Page 15 of Once a Hero

“Atreasure hunter, huh?” Earl’s voice seemed to say he didn’t believe anything Beatrice Glynn had said back at the San Francisco Police Department Central Station.

He pulled the SUV out of the parking spot and eased into traffic outside the police station. Jake buckled on his passenger side safety belt.

“You believe a thing she said?” Earl asked.

Jake didn’t know what to think. It turned out that Beatrice had gone at night with her real face. No prosthetic nose. Her face also matched her identification and passport. Jake felt that she had been herself at the police station.

Jake figured that if they sent her data to the FBI, he might call his FBI agent friend Stella Evans to check on Beatrice’s real identity, considering he himself now had zero access to any FBI resources.

Alternatively, they could ask Helen to look into it. She has connections at the NSA.

Then again, since Beatrice was an American citizen, the NSA spying on her could be a powder keg of a whole host of constitutional problems.

Jake did not tell the SFPD that he suspected Beatrice to be the same person in the café the night before, and that she had swiped the three-amber brooch.

To his credit, Earl also didn’t say a word.

“Who is she, really?” Earl asked again. “I don’t buy all that talk about death threats.”

“She has proof. Police reports.” Jake wasn’t trying to defend her. “That ex-CIA she hired as her bodyguard seemed to be doing her job.”

“The sniper must be useless if he missed her and got your ear.” Earl laughed.

Jake reached to touch his bandaged ear. It still stung a bit, but it would heal. Two stitches at urgent care and he was good to go. “I didn’t get a chance to thank her for saving my life.”

“You meant when she pulled you to the groundafteryou had already been shot?” Earl didn’t seem to agree with him.

“I should try to thank her in person, but we were interviewed separately.”

“I’m sure she will show up again. What is she looking for anyway?”

“She didn’t say, but the brooches led to one place.” Jake looked out the window. “Just like those twelve Petros eggs that Helen and Mama Hu uncovered. They all lead to one place.”

“The Amber Room.”

“Yep. How could anyone find something that no longer existed in its original form?”

“Beats me. I’m not a treasure hunter. Not my thing.”

“Not mine either. I don’t even care about the Amber Room. I just want to see Molyneux behind bars. I’m tired of chasing her.”

The clock on the dashboard said it was past one o’clock in the morning.

Jake was wide awake on Paris time.

Earl was yawning. And driving.

“Let’s go back to the hotel and get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow we’ll think better,” Jake said.

“It’s already tomorrow.” Earl laughed.

“We have so many questions. Maybe we’re asking the wrong questions.”

“And so many wrong answers.”

Jake leaned his head on the headrest of the passenger seat, sorting through that day’s finds.

He had lost his informant, now in the morgue awaiting autopsy.

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