Page 55 of Cyn
“All you really got were rumors. They seem to line up with what we know, so there’s probably something to it, but that’s a far cry from solid intel.”
Cyn made a face at him but conceded his point. “They also probably factor in the source. Some random dude on a chat board talking about a terrorist strike in Boston probably isn’t going to warrant the same kind of investigation than if it had been the same conversation happening amongst the leaders of a larger, more well-known group.”
Joe nodded but looked irritated at having to agree with her. “The problem is, those big groups all started with one person. I get the FBI is short staffed, but it seems like they’d have an interest in monitoring the little guys, so to speak.”
Despite having been in the intelligence world for decades, Cyn wasn’t familiar with the bureaucracy of the Bureau and was pretty sure she didn’t want to be. “You should call Beni and let her know,” she said, rising from her seat and stretching her arms overhead. “Why don’t I go see what Dan has left for dinner.” She dropped a kiss on Joe’s forehead, then left the office. She’d just hit the landing into the kitchen when the alert on her phone buzzed. Glancing at the screen, she saw a delivery truck at her gate.
She frowned. The delivery services all had standing orders to drop deliveries in the mailbox at the gate. Apparently, this one hadn’t received the memo.
Hitting the intercom, she spoke. “Leave the package in the box, please.”
The driver climbed from his truck and, through the camera on her phone, she watched him looking for a way to talk to her. At least she recognized the driver. Tony had been delivering to her for years. But that then begged the question as to why he wasn’t using the usual process.
“Is there a problem, Tony?” she asked.
He glanced around. “Can you hear me?”
“I can,” Cyn replied.
The poor young man looked even more confused, but he started talking anyway. “Got a special one, Dr. Steele. It needs to be signed for, and only by you.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. She considered asking Tony where it was from, but if it was the kind of gift no one wanted to get—like, say, an anthrax letter—she didn’t want Tony involved any more than his job already had him.
“Come on through, Tony,” she said. Once he was back in his truck, she opened the gates.
“What’s going on?” Joe asked, jogging down the steps.
Cyn shrugged and started toward the front door. “Delivery that needs to be signed for. Did you talk to Beni?”
Joe followed her as she made her way to the front of the house. “I did and told her what we discovered. She promised to look into it more, and it sounded like the thing in New York was turning out to either be an abandoned plan or one put in place to mislead them.”
“I’m glad whatever it was they were looking into in New York is proving not to be a legitimate threat, but I’m also glad because maybe it means they can put some resources on the Boston possibility.”
She opened the door as she finished speaking and beckoned Tony in. “It’s freezing out there, Tony. Come in while I sign.”
The young man shot her a grateful look and stepped inside. “Tony, this is the new chief of police, Joe Harris. Joe, this is Tony Dunlop. He’s the primary delivery driver in this area for his company.”
“Chief.” Tony acknowledged Joe with a nod as he held out the electronic signature device to her. “Wasn’t the last chief also Joe Harris?” he asked.
Cyn chuckled as she signed. “His uncle,” she responded. “If it gets confusing, we’ve now deemed his uncle Old Joe, and this is New Joe.”
Tony gave an uneasy laugh, and Cyn knew the chances of Tony calling Joe anything other than “Chief” were slim to none. “Here you go,” he said, handing over a small package.
She glanced at the postmark, but there was too much on the label to quickly discern where it had come from. Instead of focusing on the writing, she ushered Tony out. Once he was down the drive and through the gates, she and Joe walked back into the kitchen where she set the package down on the island.
“Any idea who it’s from?” Joe asked.
She could appreciate his caution, and neither of them was jumping over themselves to open it. Leaning down, she looked at the label. Given it had shipped internationally, the first thing she looked at was the manifest. Apparently, someone had sent her a phone. Which, had she been a teenage girl, probably would have been exciting, but as a grown-ass woman who had seen too many phone-enabled bombs going off, it made her feel anything but.
“I wish I had one of those scanners to scan for explosives,” she muttered.
“Not a bad idea. We could take it into the station and run it through the X-ray. Not exactly the same thing, but it might tell us something.”
She continued skimming the label as she debated Joe’s offer. It wasn’t a bad idea, but taking it to the station would mean getting into the car with it. The words to agree were hovering on her lips when she noticed something on the label.
Gently picking the small box up, she turned it so that the light hit it the way she wanted. Drawing it closer, she examined the small image. Then after a beat, she smiled.
“What’s that smile for?” Joe asked.
