Page 9 of Liberating Mia
“Find out where Finn is right now.”
“Right away, Mr. Keon.”
It seemed to take forever, and no time at all, in the time it took her to tracked him down.
“He’s currently at the hotel, sir,” she informed him.
“Thanks, Mary-Beth.”
“You’re welcome. I’m off to lunch now, unless you need me for anything else?”
“No, that’ll be all, thanks. Enjoy your lunch,” Larry said.
He waited until he was alone in the office before placing a video call to Finn.
“Morning, sir,” Finn greeted as the call connected.
“You got a second?”
“Yes, sir. I don’t have to head out on stakeout for another hour at least. There a problem, Boss?”
“Yeah.” He said no more for a moment as he tried to gather his thoughts. The news had really put him in a tailspin, and he needed to pull himself together. He and Finn would have to figure out how to move forward with the information Marcus had given them at the last meeting they’d had.
“Sir? How bad is it? You seem distracted.”
“I had Jim Wilder in my office just before I called for you.” He watched as Finn sat up in his chair.
“Yeah? That doesn’t sound good.”
“It wasn’t.” Without warning, he grabbed the nearest thing to hand and flung it across the room. His agent never said a word, simply raised an eyebrow.
“I’m gonna take a wild stab at this and guess the good warden did not bring happy tidings,” Finn said, nodding in the direction the stapler had flown in.
“They found Marcus Forrester dead in the showers last night. Turned up missing at lights out, so they searched for him. Apparent cause of death was a broken neck.”
“Fuck,” was all Finn said. Short and to the point. Exactly how Larry felt.
“Yeah. My thoughts exactly. It’s like this case is cursed. For every step forward, we end up five steps back.”
He watched as Finn got up and stalked over to his hotel window. He stood staring out onto the street below, not saying a word. For many minutes, he remained motionless, appearing to be taking in the scenery. But Larry knew his agent was mulling over the options. He and Finn had worked together long enough for him to know how the man’s mind worked.
That was one of the many things that made him the first-class agent he was. He never leapt before thinking things through, and he always looked at everything from all angles. Finn never left anything to chance.
Clearly coming to some conclusion, Finn returned to sit in front of his laptop. “Sir, I think we should seriously consider calling help. Look at, perhaps, setting up an international, inter-agency taskforce to branch out and start digging deeper. Forrester gave us some good stuff at the last meeting. Let’s not waste that. His death doesn’t mean the case has stalled again. We still have leads we can follow up.”
Larry mulled over the words. “Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you in the morning. My morning. You going out tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a couple of leads to follow up. Like I said, I’m heading out on stakeout in a bit and then tomorrow I’ve got a couple places to check out before I head for the airport. My flight to Cape Town leaves in the evening.”
“Alright. Then you contact me when you can, and we can talk more then.”
“You got it, Boss.”
Ending the call, Larry reached for paper and a pen. He had plans to make.
Chapter Eight
Seated at the breakfast bar, Larry took a sip of coffee just as his laptop indicated an incoming video call. He’d decided to take the call at home to avoid alerting their mole to the new plan of action he’d come up with.
