusting me, or maybe just protecting me from getting more involved than I was. Which I was fine with. Still am.

But this one’s not encrypted. And I know the encryption setup works on both sides. The person sending it must know it’s me they’re reaching and not my uncle and didn’t code it on purpose.

My curiosity gets the better of me, and I deduce that Candy is a person, as it’s the only thing capitalized. I decide to send a response.

://How long has the store been without//: I figure that sounds encrypted enough to not alert anyone who might be monitoring this channel. Just in case Jimmy’s secret email account actually has been compromised.

:\\a week. can Uncle bring some to the shop?\\:

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