Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

F rank Castello watched the back alley as Ben worked the lock on the door of the townhouse at the address Abby sent to Jake an hour ago. "Coming up on two minutes."

"And we're in," Ben said, turning the knob and pushing the door ajar to check out the wall nearby.

They hadn't seen any evidence of a security alarm on the outside, but in this day and age, and particularly in this city, an alarm system wouldn't be a surprise. In fact, not having one would be.

"No alarm," Ben said, pushing the door wider to step inside. "No dog either."

"Didn't expect one," Castello said walking in behind him and closing the door.

"Which? A dog or an alarm?"

"Either. The woman works as a ghost. Dog needs care and attention. It's a commitment. Not something she's known for in the family. Alarms bring the cops and from what I know about Zoe Edgars, she tends to avoid cops, feds or anyone in authority."

Ben stared at him.

"What?"

The other man shrugged. "Never heard you talk so much at one time."

"It happens." A lot more since marrying Sydney.

When he'd get into what she called "a funk" he liked to think of a quiet period, she'd tease him until he'd share his thoughts with her. It didn't matter if she was sitting beside him on the couch or she was off on a photo shoot in another country. He enjoyed their conversations. Even his sisters out in California had noticed the changes in him when he and Sydney had visited them. Between her and the Edgars clan, which were now family to him, he did find himself opening up more. Others he wasn't super close to, even co-workers like Ben? Yeah, he was still working on that.

They moved into the bottom floor of the townhouse, clearing it first to be sure no surprises in the form of assailants were waiting to ambush them, then Ben took the basement, while Castello cleared the second floor.

Frank searched the two bedrooms, one of which had been set up as an office, where he found her laptop, but no hard drive or backup file system. There were no paper files anywhere either. The bathroom was a fairly typical woman's space—hair care products and blow dryer, a drawer full of makeup, feminine products—no medications other than over the counter allergy meds and pain killers.

It was a nice home. One of those old row houses built at the turn of the previous century, probably about nineteen-ten if he hazarded a guess. One of his passions, beside Syndney, was restoring old homes. This place had been upgraded recently with the downstairs converted to an open concept room of kitchen, dining area and living space. The real oak wood floors, refurbished built-ins, shaker-style cabinets and marble countertops, along with the clawfoot tub, pedestal hexagonal tile floor in the bathroom, kept the place cozy and warm. Not cold and austere like one of those glass and chrome monstrosities some people found appealing. No, this would be a loving home. Not something he'd associate with a lone wolf like Zoe.

The first time he'd met her was under very dangerous circumstances at the inauguration ball that turned into a clusterfuck. Just like the other Edgars, she'd held up well under fire. She'd handled the arms-dealer well without blowing her undercover persona and kept the sniveling bastard from getting them all killed. However, she'd disappeared before they'd gotten the others in their group out of the building, which made him question how much you could truly trust the woman.

The next two times he'd seen Zoe, she'd called in the EIS team to help mop up a case she was working. The first to take down the arms dealer Bricker from the ball. The second time had been breaking up a drug, gun and human trafficking ring operating between Houston and Mexico. Whatever she was mixed up in this time, Castello had the feeling it wasn't going to be good.

"Nothing downstairs," Ben said joining him on the main floor, "except the laundry room in one half of the basement and what looks like a workout space in the other. Weights, exercise mat, stationary bike. And get this, a heavy punching bag. The woman was into some serious strength and combat training."

"Given that her cover has been as a bodyguard on more than one mission, it makes sense," he said, studying the living area. There was something off about it.

The leather sofa and chair faced the fireplace that was flanked by two built-ins, one containing all kinds of books—biographies, histories, maps, mystery and romance fiction—the other shelving unit had been changed to house a flat screen TV. A quilt draped over the back of the sofa and colorful pillows were scattered across it, as if thrown there haphazardly. A painting of mist rising off a mountain hung on the wall behind the couch. Other kinds of art, mostly hand-made textiles, hung on the other walls or sat on the end tables. The only things that didn't fit were the two photos hanging above the mantle over the fireplace.

Placing the laptop he'd retrieved from upstairs on the craftsman style coffee table, he stepped closer to the fireplace.

One photo was a color of Zoe and a young man in Navy whites, her brother Zach. The other photo was a black and white picture of a fishing trawler. In front of it were five men and a beautiful woman. It looked like something he'd seen once in the old LIFE magazines with images of World War II. The name on the boat said the Folly . Ben, the Edgars' father, once told him that his father and mother met in the war while he was working for the Office of Naval Intelligence on this boat. One of the men standing next to the woman resembled the Edgars brothers and the woman reminded him of their sister Sami, only taller.

