Page 26 of Quiet Protector
Once I have Carlyle’s details jotted down, I thank Phillipa for her assistance before joining Isaac next to the only window in Megan’s room. Pretending Phillipa’s husky request for me to call her tonight wasn’t laced with hidden innuendo, I lock my eyes with Isaac and say, “Boss… umm… Isaac.”
My ruse is played to perfection. Not only does Isaac’s chest rise so fast I’m confident I am moments away from having my eye gouged out by one of his peacock feathers, he reminds me were on an even playing field. “You can call me Isaac. I'm not your boss.” It gains him my respect. A lesser man would have tried to play on my ‘supposed’ insecurities.
Isaac listens intently when I disclose, “I called in a favor with a girl I know. The owner of this property is Carlyle Shroud. He's fifty-eight years old and has been receiving disability checks since a workplace injury nearly two decades ago.” Even with knowing everything I’m informing him by heart, I read it off my notepad. It makes it seem as if I am as unknowledgeable in this case as his crew, which keeps the playing field even as he strived to make it only seconds ago. “His disability checks have been deposited each month, but none of his bank accounts have been utilized in months, which is surprising. Carlyle is what you might call the local drunk. More than eighty percent of his support payments are spent at the liquor store in town.”
“Does he have any vehicles registered in his name?” Isaac asks, curious.
Nodding, I flick through my notepad. “Yes, one. A black Dodge truck, license plate number 44W—”
My eyes float up from my notepad when Isaac interrupts, “2285?”
When I nod, his features flood with devastation before he yanks at the window we’re standing next to. When it fails to budge from his frantic tugs, he smashes his elbow through the glass like he’s a drug lord outrunning the DEA.
The urgency of his panic comes to light when he shouts out the window, “Where’s Isabelle?”
Carlyle’s only mode of transportation is parked at the front of his shed, and we’re miles from the closest town.
That can only mean one thing.
He’s still here.
When Isaac shouts for Hugo to “Get Isabelle,” I follow his sprint down the warped stairs. They’re not sturdy enough to take the weight of our frantic stomps, but we take the risk, preferring to fall through the rickety wood than have Isabelle reach the barn she’s pacing toward before us.
During our sprint across the overgrown field, I call in backup. “My name is Brandon James. I'm an FBI field agent. My number is 443567. I need an ambulance and a police unit brought to 15634 Snow Mountain Road, Parkerville.”
My stomach gurgles when I request a first responder, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. Carlyle purchased a woman on the black market. His stability has already been discredited and don’t get me started on his daughter. People only go that crazy when they’ve been subjected to unimaginable things.
The churns of my stomach overtake the heaving of my lungs when I break through a partially cracked open barn door on Isaac’s heel. The smell vaping off the rotting corpse hanging off the second story of the barn is inconceivable. I have an iron stomach, yet even it is struggling. Think of the worst smell you’ve ever imagined. Now triple it, and you’re not even halfway there yet.
My neck cranks to the side when a pained sob tears through my ears. The expression on Isabelle’s face when she buries her head into Hugo’s pecs has me picturing what Melody’s response would have been when she saw Joey hanging lifeless from the oak tree she climbed every week from the age of eight until almost eighteen.
Is that why she fled that night?
Was the image too much for her to bear?
I almost wanted to run that night, but since Joey’s skin wasn’t lifeless and unnatural like the man hanging from the beam, I tried to save him. My attempts were woeful, but at least I tried.
If only I could say the same thing about my relationship with Melody.
12
Brandon
When Phillipa leans back in her bed, exposing more of the silk negligee she’s wearing, I pretend not to notice the way the frilled lace edging grips at the generous swell of her breasts. She’s drinking wine like she was the first time we FaceTimed, but she only just cracked open the bottle for our debrief.
I thought yesterday was a clusterfuck, but it had nothing on today. Isabelle is distraught after seeing her first dead body. I can’t get Joey out of my head, and I’m stuck in this bumfuckville town for another night in case the agent brought in to investigate Carlyle’s death wants to ask me any questions. I gave him my cell phone number and told him to call me any time, day or night, but like some 1950s black and white old-town sheriff movie, he doesn’t like cell phones. He prefers face-to-face meetings.
“Who was called in?” Phillipa asks before taking another generous sip of her wine.
The bedding ripples around my backside when I scoot up the bed to rest my back on the headboard. I’ve seen the mess hotels like this one have on their sheets, so I refuse to slip between them—even when fully clothed. “Harvey Rose.”
Phillipa’s nose screws up. “I thought he retired?” When I pull a face as if to say,he’s well past retirement age, she laughs. “I’ve heard he’s a hard-ass. How’d you go about requesting to be kept in the loop on this case?”
Air whizzes out of my nose. “He said, I quote, ‘Kid, we’ve got no time for mollycoddling around these parts. If you need a babysitter, I suggest you go back to the academy’ unquote. But he came around… eventually.”
Phillipa hears something in my words I didn’t mean to express. “What did you give him?”
“Nothing.” I roll my eyes like she can’t see me. It doubles her glare. “I dropped some names that had him gasping like Marilyn Monroe was giving him head. No big deal.”
