A Great Leap (First Draft) - Outer Realms Book 1

Chapter 16

Mikayla's phone buzzed angrily on the conference room table. They had just returned to the office and Mikayla was settling in for a return to tedious paper chasing.

"You going to answer that?" Joel asked.

"It's my AFP friend," Mikayla answered, "She sent me a several messages already." She sighed. "Give me a sec." She answered the phone.

"Ignoring me now?" Came the female voice on the phone.

"Just got back to the office," Mikayla replied, "We were in an interview. What's going on, Natasha?"

"Those few people whispering in the corners I told you about? They were on a slow burn."

"What do you mean? What's happening? You find something?"

"Not exactly but now my commissioner is in a meeting with your commissioner, they've brought a deputy commissioner each, two generals, someone I think is in intelligence and woman in her fifties with the strangest look in her eyes."

"This woman... She look around at everything?"

"Yeah but it wasn't the jumpy, paranoid look of someone eying exits. She seemed like she was exactly where she was meant to be. She passed me in the hall. She looked at me like... I don't think I can describe it. I felt kind of exposed."

"I know the look. If you can get this woman's name or any info from the meeting I'd appreciate it but don't get yourself into trouble for it. Talk later, Tash." Mikayla hung up.

"Doesn't sound good," Joel noted with a frown.

"Sounds more like a conspiracy," Mikayla said, "I don't know though. I've never been caught up in a conspiracy but my friend said there's some pretty powerful people in a meeting right now, including the commissioner. If we're uncovering some big cover up, why haven't we been ordered to look somewhere else or stop investigating? Not like we can look into our bosses though. All we have is one meeting in another city."

"Can ask Goddard to poke around though. Give us some warning if we're getting ourselves in trouble. You said Doctor Maitland let something slip?"

"Other than her annoyance about us accusing her of working with PID she told us that all of Mr Worth's issues stem from his childhood trauma and that he retreats into his childhood when he's in distress. The disappearance is unsolved and PID has investigated as well. Looking into that might give us insight into Gary and PID in the present. A place that Gary might go where he feels safe or some leverage on PID and Dominic Shaw.

"Battaglia had information about the event, even if it's all in code. He might have been there himself. Either way he could have known the truth. There's no reason to think Colora was directly involved in the disappearance or investigation though."

"He's only a few years older than Gary," Joel agreed, "And Dominic's about the same age as him but they're both connected to it now even if it's tenuous. There wasn't a lot on record in the CSN. Just the basics. No one's needed to up upload or transfer the old files so we're going to have to find hard copies."

Mikayla phone hummed loudly on the table again and she quickly scanned the message. "I'm going to leave you to do that alone." She smile. "You know how I feel about paperwork. Besides, someone wants to meet at that PID office we looked in on the other day. Don't know the number but I can make a guess who it belongs to. Doesn't ask to meet alone but I'll take a couple of constables and leave them outside. He might think we're alone at least. Or he knows I wouldn't go alone so he didn't bother asking."

"If he knows you won't go alone then why invite you to meet like this? I get that he's cocky but he was pretty comfortable when we brought him here."