The Circle of Life - Addicted Series - BOOK 4

6. Lunch notes <3

"What do you mean you agree?" Nick asks Neal switching on the lamp beside the couch.

"What I mean is...I stole the letter from you while you were speaking with your kids. Sorry. I was curious. I think it is bull shit too." he picks his laptop lying by his side and powers it up. "These are the details of Lia's mission. I was able to download whatever I can..." he points the screen to Nick.

"From where? They said these are classified." Nick looks at the screen trying to read the details as a long text file that he couldn't make head or tail of.

"Well, they are classified to us. Not to Sid. He has security clearance. I hacked into his computer and got access for 30 min before he figured it out. But, that was plenty."

"You will get arrested for this, idiot."

"Do you want to know or not?"

"Of course. What is all this? This is latin to me." he says looking at the file.

"It is encrypted. You see this..." Nick scrolls down to a part in the screen that graphed a risk factor. This mission was categorizes at a grade IV risk. Meaning that there was a 90% chance that it will fail. Lia signed three different waivers that she understood the risk - that there is a 90% chance she will not make out alive."

"That's crazy. Why would she do that? I mean...she has kids."

"Exactly my point."

"And then...I saw your daughter climb onto the chair and reach into the freezer to get dinner out for her and her brother.  On the frozen box was stuck this..." he showed Nick a note with a heart and inside it was typed - Smile for Mommy .

"A little something from her dead Mom. Which spooked the hell out of me. But, that's not the point. It got me curious and so, I followed her as she kissed the note and hopped into her room. And I found these - a bunch of similar notes from the time she left." He gives them to Nick.

"She saved all of them on her dresser. That little girl is so cuuuuuute!"

Nick goes through them. They were all had a heart and a little something typed inside them. Little sunshine. Stars of my sky. Be a rock star. Stay out of trouble.  Nick sighs. "Is there a point?"

"Yeah. Do you see the date on the top?"

"Yeah."

"She prepared food for ten days. Today is the last day."

"Okay?"

"Her mission is for seven days."

"So? Maybe she prepared for a couple of extra days in case, it may run late."

"No. According to the information in this file, the mission was programmed for seven days. It is fixed. So, she was to be back...the day before. On the day Chief called you. It took us two days to get the kids after all the paper work, Nick. A total of ten days from the day she left."

"I think you are over thinking this. When you are a parent, you always want to be over prepared than under prepared."

"No, Nick. I think you are forgetting Lia is a trained analyst. She is smart. Check out the note on the day she died. Neal shuffles through them and shows it. It read - This will pass.

"What are you saying Neal?"

"I am saying that at the least, she had some knowledge of all this happening. Look around the house Nick. Everything is so organized. You will only find the things that are relevant to you. It is almost like she prepared for this. Look at the kids. They are handling this so well. I mean I would not have known what to do if I was in their place. Yeah, they are missing their Mom but it is like they have a well placed coping mechanism. They were working on a jigsaw puzzle until they fell asleep. I worked on those puzzles. They completely overtake your mind...like you cannot think about anything else in your life."