Page 129 of Skin In the Game (The BlackWater)

It was evening. Late, none of them had left the office, none of them had been properly home for days. Not since the Ball.

“You need to see this.” Brandon said walking into Cole’s office. He hadn’t left the place at all since Maddie had gone. Had slept there, worked there, pretty much lived there.

“What is it?” Cole asked rubbing his eyes and looking up at him.

“Maddie’s medical records.” Brandon replied.

“What?” Cole snapped.

“I had an analyst pull them.” Brandon said.

“For what purpose? We’ve already looked through her medical records, it was part of the onboarding for working here.”

“Not these.” Brandon said and Cole frowned.

“What are you talking about?” He snapped.

“Just look.” Brandon said passing the file over and Cole narrowed his eyes as he took it. He opened it frowning.

“These aren’t the ones…”

“Exactly.” Brandon said.

Cole flicked through, scanning the papers before looking back up at him.

“Look where she was.” Brandon stated pointing to the paper in front of Cole like he couldn’t see the name right there.

“That doesn’t mean anything, those dates were right after she came back from China. It probably had something to do with that. We both know how that ended.” He said.

“Not that address though. Look Cole. You don’t just stay there because you’ve burnout.” Brandon stated and Cole looked back at the papers again.

“What are you saying then?” Cole snapped.

“You know exactly what I’m saying.” Brandon replied.

Cole frowned thinking, because it didn’t make sense. How could it? He had known her for months now, had had her living in his house, surely he would have seen something, would have noticed something?

Someone knocked at the door and they both looked to see Becky there. She was still using crutches and was leant against the doorframe holding something up for them to see. Cole quickly flipped the folder shut. He didn’t need anyone else seeing it, especially not while they didn’t have any definitive answers.

“What is it?” Brandon said.

“I found something. On the video.” Becky replied.

“What video?” Cole asked.

“The one of Maddie.” Brandon answered before Becky could.

“What?” Cole snapped looking at Brandon.

“I got Becky to watch it just in case. It felt a good compromise in case there was something on it.” He shrugged.

“There was.” Becky said and they both looked at her then.

“What?” Cole asked.

“Let me show you.” She said holding the screenshots up and walking in.

“She does this thing with her hands. I was watching it trying to figure it out and then I remembered she did that weird hand thing before. She called it hand signals.” She explained laying the photos out for them to see.

“In her left hand she doesn’t do it, she does what I think is morse code but in her right she does what we think is a series of numbers.”

“Who’s we?” Cole asked. He couldn’t keep the tone out of his voice because clearly it wasn’t just Becky who had watched the video. Someone else had. Someone else had seen her like that and he felt the rage surging through him at the thought of it.

“Me and Summer, one of the analysts. She’s second generation Chinese. She identified all the numbers.”

“So it’s a message?” Brandon asked.

“Yes but it doesn’t make sense.” Becky replied.

“What does the message say?” Cole asked his fists still clenched, his anger barely containable.

“It says ‘Mark 667851’.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Cole said.

“I don’t know.” Becky stated sounding deflated.

“It doesn’t mean anything to you?” Brandon asked Cole and he shook his head.

“No.”

“Keep working on it Becky.” Brandon said and she nodded leaving them to it.

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