Page 50 of Bernadette
“Your son, Chuck has been helping Morgan and the women that work for her on a sensitive case. I can’t give details, or anything, but know that he has helped tremendously in gathering information for the case.”
“An FBI case?”
“Yes, and there are other federal agencies involved, but as I said, I can’t get into details.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Unfortunately, your son was injured while on the case and as we speak, he’s undergoing surgery on his left wrist. It was shattered in an accident.”
“Oh my,” Angela looked at him with wide eyes, then turned to look at her boss. Before she could say anything, Mr. Greene nodded to her.
“Go, Agent Stokes explained the situation. I looked it up before calling you in here, you have two months of leave available.”
“I don’t know if I’ll need all of it, but I have to get to my son.”
“Go.”
“I caught a cab here, if you don’t mind, I’ll drive you to your home, you can pack a bag, then I have a jet waiting for us at the airport.” Mikel grinned as he leaned in and whispered, “It’s the company jet.”
Angela giggled, then quickly stood. “Give me five minutes to gather my things.” She turned on her heel and it surprised her that Mr. Stokes was right on her heels.
“I’ll go with you, and we can leave from there.” He held open the door, and did as he said he would. In under seven minutes he was behind the wheel of her car, while she strapped herself into the passenger seat. He had taken the keys from her when she admitted her hands were shaking.
“I just need directions,” he said as he looked at her and saw how beautiful she was. She started talking, and it took several seconds for Mikel to get his head in the game. With a smile to himself, he followed the directions, and looked over at her when they pulled into the driveway of a small modern house in a well-developed neighborhood.
“This looks like a nice place to live.”
“It is now, but when I bought the place almost thirty-five years ago, it was rundown, and there weren’t many houses that were habitable. After living here for about five years, people started coming in and doing what they call flipping, and they revived the neighborhood. For me, there’s only one good point to it.”
“What’s that?” Mikel asked as he walked with her up her front walk and waited for her to open the door. He sucked in his breath when she looked at him and grinned.
“My house’s value sky rocketed. I paid about a fifth of what the flipped ones sold for, and when I re-did my own home, I got all the labor done for free, I only had to purchase the materials.”
“Let me guess, the J’s and Chuck?”
“Yep. I think that was one of the conditions Chuck gave them about starting a business. He wanted to have a house as an example of what they could do, and he took before and after photos. I got new siding, new landscaping, a new roof, a porch, and that’s just on the outside. On the inside, they removed a couple of walls and instead of four bedrooms and one bath, somehow, I ended up with three and two. With the master having its own bath.”
“Wow,” Mikel said, then followed her in. He smiled when he saw her kick off her shoes, and he did the same, since he did it at the compound and at his own home. He looked down and grinned when he saw that he had no holes in his socks.
“Would you like anything to drink?”
“No, I’m fine, go pack, and I don’t know if you know where Chuck lives, but you might want to pack jeans, or slacks.”
“I have jeans, and I believe he said someplace in North Dakota.”
“He does, and his neighbor is a working ranch. I’m not saying that Chuck will be working it, but he’s there quite a bit.” Mikel wanted to wait until they were in the air before he told her about Wyatt, and what happened to him. He didn’t want to scare her into contacting the Stuarts and having them rush to Morgan’s side. He knew it was cruel not to say anything, but he also understood that Morgan wouldn’t want the constant phone calls to see whether he was awake or not. It really was a catch 22 situation.
“I’m ready,” Angela said as she came out of the back of the house pulling a large suitcase with her. “I have enough clothes for a week and a half. I figure there’s a laundromat someplace I can wash my clothes.”
“There is, I suspect that the J’s, A’s, Morgan, and Chuck, along with the women will insist you go back to the compound with them. There’s several hours distance between the hospital he’s in now, and the compound.”
“Oh.” Angela nodded and walked around making sure she had everything shut off. She looked at him and laughed. “Thank goodness I was going to stop after work today to get groceries.” She opened her refrigerator, pulled out a small jug of milk and one of juice. She poured the juice in a glass, and asked if he wanted it. He took it when she said she’d take the milk. Together they finished them, and she rinsed the containers and put them in the garbage.
“Where do you want that taken?” Mikel pointed to the bag, and lifted it out.
“There’s a large green container on the back side of the house. If you could toss those two jugs into the blue one, that would be great. Let me rinse these glasses, and we can be on our way.”
“I’ll meet you at the car.” Mikel said and left the house with the bag of garbage. When he met her at the car, he looked up and around when Angela came out of the house, at the same time as a black SUV pulled up.
