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

Chapter 21

The next morning Mikayla went into the office to find Joel in the hall outside their conference room, leaning against the wall and staring at the door, sipping on a coffee.

"Interesting dinner party last night," he said.

"An understatement," Mikayla replied, "How you dealing?"

"Don't know yet. Okay, I think. More naked men than I've seen in awhile. That wasn't terrible."

"Bit young for my tastes."

Joel shrugged. "You can just double the age with twins, can't you? Isn't that how it works?"

Mikayla laughed. "I can't answer that in the workplace. You started on anything yet or waiting for the coffee to kick in?"

"The latter."

"And you're out here because...?"

"Dominic is in there with the boss. I didn't want to get involved with this werewolf thing and I wanted at least some deniability when we inevitably get done for a cover-up."

"We'll definitely drag you down with us."

Joel nodded. "Not even surprised. Dominic can probably use his family's connections to hide behind state secrets or something."

"I think he really does care," Mikayla said, "But he'd still probably throw us under the bus to protect his family."

"Principled; I like it," Joel said, "I'd snitch on us if we weren't us. How'd the kids take things? The girls are at an age that santa and pixies still exist so they're world hasn't really changed."

Mikayla shrugged. "Benji was excited for all of thirty seconds then he got over it. You know what he's like. I think Kelly is still trying to work out if this is some elaborate joke. Eric is surprisingly okay with the whole thing. More than is usual for teen apathy."

"Are kids today different or have we just forgotten how to be like that?"

"No, they're definitely the weird ones."

The door to the conference room opened and Shaun poke his head out. "Are you done gossiping out here? Come on, I've got some of this sorted out."

The entered the conference room to see Dominic sitting at the table eating a fry up out if a plastic container. "Hope you don't mind," he said, "Been in a rush this morning."

"Out chasing rabbits?" Joel said with a grin as they took seats.

"I think it's fair to say that I was the one being hunted," Dominic said with a small smile, "Not that my sex life is all that much to brag about. Should we get to work?"

"You officially on board then?" Mikayla asked, narrowing her eyes at Joel.

"Sort of official," Shaun answered, "A one time civilian hire as an expert consultant. Not that we're putting his area of expertise on the paperwork and the more controversial details of the case we're going to classify with the military connection. It'll buy us fifty years or so as far as the paperwork goes in the best case scenario."

"So we're agreed on a cover up?" Mikayla asked, "I don't disagree, I just want to be sure."

"Deputy commissioner shares your concerns about the public reaction to all this. For the short term, we're keeping things quiet but in the long term..."

"My people are working on a mutually beneficial arrangement," Dominic finished, "Formalising what I do more than anything. Offering our services to pick up investigations like this one you're not really prepared to handle. No offence but this isn't something you want to dive into blind."