What happened to Grace Sinclair? (Friday Barnes)

~16~

                  ~The hunt for Mr Sinclair~

Morgan was talking to Friday.

They were some of the only people in the office as it was nearly midday and everyone else was out for lunch or playing on the grass.

Ian and Melanie had gone on other jobs and weren't going to be back for the rest of the day.

Friday hadn't told him anything from the previous day because Mack had been spending the whole day talking about something to do with numbers in detail and now Morgan was telling her briefly about a murder he was looking into.

Something sharp hit her in the chest.

She looked down at the pencil in her lap.

Everything was louder, like someone had taken off an invisible pair of headphones and she realised that she hadn't heard a work Morgan had said.

"You good, babes?" 

Her head shot up. "Alice?"

The girl was standing next to Morgan, one hand in his hair, tangling it around her finger.

Alice gave her a smile, her siren eyes narrowing slightly in amusement.

"What are you doing here?" Friday asked.

She hadn't seen Alice since she was dropped off.

"I came to see my darling brother." She pulled on a strand of Morgan's hair and he yelped in pain.

"You bitch." He yelled, pushing her away.

"Wait, wait. You're related?" Friday asked.

"Not by blood." Morgan said, leaning back in his chair. "My mother married her father. We just so happened to be the same age."

"I've never seen them around." Friday mumbled, mostly to herself.

Most of the youth decision kids have parents who visit them and drop things off for them, but Friday had never seen Morgan with anyone other than Mack.

Alice placed her hand on her step-brother's shoulder. "They're horrible people. Manipulative and cruel. We both got out as soon as we could and never looked back."

Friday looked at them. There seemed to be an alliance between them. A bond of mutual respect and trust.

"Anyway. I heard there's big news in the case, care to share?" Alice said

Friday looked at her, "how do you-?"

"Olive has been chatting with Melanie for ages. Don't you know?"

Friday shook her head. Now that she thought about it, Marnie had been spending a lot more time on her phone than usual.

"How long have they been talking?"

Alice shrugged, "I dunno, something like a week. Olive gets really happy when she messages and-"

"I'm sorry," Morgan interrupted, "I'd love to listen to you talk about the situationship between Pelly and Quinn, but I really couldn't care less and I want to know more about this big news."

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

"Wait...she's been dead for 21 years?"

Friday nodded. It had taken her almost half an hour to explain.

Morgan spun his pencil between his fingers.

His face was calm, dark eyebrows pulled together as his brain processed the information.

Alice's eyes were narrowed. She had stolen Mack's chair and had one leg neatly over the other.

Morgan nodded a few times. "Well, that's unfortunate."

Friday sighed, "it's more than unfortunate. I now have no lead, no evidence against Mr. Sinclair and no ID for the dead person rotting in the hospitals morgue."

Morgan put his pencil down. "That's not true. Isn't Mr Sinclair wanted? Can't you just look him up in the files or something?"

Friday stood up. "You're right, I can just look him up and see where he is."

It had been nearly 2 weeks since the hit and run and Mr Sinclair had vanished. Nobody had seen him anywhere in town, and his house was unoccupied.

Friday felt her hopes rise, "you're a genius Morgan!"

Morgan flashed a smug grin, "you flatter me."

She went to stand up but a girl from a few desks over called out. "No can do, junior agents aren't allowed to access the files. They're locked at all times."

Morgan looked over at the girl. "How do you know that miss Dahlia?"

The girl, Dahlia, rolled her eyes, "because, my darling Morgan, my sister and I both work in personal records. Our supervisor won't let anyone in let alone a junior agent."

Alice's phone buzzed. She looked at it. "Oh, crap." She grabbed her bag, "I gotta go, but keep me updated."

She kissed Morgan's cheek and ruffled his hair, then walked purposefully from the room.

Morgan turned to Friday. "Here's the plan. Tonight, sometime around midnight, we're going to sneak down into the personal records room and find Jack Sinclair."

Friday glanced around, "how are we going to do that? We don't know where it is or how to start looking for the files."

Morgan smiled, an expression that replicated that of an eel. This was a boy who knew exactly how to get what he wanted through manipulation.

He turned to Dahlia with the smile. "She's going to take us."