Color Me Grey: Book One of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles (25 page)

I typed in ‘monkey’ because I was pretty sure
that wouldn’t be the password. Nothing happened except it told me I
didn’t have the correct password. I tried ‘mole’, which was the
last word we had tried before. The computer screen went blank and
it looked like the computer had shut itself off. There was a faint
green light coming from the monitor though, so I knew it hadn’t
shut itself off, it had just gone to a blank screen. I sat and
thought for a minute then figured it out. Dad had done this one
other time to me. It was like a game between us. I have always
tried to break into his computer and he was always trying to come
up with new ways to protect it from me. He didn’t always know I had
broken his security though, so he would use the same method if he
thought they were Alex-proofed. This must have been one of those. I
will admit, it did take me a while to figure it out, but I knew how
to fix the problem.

“
Okay, everybody,” I said to get
everyone’s attention. “I need you to look for a separate hard
drive. It’ll be a little box that I can plug into the
computer.”

I got up and went in search of it myself. The
last time I had run into this problem, the external drive had been
in his bedroom upstairs. This was the first place I looked. Again
Mr. White followed me. He helped me look upstairs but we didn’t
find it in any of the rooms up there. I decided I’d check the
living room and had no luck there either. As I walked past my dad’s
office I saw Gabriella, Mr. Black and Mr. Brown were all busy
looking through things. I rounded up Mr. Brown to come help us look
through the library.

We started by looking under all the cushions
of the chairs and couch in the room. Then we moved onto the books.
I knew my dad had some hollow books where he stashed things, so I
went straight to them first. They all had some sort of stash, like
cash or his cigarettes and lighter. He used to sneak a cigarette
every once in a while, but by the look of the cigarettes in the
stash box, he hadn’t done that in quite a while. Then Mr. White
said, “Is this what you’re looking for?” He lifted up a small box
that looked like the one dad had used before.

“
Could be,” I said. I moved over to him
and took it. “Thanks,” I added as I walked back toward the
office.

I got it plugged in and the computer came
back to life. The file opened and everyone was standing over me as
I searched through it. There were lots of names, each with an
address and/or phone number. Some of them had dates next to the
names. I thought the dates might be the place to start. I didn’t
know what they stood for, but it could have been the dates my dad
received information from them or dates of a job he hired out.

I found a date close to the date of my first
job and the name next to the date was Abdullah Salah. Now if that
wasn’t a good sign I didn’t know what was! There was no address but
there was a contact number. I wrote it down and handed it to Mr.
White.

“
This should be the guy,” I
said.

He nodded and took the paper from me. Turning
to Mr. Black he said, “I need you to take care of Ms. Grey. I’m
going to have Mr. Red call this guy up.” He turned to me and added,
“Good job. This might be what we need to get the ball rolling. I’ll
be back before too long.” With that, he left. Mr. Brown and
Gabriella went with him. Leaving just Mr. Black and myself to clean
up the mess we had all made.

Cleaning up didn’t take all that long. When
we finished, I told Mr. Black I’d like to go to my place to clean
up. On the walk to my house I asked him how long he thought it
might take to locate Abdullah Salah, the suspected informant. He
said it shouldn’t take too long, but he didn’t know if he would be
cooperative with us.

After I cleaned myself up and changed my
clothes Mr. Black and I sat back and watched some TV. It was
something I was able to do because my mind didn’t have to work. I
could just sit there and become part of another world and not have
to think about anything.

*****

Several days passed with Mr. Black and myself
hanging out at my place. He made and received calls daily, but
there had been no luck in finding my dad’s informant.

I had gotten over being antsy because I had
gotten things moving, but now that no progress had been made I was
becoming restless again. Mr. Black and I had a meeting at the
office today and I wanted to get in there and get it over with. I
was hoping something had come up so we could get busy. I was pretty
sure Mr. Black was tired of sleeping on my couch too. It wasn’t big
enough for him to stretch out on. It was a bit more comfortable
than the ground up in the mountains though.

I hadn’t been able to see my mother yet. They
had brought her to a safe house and they didn’t want anyone to know
where she was. I had spoken to her on the phone and she seemed very
normal for what was happening. It didn’t seem to bother her she had
shot someone. She did have a bit of trouble with the fact that
Daddy had been kidnapped, but told me she knew I could find him and
get him back. Nothing like a little pressure to make a person feel
great about sitting at home doing nothing.

