Beauty & The Beast (Book 1)

37. Covert Ops

"Wow, this is unexpected," Thomas says after letting Cat into his house. She'd called and said she was at the gate.
After leaving the warehouse she came straight here. Figuring there must be something in her mom's old stuff at her dad's house. She told JT and Vincent her plan to go through it all and here she was, JT waiting in the wings by the phone.

"Well, it's a week until you're getting married, I thought that in the spirit of moving forward, I'd clean out some of mom's things?" Cat walks to the cupboard to get a mug.

Thomas looks over his shoulder, standing at the coffee machine. He knows his daughter. Something was wrong. "No, I don't think that's such a good idea. There's a reason they're packed and stored away."

"Okay," Cat says, coming to the machine. "This is sounding kind of ominous."

"Your mother kept a lot of secrets." He goes to stand against the opposite counter. "Your mother did a lot of research. A lot of lab work for the government. It was highly classified." Catherine had found out about her mother's work. He could see it in her eyes when she looks at him. 

Cat sighs. "Dad, why didn't you tell me? After all this time?"

"I was scared Cat. I was scared that the mother you loved wouldn't be the woman I found in those boxes." He was a smart man. She was here for the boxes.

"What boxes dad?"

"I locked her stuff away. I thought it was best."

"Best for who?!" Cat cries.

"I wanted to protect you."

"But you didn't even know what you were protecting me from!" she scoffs heatedly.

Thomas sighs. "Catherine listen to me, we are nothing more than our memories. Our stories of people we love, how other people remember us."

"Dad, you didn't even give me a choice," Cat shakes her head. "All these years I've blamed myself for what happened to her, and you have things...Actual things that could have given me answers.."

Thomas looks at Cat for a moment, the tears in her eyes. He knew she wouldn't like what she saw, but somehow he knew she needed to see it. He turns and opens a drawer. He takes out a set of keys and holds it out. "The storage room behind the wine rack. It's your choice."

Walking out of the kitchen after her father leaves, Cat goes down to the cellar, past the wine rack and unlocks the storage room. She made her choice coming here, they needed answers. This was the only way.

There were close to 30 boxes stacked on top of each other, across from old bicycles and clothes. She picked one up and started to go through it.

About 10 boxes in, she found a file with a photo of her mom and two military officers and smiles at it.

"Ooh, mommy Chandler was a looker," JT says behind her. He was on Face Time. She would hold up something every now and then and he's tell her if it looked important or not.

"Not helping JT."

"So, Vincent saw your mom taking notes in olive notebook both times. It had to be where she kept her observation and research notes."

"Alright hold on."

JT sighs. "Check the big box!"

"You know, I really don't need backseat detectiving."

"Just trying to help. It's not like it's gonna be labelled 'Cure for Vincent'."

Cat digs through another box and then she holds up a green, olive toned notebook. "Got it."