CHAPTER TWO
1595 Words
CHAPTER TWO
FBI agent Stella Fall glanced up from the files she was perusing, pushing a lock of long, dark hair away from her face as she stared at her apartment window.
Something had alerted her instincts enough to distract her from the work she was busy with. She sensed something wrong, with a cold, sure feeling that was a combination of intuition, and picking up subtle signals in her surroundings.
What was it?
She was seated in her apartment’s small lounge, on the fifth floor of a new condo in downtown New Haven. The lounge window overlooked the apartment’s corridor, which was glassed in.
Stella kept the room’s white blinds closed, but she could always see people passing by, gray shadows against the blinds, made visible by the brightness of day or by the night-time lights. It was night now.
She looked harder, realizing what she’d missed while preoccupied with her work.
There was a shadow beyond the blind. But it hadn’t moved. It was there now. She could see it faintly.
It looked like someone was standing in the corridor outside her apartment.
Stella swallowed down her fear. Right now, she knew there were people who might be watching her. Powerful people who wished her harm.
Stella regretted the day she’d ever become involved with the Marshalls. If only she’d never become engaged to Vaughn. If only she’d never gone back with him to Greenwich, and met his toxic, evil family. Just as she’d started to realize the depth of the trouble she’d landed in, a murder had been committed.
In her efforts to clear her own name, Stella had uncovered the criminal activities of the corrupt Marshall clan. They blamed her for everything that had happened since then. After the recent suicide of his wife, she knew Vaughn’s father, the ruthless ex-senator Gordon Marshall, would be pursuing her with no holds barred.
Standing up, she walked quietly to the front door, noticing the security chain was in place. She kept it fastened because every layer of protection helped. But now, it would be slow and noisy to remove, and would warn whoever was outside.
She did it anyway. Yanked off the chain, grabbed the Yale lock and wrenched it open before flinging the door wide.
Staring out, she saw nothing. The corridor was empty as far as she could see – which was only as far as the corner beyond the next-door apartment.
But as she’d moved the chain, she was sure she’d heard the rapid patter of running footsteps.
“What do you want?” she called. “Why are you watching me?” Then, picking up the scared tone in her own voice, she added more forcefully, “You’d better not come back. I’ll be waiting and you’ll regret it!”
Her right hand dropped to her service Glock. She’d arrived home from work a few hours ago but it was still belted around her hips.
Automatically, she flexed her hand, feeling the tug of the scar. Three weeks ago, her palm had been cut to the bone while fighting a murderer who’d almost killed her. The wound had healed fast and well, and yesterday she’d been cleared for active duty again, but she still woke up in the night, gasping and screaming, reliving the trauma she’d endured.
What would be best to do now?
Leave the chain off, she decided, locking the door again and returning to the table where she was working. The small wooden desk opposite her leather couch doubled as a workstation and a dining table. It was big enough for one, or even two, but Stella hadn’t yet had two for dinner in her apartment. And she didn’t want to think about that painful subject right now.
Sitting back down, she took a sip of coffee, now lukewarm, before returning her focus to the screen. At quarter to nine on a Friday night, she was immersed in a private project, and a desperately important one.
She was following up on her father’s disappearance.
When Stella was ten, Detective George Fall had gone to work at the local Kansas police precinct and had never come home. For years, Stella had agonized over his whereabouts, fearing that he was dead but not ready to believe it. A few weeks ago, she had found evidence that he’d been alive after the date of his disappearance. She’d confronted her abusive mother and demanded to know the truth. To her surprise, her mother had eventually relented and had sent her his last known address.
Stella now knew that her father had gone to Ouray, Colorado, where he had lived for a few years after his disappearance. He’d taken on a new name – Frank Newman – and he‘d rented a post office box in town that was still emptied occasionally. He’d become a different person. Quiet and withdrawn, not making friends or integrating with his community.
These fragile clues were all she had, but they were a start.
At first, Stella had thought that her father’s inexplicable actions were linked to some kind of mental breakdown. But now, she was researching another theory, which was that George Fall’s disappearance was linked to a case he was working on.
She’d finally gotten hold of the right decision maker in the Leavenworth police department. Although very busy, he had listened to her explanation, as well as her introduction of who she was. Stella hoped that her being an FBI agent might mean he’d be more willing to share information which she understood could not be distributed to the general public.
Even so, he hadn’t sounded keen about sending off case details to a random stranger. Stella was worried that he would decide against it; and in that case, she’d have to go there and plead with him in person to at least view the old files. That would take time and money she didn’t have right now.
He had promised to call her back when he had time and had thought about it. For now, Stella was doing her best to research what was available in the public domain.
So far, her research had uncovered that George Fall had been an extremely hard-working detective. He’d run a tight ship, he had a high solve rate, and the police department where he worked had been well managed, trusted, and highly regarded by the community. The press reports she’d seen had shown that he had a good relationship with the local press.
How Stella wished she could sit down with her father and speak to him again. Now that she was in law enforcement herself, she had renewed admiration for the way he’d done his job.
At that moment, her phone rang. She grabbed it anxiously.
“Stella Fall?” she said.
“Agent Fall? It’s Detective Harding here from Leavenworth.”
“Thanks so much for calling back,” Stella said.
She felt nervous and expectant as she waited for his verdict.
“I have considered your request about the case files.” He paused. “I wasn’t working at the precinct at that time. I transferred there a few years ago. But even so, your father’s disappearance has never been forgotten and people here still talk about it. It must have been very difficult for you,” he said.
Stella felt grateful for his brisk sympathy.
“It was,” she acknowledged.
“I don’t allow case information to be circulated outside of the precinct,” he said firmly.
“I understand,” Stella said softly, trying to fight back the disappointment she felt, even as she considered her next move.
But then, he continued.
“However, I’ve decided to make an exception for you, since you’re also in law enforcement, and because of the family connection. So I’ll require you to send through your ID and proof of employment at the New Haven branch, and also sign a disclaimer to say you’ll keep the information confidential, that you won’t forward or share it, and will delete all the records as soon as you are done with them.”
“Oh, thank you so much!” Stella felt her spirits lift.
“I trust as an FBI agent you’re on board with that?”
“Yes. I will keep it totally confidential,” Stella promised.
“Okay then. I’m going to ask my assistant to scan all the files, from the date of Detective Fall’s disappearance, going back sixty days. That will probably be about ten criminal cases.”
“Thank you. I’m really grateful,” Stella replied.
Even though a small Kansas precinct was not a typical hotspot for serious or organized crime, there must have been something that caused him to take this drastic action.
Quickly, she emailed through her ID as well as her recent letter of employment. She felt surprised, as she sent it through, that the date of employment was October, and it was already mid-December. She’d been working at the FBI New Haven branch for two months. Time had flown.
As Stella sent the mail, a flicker of movement from outside caught her eye.
She leaped to her feet.
There was a shadow visible again from behind the window blinds. Someone was outside her apartment again. Watching, listening, waiting.
For a moment, Stella felt choked by fear. Then, steeling herself, she moved quietly.
She was not going to let the intruder get away, and she was going to find out who was lurking outside.
She ran to the front door and wrenched it open.
- Writer
