Page 11 of Once a Hero

How on earth are we going to find two more brooches?

If Philomena was dead, then much information would have died with her.

“Ken, could you check the local PD to see if Philomena made it?” Beatrice texted him. He would see it after he woke up from his nap.

Chapter Five

The investigation wasn’t moving as fast as Jake would like, and he liked it even less when he received a call saying he had been fired from the FBI.

Forget suspension.

Ten years of service flushed down the drain.

On this rainy afternoon, twelve hours after Philomena had keeled over, everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.

With his only contact dead, Jake had hit a brick wall.

And so at four o’clock, Jake found himself sitting across from Earl in the latter’s hotel room suite. Between them, a laptop whirred, and Helen Hu’s sunburned face smiled into her camera.

“Autopsy takes time,” Earl said. “A few days if we rush it, but without the FBI cooperation—how on earth did you get yourself fired?—it could take weeks.”

He was chewing gum and it annoyed Jake. He got it that Earl was trying to quit smoking, but could he do it quietly? “Stop popping new wads of gum into your mouth, will you?”

“Does this bother you?” Earl added another wad and chewed loudly. “As I was saying, autopsy takes time. I bet you she was poisoned. Coffee was all she had.”

Jake drew a deep breath. The pain in his thigh continued. The rod inside holding his bones together, the missing muscle and tissue.

Let me be the one to kill her.

This was not the time for Jake to wonder if God would approve. In fact, his entire career at the FBI was probably not approved by God. After all, he had to go undercover for very long spells at a time—sometimes years—and he had to live a lie the entire time. Sometimes he had to do things that his own mother would not approve. Certainly not things he could talk to his pastor about.

Pastor? What pastor? He had moved from place to place so much in the last ten years that he had no particular church home.

What would it feel like to settle down and stay put in one place for once?

“My offer still stands. Come work with us.” Before Helen could continue, her phone pinged. “Okay. We have something here. Streaming it now.”

“I should’ve put the brooch in my pocket,” Jake said as Earl opened another window frame on his laptop to see what Helen was sending them.

On the screen was the restaurant dining room from every angle. Helen zoomed in to the two tables.

The stranger at the next table was eating chocolate cake while looking at her phone when Philomena walked in.

They watched the replay until the part when Philomena fell over, clutching her chest.

What could possibly kill in minutes?

“Slow down,” Jake said as the video continued.

He recalled a server spilling liquid on the stranger’s blouse. After she came out of the ladies’ room, she flicked the edge of her hair.

That was when Jake saw her hairline. “She’s wearing a wig.”

“Okay, we’re getting somewhere.” Earl tossed out his squishy wads of gum.

“Thank you, man.”

Earl shrugged.

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