What irritated him about the picture was the frame. He'd expect something black or a dark wood that wouldn't distract from the image, which Zoe definitely considered important and personal. Instead, this frame was gilded in gold-plating, like something you'd see in an old Victorian house in England. Gaudy and not fitting into her cozy American style.

"Why are you staring at that photo?" Ben asked, coming to stand beside him.

"It doesn't fit." Castello leaned in, lifting one corner of the picture away from the wall and peeked behind it, just in case she'd rigged it to explode if removed from the wall. No wires except the one stretched across the back to hang it on a nail in the brick chimney.

Lifting it up and off the wire, he turned the photo around. Taped to the back was a small envelope with Lucifer written on the front. He chuckled, remembering hearing Zoe call Luke that the night of the ball. This was meant for him. He pulled it free and studied it.

"You're brave," Ben said.

"Why?" he asked as he ran his fingers over the envelope. Something bulky was inside.

"Messing with a letter addressed to the devil? Not a smart move if you ask me."

"I didn't, but it's actually addressed to Luke. Apparently, she gave him that nickname as kids." Frank chuckled. "He hates it."

"You going to open it?" Ben asked as he opened the bottom cupboard beneath the TV where a DVD player and game system, along with DVDs and games were stored. Thorough in his search, Ben opened each case to be sure nothing else was inside.

Frank appreciated that about the man. He'd met Ben at the same inaugural ball where he was working as a waiter. A former marine, he'd been an asset to their group when he'd helped them get a group of innocent people out of the hotel. Since joining EIS, Ben had shown his worth as a field agent. Good with a weapon, he also knew how to conduct thorough property searches such as this one, quietly surveil suspects or persons of interest without being identified, and was someone they'd come to depend on in dangerous situations.

"I think I'll wait until we meet up with Jake." Slipping the envelope into his coat pocket, he went to the kitchen to help in the search to be sure they didn't miss anything else Zoe might've hidden in the house.

"Not much to find here," Ben said when they'd looked in every nook and cranny of the townhouse. They'd put everything back exactly as they'd found it, sans the laptop and the little envelope. The WWII photo even hung back in its original spot.

"Given her work, I'd say keeping secrets hidden is second nature to her," Frank said as they climbed into the rental SUV and headed to the safe house address he knew by heart.

They drove past a line of unobtrusive row houses in Georgetown, each with matching garages on the bottom floor. He pulled into the one on the end. It was the first house he'd purchased with his inheritance money from his grandfather's estate. Nothing stood out about the house. It matched all the others on the outside. On the inside was a whole different story.

Unlike Zoe's townhouse, his place had plenty of security cameras, alarms, bullet-prove glass, and steel-plated doors. It was meant to protect whoever was inside from threats outside. Despite all the security, it wasn't meant to be a prison, unless the protected person residing inside wasn't exactly cooperating with the government voluntarily. Not as cozy as Zoe's home, it was decorated in a style to soothe the anxious and calm the resentful.

Once inside, he reset the alarms and they headed through the mud room/security level and up to the first floor of rooms.

"I see you didn't have any problems with the alarms on the front door?" he asked Jake who was seated at the table, looking at a stack of papers in a file in front of him.

"None. How'd things go on your end?"

"Her place was clean, like home designer magazine clean. Nothing out of place, no open files full of spy info. Found her laptop," he said, setting it on the table, then pulled the little brown envelope from his pocket. "And this hidden behind a picture. It's addressed to Luke."

"Actually, it's addressed to the devil," Ben said coming in from the kitchen with a soda from the fridge. "This place is well stocked for a safe house."

"When you have someone here to keep them safe, you can't have groceries or take out delivered." Castello said. "So, I have it restocked after every time it's used."

"What do you mean the envelope is addressed to the devil?" Jake asked.

Frank slid it across the table to him as he sat.

Jake read the front and laughed. "Sami told me once that her cousin called Luke Lucifer. Gets under his skin."

"Yeah, he hates it." Castello smirked before growing sober. "There's something inside."

Jake turned it over and opened the seal on the flap. "Well, since the golden boy is on the side of a mountain, I guess we'll just have to see what it is." He turned it over and dumped the contents into his hand. A key and a sticky note folded in half. "Looks like a locker key."

"To where?" Castello asked. "Does the note say?"

Jake shook his head. "Nope. Just numbers."

"Some sort of code?" Ben asked.

