Saturday, early morning
November 6 – 3:21 a.m. MDT
Denver, Colorado
Alex pushed her computer screen and keyboard to the back of the armoire that served as her desk. On the edge of the shelf, she set her brand new Magic 8 Ball next to the shiny gold-colored card holder with a sunflower etched on it. She took her old Fey Special Forces Team lighter, microSD card, and plastic pieces of a black security token and set them in a row next to the Magic 8 Ball. For good measure, she wrote “GOLD” on one sticky note and “VAULT VIDEO” on another. She stuck them on the other side of the gold-colored card holder. She leaned back in her chair and thought for a moment before getting up.
She took the antique world map off the wall and set it next to the chair where Maggie was sleeping beside the gas fireplace. Maggie opened her eyes to look at Alex. She ruffled Maggie’s head for good luck before taking Mike’s small journal, Charlie’s journal, and the two journal’s she’d protected in the limestone vault when everyone was killed – her small journal and the larger team journal – from the safe. She set the journals in a stack next to the gold card holder. Standing in front of the armoire, she moved the card holder next to the security token and stepped back.
Shaking her head at herself, she went back to the safe to retrieve the nanodrone in its sterile, screw-top plastic container. They’d found the drone at JFCOM last year. Everyone who was anyone in the security tech world had dissected the nanodrone and put it back together. They had even created a new one from the plans on Hector Jasper’s computer. But the damned things didn’t work. She grabbed the container with the drone and set it next to the journals.
As if it was the crown jewel, Alex set the gold and diamond bee among the other objects. She hadn’t trusted sending the bee through the regular channels. Instead, she’d asked a good friend at the Denver Police Department forensics lab to take a look. Other than the fact that the bee was old, gaudy, and fairly valuable, it was just another mystery. Somehow these objects explained why the Fey Special Forces Team was murdered in their limestone storage vault under the streets of Paris.
She had no idea what they meant.
“Anything?” Jesse asked.
“Nothing.” Alex glanced at him and went back to staring at the objects. “You?”
“Nothing,” Jesse said.
“I keep thinking it’ll click in,” Alex said. “I’ll remember why I collected all of this . . . junk and why Dwight hid this bee monstrosity.”
“I wonder if it’s more like an archeological dig,” Jesse said.
“What do you mean?” Alex asked.
“You know, they find a mound and start to dig it up,” Jesse’s outline materialized next to her. His angel tattoo flashed before his image filled in. “They start pulling out this fabulous thing and that amazing thing only to discover it’s a trash pit.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not saying this is trash,” Jesse said. “I’m saying it might be left over from something you did, or some of it could be trash?”
“Only a few things mean something?” Alex picked up the map of Serbia and the card holder. Gesturing with the objects, she asked, “How would I know?”
“No idea,” Jesse shrugged.
“I should know,” Alex said.
“I guess,” Jesse shrugged.
“I can’t shake the feeling that this junk is at the center of what Eniac is up to,” Alex said. “The gold, sure, that’s obvious, but the rest of this? And this thing?”
Sneering at the gold bee, Alex crossed her arms and shook her head. They looked at the items in silence. Alex picked up the sticky that said “GOLD” on it.
“What if the gold isn’t the reason?” Jesse asked.
“Right,” Alex said. “What else is obvious?”
“Well, they asked a lot about a token or a way to get in,” Jesse said.
Alex picked up her lighter and the black pieces of plastic.
“Leave the lighter,” Jesse said.
“Right,” Alex said. “They didn’t ask for a lighter. They asked about a security token.”
“To get into the other vault,” Jesse said.
“Maybe,” Alex said.
“That’s right,” Jesse said. “They never actually said.”
“We missed something in the vault where the gold is stored?” Alex asked.
“No idea.”
“Hmm.” Alex tossed the map and the sticky note on the desk.
“You want to talk about Wyatt?” Jesse asked.
“No,” Alex said. “You?”
“I think it’s weird that you could be doing anything after finishing your report – take a bath, eat, drink copious amounts of Irish whiskey, make love . . .”
“John’s at the hospital,” Alex said. “Won’t be back ‘til six.”
“You know what I mean. Why this?”
“Something Wyatt said,” Alex said. “Or didn’t mean to say.”
“What’s that?” Jesse asked.
“He said, ‘If you look at the big picture, it looks like everything fits together,’” Alex said.
“But you’d be wrong,” Jesse and Alex said in unison.
“There is no master plan,” Jesse said.
“Only individual solutions created by the same problem solvers,” Alex said.
Alex looked up at the ceiling when she heard the stairs creak under the weight of small feet. She glanced at Jesse and he nodded. She flicked on her espresso machine. She took a pint of milk from the refrigerator and began making hot chocolate. When she looked up, Jesse was gone, and Troy’s son, Hector James, was standing in the doorway. Rumpled from sleep, his face was wet with tears.
