Page 40 of Once a Hero

“I think we should forget this expedition.” Raynelle. Her voice sounded like she had just woken up.

Beatrice stared ahead. Through the windshield, she could see the sunlight every now and then when the wind blew the leaves to let the sunshine through.

“I love the woods and all, but something seems off,” she said. “I’m beginning to think that this is not the right place. Someone tell me how Philomena could live here when there’s no driveway to her cabin?”

“Good point.” Kenichi surveyed Google Maps to see what they were up against. “Okay. I see a lake—or pond—near the cabin. There seems to be a parking space on the other side of the lake.”

Raynelle rolled her eyes. “Please don’t tell me they park their car and row a boat.”

“You don’t necessarily have to row a boat if you have a motorboat.”

“Smarty pants, Ken. I’m saying it’s just a lot of trouble to get to and fro. Is that a vacation home, perhaps?”

Beatrice drew a deep breath. “Jake’s parked in front of us, and he’s going to see us. We have no kudzus—like back home—to hide our big van.”

“So we’re going to sit here and do what?” Raynelle was in a bad mood.

Kenichi laughed. “She needs more painkillers.”

“No, I don’t. I need my right arm to not be broken, is all. I can’t protect you, Bee. I feel so useless.”

“I can take care of myself,” Beatrice said.

“No. Your brother is going to kill us if something happens to you,” Kenichi said.

“Speak for yourself, Ken.” Raynelle sat back and winced. “I don’t work for Benjamin.”

Beatrice was about to get out of her driver’s seat when a loud rap on her window startled her.

She spun around and screamed.

Outside the window, Jake laughed. He motioned for her to roll down the window.

Beatrice hesitated before she decided to do what he asked. “What do you want?”

Well, that came out wrong, but whatever.

“We could’ve carpooled.” He grinned.

Beatrice noticed the dimple on his cheek. She hadn’t been paying attention, really. But Jake kept showing up everywhere she went. It didn’t help that she was following his trail, having no trail of her own.

She felt helpless.

In her last project the year before, she had recovered five oil paintings dating all the way to the nineteenth century. They belonged to a prominent Jewish family who perished in the Holocaust during World War II. The artwork collection was sent to Jerusalem, where their relatives eventually loaned them to a holocaust museum.

It had taken Beatrice and her team three years to find those paintings. Yet they had good fortune all the way. Each week was an adventure for her as they were met with success after success.

From that mountaintop celebration, she fell down the hill into this pit of repeated failures. At the bottom of the valley, she found herself having to follow a former FBI Special Agent who might not know what he was doing either.

After all, she had to call for help on his behalf six months prior.

He was almost shot the other day at the Fisherman’s Wharf.

Now he had lost his partner, all laid up in the hospital from broken bones and gunshot wounds.

And here they were following him.

Yep, the same dude.

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