CHAPTER FOURTEEN
At the morning meeting, Priscilla and River sat in the front row. When two men walked in, Priscilla knew exactly who they were.
“Ho-lee cow,” she muttered.
“That’s us beautiful,” smiled Quinn, Finn following.
“I have never in my life seen three men look so much alike,” she gasped.
“Mom always had trouble telling the difference as well,” smiled Finn. “I’m Finnegan. The only way to know that is my left eye has a small ring of green around the blue.”
“I’d have to be right up in your face to see that,” said Priscilla.
“Yeah, don’t get that close,” laughed Quinn. “Big brother will be pissed off if we’re that close to you.”
“Big brother?” she frowned.
“River was first, then Finn, then me,” said Quinn. “I’m the baby can’t you tell?”
“No, I cannot tell,” she laughed.
“What are you guys doing here? I thought you were on a deployment with the team,” said River.
“That’s what we’re here to discuss,” said Gator. “Quinn and Finn were sent home for a mandatory leave.”
“Mandatory? What the fucking hell is happening here?” asked River.
“We’re trying to find out. This obviously goes way beyond what we thought. If the commander is sending them home, someone is telling him to do that. When I spoke to him,” said Christopher, “he said he was following orders from the highest levels in the government.”
“The POTUS is sending my brothers on leave? Why?” asked River.
“Take a seat everyone,” said Ham. “Standing around won’t get us to the bottom of this. Priscilla? Nice ring, honey. If that shithead doesn’t treat you right you come looking for any of us.”
Priscilla laughed, nodding at him then kissed River as he flipped the bird to everyone behind him.
“I’m sure he’ll be just fine,” she smiled. “Besides, please remember I’m a trained agent as well.”
“So, who did I piss off?” asked River.
“Not you. Him,” said Gator pointing to his father, Patrick.
“Me? What the hell did I do? I mean, beyond the obvious. Someone needs to narrow this down for me. I’ve been doing this shit a long time.”
“Lincoln Morris.”
“What? No. No, Morris is dead,” said Patrick.
“Who is Lincoln Morris?” asked Priscilla.
“He was running a non-profit for refugee camps and refugee children. Margo worked for them. We discovered that he was the one that was running the child trafficking ring through the refugee camps,” said Patrick. “But we stopped him, we killed him, or I should say Moose killed him technically.”
“He was definitely dead,” said Moose.
“He was,” said AJ, “but his son was not. Lawrence Morris grew up in England attending fancy boarding schools and Oxford. He learned of his father’s death while attending university.
His father left instruction that should he die while his son was in school, he was not to leave school or make himself known. ”
“Bastard knew something was going to happen. Why didn’t we know about the son sooner?” asked Patrick.
“He was attending school under his mother’s maiden name, Ingk.”
“Oh, hell no,” said Priscilla, shaking her head. “That’s not possible. She wasn’t old enough to have a son that age.”
“She wasn’t, but her mother was,” said AJ.
“Natalia Ingk was born to Felicity and Roman Ingk.
Both were born in Türkiye but Roman was from a Mongolian family.
Roman died when Natalia was just a baby and Felicity married Morris.
The agreement was she would help to raise his son and he would raise, and provide for, her daughter.
“So, Felicity ensured that Lawrence’s education was perfect and that he graduated with honors. Morris made sure that Natalia’s education was paid for in full, and that she was trained in ways no one could possibly imagine.”
“But she had to have been a toddler, or at the very least a little girl when he was killed,” said Christopher.
“She was but he had someone overseeing her very important education,” said AJ.
“Let me guess. Lawrence.” Patrick nodded toward his brother.
“Lawrence was already working at a financial firm in London, trading bonds and buying up real estate, even dabbling in things like antiquities, artwork, jewelry, that sort of thing. He took over his step-sister’s education and made sure she knew everything he needed her to know.
“The problem is that little sister decided to betray her big brother. She had something, or knew of something, that he wanted and unfortunately for Priscilla, she hinted that her work partner was the one possessing it.
“We don’t have all the pieces or clues yet but my gut tells me that she was not only willing to trade her life for River’s, but also to give up Priscilla to him to be on even ground with step-brother again.
She was completely prepared to turn him over but the brother was pissed that you weren’t there when she told him. Again, that’s just a guess.”
“It feels like a lot more than a guess,” frowned Priscilla. “How would you know all that?”
“Brains and beauty. That’s how we prefer the women in our family,” smiled Hiro.
“Traffic cameras. We found Lawrence Morris on multiple traffic cameras leading straight to Natalia’s.
As we’ve said, much of the furniture in the house was antique, specifically English antiques.
The paintings were from famous British painters of the 17th and 18th century and the china was a well-known British pattern and manufacturer. ”
“Well, that seems pretty damning, does it?” frowned Priscilla.
“It is damning but we have the problem of finding big brother now. If he was willing to kill his step-sister for something, and part of that ‘something’ was probably me, we need to find out why,” said River.
“I have a strong suspicion that part of this will be to get even for his father’s death.
Also, we have to find whatever it is she told him you have. ”
“I don’t have anything of hers,” said Priscilla shaking her head.
“Wait a minute,” said Patrick. “Your father. Your father gave us information to track down Lincoln Morris. It was one of the cases he was working with the bureau when we met.”
“H-he did? He gave you that information? I didn’t know,” she whispered to herself.
“There wasn’t any reason for you to know but that means he would have had a file on Morris,” said Christopher.
“We contacted the interim deputy director at the bureau and he said the files have been stored in a warehouse somewhere in Virginia. They were going to send an agent out there today but I don’t think they’re going to find anything,” said Gator.
“Why not?” asked Priscilla.
“Because what we know of your father is that he was a smart man. Anything that important, he wouldn’t have stored in the bureaus storage units,” said Ham. “Did he give you any files? Maybe a drive or something?”
“I have a few boxes of items in my apartment but the man on the phone the other day, I assume Morris, said he searched my house,” said Priscilla.
“Which means your father would have put it somewhere not so obvious,” said River. “Maybe inside a jewelry box or a picture frame.”
“No, he wouldn’t…”
She paced the front of the room, fingering the locket around her neck. It had been a gift from her father on her sixteenth birthday. She tried to open it many times to put a photo inside but it was stuck.
“Priscilla?” called River. She looked down at the locket and then back up at Hiro and AJ.
“Just how small could a drive be?”