“Bad dream?” Alex asked.
The child nodded. Maggie got up from her chair and went to the boy. Hector James pressed his face into the scruff of her neck.
“Hot chocolate?” Alex asked.
The child nodded. Alex went to her office chair. She used her forearm to push her collection of objects aside. She set the hot chocolate on the desk. She held out her arms, and Hector James crawled onto her lap. She held him tight. Maggie lay down at Alex’s feet.
For reasons no one could explain, when Hector James was upset, he wanted Alex. She would stop everything to hold him until he got up and went back to bed. Sometimes, she held him while he slept. Other times, he would drink hot chocolate. Once in a blue moon, he wanted to talk. She wasn’t sure why he chose her; she was glad she could give the child the comfort he needed.
“Wanna talk about it?” Alex asked.
Hector James shook his head. Alex put the mug of hot chocolate in his hands. He went through the ritual of blowing over the top of it and taking a sip. He continued until it was the right temperature to drink.
“Can you show me?” Hector James asked.
Alex pulled her computer screen and keyboard to the front of her desk. She clicked a few buttons and opened a folder she’d made for him. She clicked a button and a sanitized photo slideshow of Hector Jasper’s death appeared on the screen. A photo of the side of Hector Jasper’s shoe on the floor of the burned building flashed on the screen. That image shifted to a lifeless picture of his jacket. If you looked closely, you could see blood and burned flesh. Hector James never looked at the details; he only saw evidence that his monster had been destroyed. He leaned into her and watched the slideshow. The last photo was of Hector Jasper’s coffin.
“He’s dead,” Hector James said.
“He’s dead,” Alex said.
Satisfied, Hector James turned his attention to his hot chocolate.
“I miss Mommy,” Hector James’s voice was so quiet Alex could barely hear him. “Will you show me?”
Alex started a photo slideshow of pictures of his mother, Dahlia. A beautiful woman, she had been the love of Troy’s life and the mother of his children. After years of vicious abuse, she’d finally escaped her marriage to Troy’s brother, Hector. Troy and Dahlia had been planning a wedding and a life together when Hector arrived to exact his revenge. She’d sacrificed herself to save the boys and Troy. Hector was blown up by his own explosives only moments later. While Troy and the boys managed to escape the explosion, they remained shattered by the loss.
“Mommy’s very pretty,” Hector James said.
“She is,” Alex said. “You look quite a bit like her.”
“No, Hermes does,” Hector James said of his little brother. “I look like Daddy. See?”
He pointed to a photo of him and his mother. In the photo, Dahlia was laughing and trying to hold on to her squirming three-year-old child. To Alex’s eye, he looked very much like his mother. Hector James set the almost empty hot chocolate mug on his lap and snuggled into her. She felt more than saw him suck his thumb.
He’d turned eleven years old a month ago. Most days, he was a happy, well-adjusted boy. He did well in school and had a few close friends. But in the early morning hours when the years of Hector’s abuse came forward to overwhelm him, he snuggled on Alex’s lap and sucked his thumb. They sat for a while under the light of the laughing, smiling photos of Hector James’s old life until he fell asleep.
When Alex was sure he was asleep, she took the empty mug from him and set it on the shelf next to her keyboard. He rubbed his head against her until it rested in the gap between her arm and chest. She glanced down to make sure he was asleep before pushing her keyboard and monitor back. She set up her gallery of mysterious items along the edge of the shelf. She’d just moved the nanodrone into place when her phone vibrated. She glanced at Hector James; he was still asleep.
“Hargreaves,” she said in a low voice.
“Will you accept a collect call from Denver Main Corrections Facility?” an automated voice said.
“Yes.”
Hector James picked up the Magic 8 Ball. She gave him a soft smile, and he closed his eyes to make a wish.
“Alex!” Trece yelled into the phone. “DPD picked me up.”
“What?” Alex sat up straighter. Firmly rooted on her lap, Hector James shifted forward.
“Someone switched my file with my cousin’s,” Trece’s voice rose with desperation. “Fingerprints, photos, even DN-fucking-A. They think I’m him. They say I escaped from prison! From prison! No lawyer. No trial, because I already had one! They’re taking me to Pelican fucking Bay.”
“California?”
“DPD got the tip this morning,” Trece said. “They came with SWAT. With SWAT! White Boy answered the door and was like, ‘What the hell?’ My DOD ID is worthless. With Steve missing, there’s no one to call. I. . . ah, shit Alex, I can’t go to prison. I won’t survive it. I can’t do it again. I won’t make it a day. Help me, Alex! You have to do something! Help me!”
Alex heard movement in the background.
“The Sheriffs are here to take me to California,” Trece said. “Tell Luz I love her and. . .”
“Listen to me,” Alex said. “I will fix this. Keep your head down and do your time. Do not kill anyone. Do you hear me?”
“But. . .”