"Don't know." Jake pulled out his phone, took a picture of the key, then another of the sticky note. He hit a number on his contact list and hit speaker phone.

"Did you find something Jake?" Abby immediately asked from the other end.

"Castello found an envelope Zoe left for Luke. I'm sending you two photos of the contents." He sent the photos and waited for them to cross the internet airwaves.

"Got it. Give me a second."

Jake and Frank exchanged knowing looks. Abby was searching her brain for where she might've seen a key like the one they'd found somewhere in her past. She explained it to them once. Whatever she saw, no matter how big or small, her brain made a snapshot of it and stored it in what she called her filing cabinet of memories. When she needed to, and sometimes when she didn't want to, her brain would just pull up the image.

"Got it. The key is a storage locker key. From a bus terminal or maybe a drop and ship mail place."

"Not the post office?" Frank asked.

"No. A private one."

"Any clue about the numbers?" Jake asked.

"It's too long for a social security or phone number."

"Ever see one like it before?" Frank asked, hoping to spark that memory bank of hers.

A pause from her end again as she searched her brain. "No. But I've already asked Brianna to look at some numbers for me in regard to Zoe's finances. I'll see if she has any idea what these are and get back to you."

"Any word on the others? Have they found her or her car yet?" Jake asked.

"Luke said they were headed deeper into the mountains, but the state roads out of Norton hadn't been cleared yet, so the going was slow at best."

Frank exchanged another concerned look with Jake. "The longer it takes to find her…" he left the sentence unfinished. They all knew the chances of finding Zoe alive dropped by the second.

"Anyone get a hold of her brother Zach?" Jake asked.

"Not yet," Abby said. "We were waiting until we had some sort of concrete information to get to him. He's on a ship in the Pacific right now."

"Not much he can do from there," Ben said, and the others nodded.

"Sami said once we know something, one way or another, she'll get the information to him."

"Sounds like a plan," Jake said.

"Before you go," Abby said, stopping him from disconnecting. "Any information about who or why Zoe was hanging out around that townhouse in Adams Mark?"

"Nothing concrete yet. How about you? Any idea who owns the place?" Jake said, opening a file folder in front of him.

"I'm working on that, but I've hit some shell companies on it. Even with Luke's special program, it's going to take me some time."

"I've got a friend pulling me surveillance camera footage in the area and should be sending it to my email soon. I'm hoping to find Zoe on them and see who she's following. If I get any good pictures, I'll send them your way. Keep us posted on the others."

"I'll let you know what they find."

They disconnected and Jake leaned back in his chair. "I hate not knowing what's happening with the team in Virginia."

Castello nodded. "You're usually at the center of all this and I'm holding the gun out in the field, not sitting staring at a laptop screen. That's Luke's specialty."

Ben leaned one elbow on the table, angling his chair sideways. "He handles himself well in the field, too. Certainly, got us out of that mess at the inaugural ball. Kept picking up strays on his way out." He paused and took a drink of his pop. "Although Zoe did give him the slip with her arms dealer."

"He was very insistent that Abby could handle the computer stuff at home and coordinate everything this time," Castello said with a grin.

"Yeah," Jake grinned back. "Sami's hoping they wait two more weeks before announcing Abby's pregnant."

"Sydney has next week in the pool."

Ben stared at them in surprise. "She's expecting?"

Frank and Jake nodded.

"They're trying to keep it a secret, but Luke's mom is sure of it. She's a Labor and Delivery nurse from way back. None of her daughters or daughters-in-law have snuck a pregnancy by her," Jake said.

Castello noted that tidbit of information to pass on to Sydney who was thinking they should start their own family before—how did she put it? Oh yeah—he was too old to play with the kids. He pointed to the map in front of Jake. "What's the plan here?"

"I think we set up some surveillance around the address we're pretty sure Zoe was watching." Jake pointed to the exact house on the map. "There are several spots we can use. An internet café across the street, an Indian restaurant and with all the homeless in DC these days, one of us could dress like one and pick a spot to squat and watch."

"That will be my job," Ben said, rubbing his thick beard. "You two guys look too clean cut to be out on the street for anytime at all. And we passed a thrift store a few blocks back. I'll just go down and see if I can find some old stuff, maybe an army uniform jacket and a baseball cap."

"Get the local team, anything else might draw attention," Frank said, receiving a no-duh look for his effort.

"Here's an earbud for each of us," Jake said opening a little container. "The less we use our phones out there, the better. Everything in this damn town is monitored."

"Won't they pick up on this frequency?" Ben asked, slipping one of the buds in his ear.

