The Manifest

Chapter 25

     Back at the new location, things were just a little intense. Edgar was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, speaking to no one and thinking to himself. Jerome tried to get him a cup of coffee from the really nice coffee maker he bought with the rest of the equipment, but he wasn't responding to anyone at that point. It had been over twelve hours since the fire and no one from the office had called back. There had been no phone calls, pages or even a word from the station to let them know that a body had been found. Edgar would have to visit the cop shop later on to find out for himself.

     Devon was on the roof of the building having a ton of smokes and needing a moment alone to go over a few things. Moth had mentioned to Jerome that she had never seen either of them as angry as they were at this point, and the loss of so many associates had never been seen before from both sides. She lost a few friends that night as did Edgar who seemed lost without Tuck there to pat him on the back and get him back to work. The room was very subdued and no one seemed ready to get to work, and Jessica couldn't blame them at all. She slept that night on the new couch that Jerome had been eager to test out himself that night, but was overruled by Edgar.

     Jessica cried when she heard about the fire, and felt so bad about what had happened. Jerome made her feel better by letting her know that the official cause hadn't been determined and for all they knew it could have easily been anything bad wiring or a stray cigarette instead of fowl play. Even though Edgar and Devon seemed to have their doubts, Jerome was hoping that it wasn't half as bad as the two professionals seemed to think it was. They were in the rabbit hole and they were deep enough to land themselves in trouble. Once you're down there, you can't come back out. Jerome was fully aware of this and that scared the complete crap out of him. He turned back to Edgar, eager to ask a few questions.

     "Edgar," Jerome called out. "How did you and Tuck pay for this place?"

     Edgar finally snapped out of his daze and looked back to who was now his only employee, "We're fine here. It was paid for in cash under a false name. It's going to take a while for them to figure out this place, if they can at all. We also have off shore accounts that are listed through companies that we have zero connection to that we can use to get our money from here on." this comment seemed to get a response from the few people in the room. Moth seemed a little stunned, but Jessica was the one who seemed to have the strongest reaction of the three.

     "What do you mean?" Jessica suddenly asked, "Isn't this enough to make you want to back off?"

     "I hate to break this to you," Edgar responded in his usual sarcastic smart ass tone, "But as of today, you're the only client I have left. Even if I called everyone else who I was working for right now, chances are they would refuse to work with me out of some fear they'd burn down next. It's a stupid, over-enthusiastic way to look at it but I'm sure that's what they're all thinking right now. What the hell did Tuck and Edgar do to piss someone off that much?"

     "I'm not sure of the answer myself, mate." Devon said as he finally came back from the roof, "but I wouldn't mind asking the bloke who did it a few questions about that myself."

     "Join the club." Edgar responding, his humor as dry as ever, "Are you still in this?" he asked both Moth and Devon.

     "You bet I am." Devon answered as he looked over to Moth, who gave a nod to show her own approval, "We lost a few mates up there in that blaze too. And the last time I checked, I have a no refund policy. I got your money and I intend to earn every friggin' penny of it. So if you all don't mind, I wouldn't mind getting back to work."

     Jessica couldn't believe what she was hearing, but started off for them, "I was talking to Jerome about my mother's heirlooms. He's right about one thing: if she were to see them online and knew they were hers, she would spend anything to get them back. I know exactly what items we should post to get her attention and where to post them."