“This is a tactic designed to get you stuck there for the rest of your life,” Alex said. “Do not give them that chance. Do good time. I’ll get you out.”
“I don’t think I can do it,” Trece said.
“We never think we can until we do,” Alex said. “We will get you out.”
“What about Solarus?” Trece asked.
“Focus, Trece, focus,” Alex said. “What are you going to do?”
“Follow orders, sir,” Trece said. “I will do good time.”
“Which means?”
“No fights, no killing, good time,” Trece said. “You think I can do this?”
“I know you can,” Alex said.
Voices in the background instructed Trece to hang up the phone.
“I trust you,” Trece said.
“I won’t let you down,” Alex said.
The phone clicked and the line went dead. Alex caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Hector James held the nanodrone between the index finger and thumb of his left hand. He was working inside the nanodrone's body with the pointed end of her metal emery file. Too stunned to respond, she watched the boy.
He held the nanodrone close to his eyes and then worked with the tip of the emery file. He set the drone on her desk, leaned back to look at it, and then picked it up again.
“Who broke the fairy?” Hector James asked.
“Fairy?”
“This fairy,” Hector James pointed to the nanodrone. “I had to fix it.”
“Thank you so much,” Alex said. “That’s very nice of you.”
“No problem,” Hector James smiled. “Happy to help.”
“Can you get it to fly?” Alex asked.
“Sure,” Hector James clapped his hands and the nanodrone took off from the desk. “It won’t fly for very long, because it runs on light. It’s kind of dark in here.”
The nanodrone flew for a minute or so and then set down on the desk.
“What does it do?” Alex asked.
“Nothing,” Hector James said. “Well, it flies and stuff.”
“Does it take pictures or shoot weapons or . . .”
“No,” Hector James said. “Hector told everyone that it did, because he’s a big fat liar. But the fairies just fly. Don’t tell Hermes. He thinks they transmit pictures straight to Mommy.”
“How do you know?” Alex asked.
“Because this is one of Mommy’s,” Hector James said.
His voice was so matter of fact that Alex found herself nodding as if she already knew the information.
“I’ll show you how you can tell,” Hector James picked up the nanodrone and turned it over. “See this dot?”
He pointed to a tiny light blue screw.
“That’s Mommy’s dot,” Hector James said. “She made them at our kitchen table. I helped her put on the dots.”
“Did she make a lot?”
“Mmm,” Hector James looked up to think. “More than a thousand, I think. She used to keep track on the refrigerator. But Daddy gave her the plans and . . .”
“Hector?”
“No, Troy Olivas, my daddy invented fairies for my mommy,” Hector James voice rose with emotion. “Hector was not my daddy. He was not nice or funny or sweet, and he did not love me.”
The boy leaned back into her.
“He was really bad,” Hector James said.
Alex felt the boy’s body quake. She glanced down, and he was crying.
“You want to see them again?” she asked.
Hector James nodded.
“More hot chocolate?” Alex asked.
Hector James nodded. He hopped off Alex’s lap, and she got up to make his hot chocolate. She made herself a macchiato while his milk warmed. Hector James stood in front of her desk. He touched one item and then the next. When she came back with their drinks, he was holding the gold bee.
She set the drinks on the shelf and sat down. He climbed on her lap with the gold bee.
“That’s a pretty bee, isn’t it?” Alex smiled.
“I don’t like it,” Hector James said.
“How come?”
Hector James shrugged.
“Have you’ve seen it before,” Alex said.
Hector James nodded.
“I don’t know where,” Hector James said. “I think it has a hidden compartment.”
“That’s kind of weird.”
“Yeah, that is weird,” Hector James shrugged and set the bee in his lap. He picked up his hot chocolate. “I don’t know where I’ve seen it, but . . . do you have to know? Maybe Hermes remembers it. I can go get him.”
“Why don’t we just watch our pictures and rest for a bit?”
She felt Hector James’s head nod against her shoulder. She turned on soothing music and watched the light from the photos dance off the boy’s curly dark hair. He made it through about half of his chocolate before falling asleep. She took the cup and the bee and set them on the shelf.
Rather than move on to what was next, Alex used this quiet time to think. She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice the slideshow had ended. Feeling eyes on her back, she turned in her chair to find Troy standing in the doorway. He smiled at Alex, picked up his son, and carried him up the stairs. Alex watched them go and sat staring at the door for a moment.
She spun in her chair and started making calls. By the time John got home, she was humming, “When you wish upon a star” and responding to email.
“Happy?” John asked from the doorway.
Maggie jumped up to greet him.
“That you’re home,” Alex got up from her chair. “Want to see how much?”
“Why don’t I take Maggie out while you lock up?” John asked.
She turned off her computer and the gas fireplace before locking up her office. She met John and Maggie on their way in the side basement door. With Maggie leading the way, John chased Alex upstairs.
F