Chapter 31
Nina
I’d babysat for Beth for four years, worked at Grannie’s for two, and yet, prior to this week, I’d never visited the SSI office. Now I’ve been here twice.
At least I have my blanket and Eddy back.
“Hi, Nina,” Meg called out from where she was cleaning up the waiting room snack bar.
“Hi, Meg.”
“Everyone’s upstairs.”
Everyone?
“Not everyone,” Matt reassured me. “Half of us are providing muscle without being kept in the loop.”
Was that normal? Was he mad?
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize; it’s the nature of the business.” Matt smiled and led me upstairs.
I enjoyed the summer sun shining through the second story sky light, knowing I’d soon be in the closed off conference room.
Austin stood as I walked through the door Matt opened for me. “Thank you for coming, Nina. Please have a seat.”
He pulled out a chair between himself and John.
I waved to John and his sons. They waved back. When I waved to Ryan, he dipped his head in greeting before looking back at his laptop.
“You should know, we had a tail,” Matt said to John.
I sank into my chair. We did? I hadn’t noticed, and Matt never said anything.
“Did you get any info?”
“No plate, they’re pros. They pulled back when they realized I was on an access road.”
“Email what you have.”
“Copy that,” Matt said before leaving.
The tension in the room did nothing for my nerves.
Once again, Austin placed a bottle of water and a box of tissues in front of me.
Does this mean he’s going to make me cry again?
Not that he wanted to make me cry, but he rarely delivered good news.
“Did you find something?” I asked. He was cryptic when he returned my things this morning.
“We did, but before I tell you what we found, I’d like to apologize.”
My knuckles turned white as I gripped the arms of the chair and braced for the news.
“We had to cut into your teddy bear to retrieve what was hidden inside.”
My jaw hung open. “You…” I’d examined Eddy but hadn’t noticed anything different. “You cut Eddy? But he looked the same.”
“I sewed him back up,” Austin confessed.
I squinted and tilted my head as my brain tried to imagine Austin using a needle and thread.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Jay said with a chuckle. “Everyone in the military learns how to sew.”
“Everyone?” It didn’t matter, but my brain had taken a vacation.
“There are a few exceptions, but most of us learn basic stitches. You’d be surprised at how often soldiers repair their uniforms in the field,” John said.
“Of course, officers like Austin usually paid someone to do it for them.”
Austin flipped Jay the finger. “I did my time in the field.”
“Yeah, sitting back and giving orders while the rest of us did the work.”
What I knew about military life could fit on a two-by-two post it note, so I didn’t understand the exchange, but I had a feeling they were teasing each other.
“I’ll have you know, I spent months training so I could serve with DEVGRU.”
“You earn a trident?” Jay asked.
“Nope. Didn’t need it,” Austin grinned. “Just so we’re clear, being an intelligence officer didn’t make a comfy bed magically appear every night, or make MREs taste any better, and it sure as hell didn’t create a bulletproof force field out of thin air when the bullets started flying.”
“As a ranking officer on my team, I can assure you he’s telling the truth.” Ryan held his fist up for Austin to bump.
“Good to know,” Jay said with a nod. I didn’t know him well, but I’d swear I saw respect in his eyes.
“Are you two done?” John asked, his impatience bringing out his dad voice.
Tired of being left out of the conversation, I asked, “You were a SEAL?”
“No, I served as an intelligent officer attached to a SEAL team.” Austin shot Jay a withering look. “I didn’t always work from the safety of an office.”
“Let’s get back to work,” John said.
Austin handed me two small plastic bags. One contained a key and the other, a slip of paper.
“These are what we found in your teddy bear.”
Eddy hid these all these years? How had I never noticed? I’d washed him a dozen times; how did the paper survive?
“What are they?”
“The note says, ‘Where the sun and moon align, the treasure resides’, but we don’t know what it means yet.”
I nodded like I understood, but I didn’t. Not one bit.
My life had turned into some kind of crazy mystery movie, and I still couldn’t believe it was real.
“What does that mean?” I asked as his words sank in. “Sorry. You just said you don’t know.”
“It’s okay. This is a lot to take in.” Austin looked like he wanted to touch my arm, but then he pulled his hand back. “Can you think of anything that might help us connect the dots? It doesn’t have to make sense. Just blurt out anything that comes to mind.”
There wasn’t. My mind was a big jumbled mess of nothing.
“It’s okay if nothing comes to you. But if you think of something later, you can text or call. Sometimes this stuff comes up when you’re doing something mindless, like taking a shower or driving,” John said.
“Okay.” I didn’t expect anything to come up, given I’d never met my parents and knew nothing about my life prior to living with the Novaks.
Did the Novaks know more than they let on? Did the secrets die with them?
There were boxes of stuff I’d never looked through in the small attic space above my grandmother’s house. Maybe they’d hidden answers, thinking they’d tell me when I was older. Only they didn’t survive long enough.
Does Nana Sue know?
“I know it’s a long shot, but did your parents, the Novaks, bank in Dallas?” Ryan asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“Not that I know of.” Not that I knew much. They used a local bank, the same one I use, but that didn’t mean they didn’t also bank in Dallas.
“That’s okay, we’ll look into it,” Ryan said.
Why’d they ask when they could just use their CIA connections to find out?
My vision blurred as I stared at the baggies on the table. What would they find out? Would they find anything?
What had my parents left me? Would I ever know, or would the questions haunt me for the rest of my life?
I straightened my back and remembered Nana Sue’s advice. Plastering my customer service smile on my face, I asked, “Do you think you’ll find anything?”