Jake slowly lifted the corners of his lips in a sly smile. "Not these. I know a guy."

"Okay. I'll go get my stuff and head down that way. I'll let you know when I'm there. Anyone in particular I'm looking for?"

"Not really. I'll be in the café and hopefully will have the street camera videos to search for anyone coming and going when Zoe was staking out the place. That might give me an idea who she was watching If anyone comes on the radar from that footage, I'll shoot a picture to your phone."

"Got it." Ben headed out the front door.

Frank watched him go. "After he served two tours with the Marines, Ben was on the streets a while before getting that waiter job during the inaugural ball that's why he knows how to fit into the homeless vibe of the streets."

"We all get our talents from somewhere," Jake said, studying the files in front of him. "You never know where life experiences will take you or how they'll come in handy when you least expect them. Like Katie's past with the cult."

Castello nodded. "Her ability to climb and repel down mountains as part of the paramilitary training the Prophet put her and the others through is why she's going with the brothers to look for Zoe."

"Best people, best skills for the right job."

"And if they find her alive and injured?—"

"—Katie's nursing skills will come into play." Jake sat back from the table. "Unfortunately, I think the likelihood they'll be needed are slim to none."

"Yeah, and slim just left town," Frank finished for him, then nodded at the files in front of him. "Anything interesting in there?"

Jake heaved a sigh. "Zoe worked some nasty cases. Illegal arms deals. Human trafficking, especially kids. Drugs from the cartels. Could've been any one of them coming after her."

"What was she working on now? And for which three-letter agency?"

"According to my source at State, Zoe didn't work officially for any of the three-letter groups." Jake said, leaning back in his chair.

Castello didn't hide his surprise. "Who did she work for then?"

"Ever heard of Areneum?"

Frank drew his brows together, shaking his head. "No, can't say as I have."

"It's Latin for spiderweb or cobweb."

"Okay. What's that got to do with Zoe?"

"Areneum is a very quiet company of people with very specific skills who are used by those aforementioned agencies to infiltrate high-risk groups."

"Someone like Zoe."

"Turns out whatever she's doing now, even her handlers at Areneum don't know about it."

"Something personal then?" Frank asked, wondering what rabbit hole they were headed down. "Maybe someone from one of her old cases? Some loose end she forgot to tie up? Someone going after her for revenge? Maybe her cover was blown?"

Jake shrugged. "Could be any of those. We were involved in three. Bricker's final takedown was in a joint effort with both the FBI and Homeland. The child trafficking one in Mexico was with the Homeland and DEA. Both those involved me, you, Abby and Luke. We were careful to have her arrested and news of her sentencing or death going wide so her cover was intact."

"The third one was when we took down Crandal in Houston. Instead of calling the agencies, she called in us just after we started EIS."

"Yeah, about that. Why didn't we call it C&C Investigations? Castello and Carlisle. Why did we go with Edgars Investigative Services?"

"Because there were more Edgars," Jake said with a shrug. "And it would've been Carlisle and Castello."

"If you say so."

"Alphabetical."

Frank arched a brow at him in doubt but went back to Zoe's work. "We know her cover wasn't blown there."

"Right. We can eliminate those three missions, since we were on the ground for all them." Jake's laptop dinged indicating he'd gotten an email. He leaned forward to read it. "Good, the surveillance videos are here. Let's get going."

Frank picked up his coat and double checked the charge level on his phone. Halfway. Not a problem, he'd just charge it in the car as he watched the townhouse. "I'm going to park down the block after I let you out a block from the café. Ben can wander around."

"Let's hope we figure out who Zoe was watching before someone arrests us for stalking." Jake said as they climbed into the SUV. "It would've been helpful if Zoe had filled us in on what was going on or even let Luke or Abby what she was up to."

"Lone wolves keep everything to themselves," Frank said as he pulled out of the garage. "This whole operation is making me twitchy."

"Why?"

"When I was on a protection detail, I had an idea who the bad guys were and could plan accordingly. Being on the gathering intel on a suspect end of an op and not knowing what they're up to? Out of my league. Makes me twitchy."

"My gut is talking to me," Jake said as they merged into traffic.

"Why?" he had his own reason, but wanted to hear his friend's answer.

"Because, as independently as Zoe seems to move through life, every time she's called us in on a case, it's been over something that was hidden deep and dangerous. Can't help to think whatever this operation is, she may have kicked over a rock and gotten bit by a rattlesnake this time. And if we don't find out what's going on, lives could be lost."