Austin held eye contact for two heartbeats before his hand found mine. He squeezed without breaking said intense eye contact. “What do you want to hear?”
“The truth.”
He inhaled deeply. His thumb stroked my wrist in the most distracting way. His eye contact never wavered.
“I’ll do everything in my power to get you the answers you need, but I can’t promise when or if I’ll find them.”
Austin’s intensity sent a shiver down my spine. My fingers itched to curl around his.
What am I thinking? I can’t hold his hand.
Resisting the urge, I stiffened my fingers as I released the breath I’d been holding on a shaky exhale. Austin’s honesty was refreshing, but not comforting.
I nodded and whispered, “Thank you.”
Jack walked in, a coffee in one hand and a laptop in the other.
When Austin pulled his hand back, I missed his warm, comforting touch immediately. “What’d you find?” he asked.
I wondered if they always acted like this. They’d be joking one second and serious the next. They’d be nice and comforting one moment, and cold and calculating the next.
The constant energy shifts kept me off balance.
“I have a list of possibilities, but nothing concrete.” Jack sat across the table, next to Jamie. “Give me a second and I’ll put it on the screen.”
I sat, wringing my hands in my lap, as Jack tapped away on his keyboard.
Ryan talked to Austin, but they’d leaned in close so I couldn’t hear what he was saying. From the look on Ryan’s pinched face, it wasn’t good.
Jay watched the interaction with what I could only describe as a knowing grin on his face.
What does he know?
Jamie leaned over Jack and looked at his screen.
“Jamie, it’ll be on the big screen sooner if you stop hovering,” Jack said to his older brother.
Jamie laughed and sat back in his chair.
“If Austin can wait patiently, so can you,” Jack said.
The part of Austin visible above the table looked calm, but his foot was tapping out a fast rhythm under the table, so I didn’t think he was all that patient.
“He only looks patient because Gibson’s reading him the riot act,” Jay said.
All eyes turned to Austin and Ryan. Or Gibson. Sometimes Austin calls him G. It was hard to keep track. I knew from TV and movies that guys in sports and the military used their last names, so it shouldn’t have surprised me, but it was hard getting used to in real life.
Ryan clapped Austin on the shoulder. “You know what the difference between these guys and the CIA is?”
“What?”
“No one trained the impulse to blurt out what they’re thinking out of them,” Ryan said.
Everyone laughed. Except me.
I didn’t think any of this was funny. My world had been turned upside down, and inside out, and sideways, and any other way one could describe the mess it’d become.
“You’re one to talk,” Austin said. “How long has it been since you pissed off your chain of command?”
“If I include you, at least three hours.” Ryan laughed.
Jay laughed too before saying. “Oorah!”
“Hooah!” Ryan answered at the same time Austin said, “Hooyah!”
My knuckles turned white as my hands gripped the table in an attempt not to freak out or lose my temper. None of this was funny, but these guys were having a grand time.
“Sorry, Nina, it’s easy for us to forget that not everyone understands that military and law enforcement deal with stress with sarcasm and dark humor,” John said.
I nodded. What could I say? It wasn’t like they’d listen to me anyway.
“Let’s stay on track,” John said.
“Sorry, Nina,” Austin apologized.
After accepting his apology, I asked, “So, do you guys like each other now?” I’d had the impression that Austin and Ryan weren’t on friendly terms with the guys from SSI, despite Austin being John’s nephew.
“I’d say it’s more of a mutual respect thing,” Jay answered.
“And here I thought we’d be singing Kumbaya by week’s end,” Ryan said with a laugh before adding, “bestie.”
The other thing I noticed. They carried on half their conversations without looking up. Especially Ryan; his fingers never stopped moving while he joked with Jay.
“We had a rough start, but we understand each other now and we’re working towards a common goal,” John clarified.
Their goal revolved around me and the many mysteries now surrounding my life.
My past. My parent’s deaths. The treasure they’d supposedly left me. The people who wanted to hurt me. What happened to my foster parents?
My breath caught in my throat.
“Do you think someone might have killed my parents?” I blurted out.
Austin looked confused for a second before asking, “You mean the Novaks?”
“Yeah.” Who else had to use names instead of just saying my parents?
“No, we looked into it and there’s nothing suspicious about their deaths.”
Thank God. I’d never be able to live with myself if they’d died because of me.
When Austin placed a hand on my shoulder, I raised my eyes to his. “Nina, you know none of this is your fault, right?” he asked.
“I know, but it feels like it is.”
He squeezed my shoulder just enough to offer support. “It isn’t. The events leading up to your parents, the Singers’, deaths started when you were a baby, possibly before. If anyone should feel guilty, it’s me.” Austin took a deep breath. “I brought this on you when I opened the cold case.”
“That doesn’t make it your fault. It’s not like you knew what would happen,” I said.
If he hadn’t opened the cold case, I wouldn’t know anything about my birth parents. I leaned towards him, drawn like a moth to a flame.
“Exactly. This isn’t your fault any more than it’s mine. Sometimes shit beyond our control happens.”
More and more, I thought the name Steel fit him, but today Austin felt more like a support beam than a robot.
The screen on the far wall lit up with a spreadsheet and photos of businesses.
“Nina, do any of these places seem familiar?”
I stared at every name, every image. Nothing. Once again I had to admit I was useless.
“I’m so sorry.”
While they brainstormed, I stared at the baggies on the table. One of them held a key to my past. And maybe my future.
If, and it was a mighty big if, we found what it opened, what would we find inside?
Money? More riddles? Jewels? Nothing?