It was time for the meeting so we got into my
Mustang. Mr. White and company had taken both vehicles the other
day so it would seem that nothing had changed. Later that day he
had tried to place me in a safe house but I wouldn’t go. I told him
if The Lion’s cultists came back for me, Mr. Black and I would
handle it and maybe it could help us out if we were able to capture
the bad guys. After I pointed out that bit of information I didn’t
get much argument from Mr. White.

We pulled into the car garage and Mr. Black
pointed to my very own parking spot. He told me they had set it up
while he and I had been at the cabin. I guess I’m in it for the
long haul now, I thought.

Mr. Black held the elevator door for me and
opened the door to Suite 73 just like he had before. I noticed
these things. Mr. White had done the same on some occasions but Mr.
Black did it almost every time. The only time he wasn’t a gentleman
in this way was at the cabin. I had to fend for myself up there,
most of the time. He slipped once in a while, but I didn’t
mind.

Gabriella looked up from her desk and said,
“Nobody’s here yet. I’m supposed to tell you they would be about
half an hour late.”

Mr. Black said he’d be back in twenty minutes
and walked out the door.

“
I’m sorry about Admiral Stanton,”
Gabriella said after I sat down in front of her desk. “He is such a
nice man.”

“
You know my dad?” I asked.

“
Not well. He’s been here a couple
times, but he was always so polite,” she said. “I took your deer to
the taxidermist yesterday. Did you really get him all by yourself?”
she asked.

“
Yeah,” I said. “It was kind of an
accident, but don’t tell the guys that.”

She smiled. “I won’t tell. I just love the
fact that a woman is right up there with these guys. Don’t tell
them, but none of them came back with a buck that size, not even
Mr. Black.”

“
They’ve all brought back deer?” I
asked.

“
Yeah, it’s like an initiation of sorts
with them. Mr. White, Mr. Brown and Mr. Red were all here the other
day and they were talking about your deer,” she said. “Sometimes
they forget I’m in here and I get some juicy gossip. But anyway,
Mr. White was bragging you up to Mr. Red because I think Mr. Red
had the biggest buck before.” She got a disgusted look on her face.
“I don’t really like Mr. Red. He walks around thinking he’s all
that. I think it’s because he can speak so many different
languages.”

“
I’ve not met Mr. Red yet,” I said with
a bit of worry in my voice.

“
Ah honey, don’t worry. He’s not all
that bad; he just walks around with his nose in the air. You could
knock him down a few pegs,” she said. Then she added with a sly
look, “I also heard Mr. Brown razzing Mr. White about how you had
him down on the ground. What were you doing out there with Mr.
White?” she asked.

“
We were practicing hand-to-hand
maneuvers and Mr. White was distracted by the chopper so I took him
down,” I said with a big smile on my face. I was more proud of that
than the buck. “I didn’t know Mr. Brown saw it.” I was a bit
embarrassed.

“
Well, Mr. White got a bit upset with
Mr. Brown after he said that,” Gabriella said. “He told Mr. Brown
that you two were practicing, like you said, and you weren’t that
kind of girl.” Her smile broadened.

“
Really?” I said, my face getting
hot.

“
Oh, look at that. You’re blushing. You
better try to control that because if these guys see that, they’ll
pick on you forever,” she said.

“
I know,” I said. I knew I did better
around them than her though. Gabriella had a way of reading me and
knowing just what to say to get a reaction out of me. I suppose it
was because she was a woman and could understand the things that
went through my head.

We talked about other things, like how Mr.
Black had actually spoken to her since he had been back. They had
talked about me mostly, but he asked her about herself too. That
was a good sign for her I told her and she agreed. I didn’t know if
they would ever hook up, but at least she was getting to talk to
him a bit. She told me he had seemed to open up more. She thought
it might be because I had come along. She said he talked about me
just like one of the other guys, but he was proud when he spoke of
me. This woman was a fountain of interesting information. She did
most of the talking, but that was the way I liked it anyway. I gave
her a little bit of information about myself here and there, but
tried to keep it limited to stuff I might not care if other people
found out about.

Mr. Black finally came back and the three of
us sat in silence for a while. Then I told him Gabriella had taken
my buck to the taxidermist. He told me it would have to go back to
the cabin because everyone else’s was there. The plan was to build
onto the cabin to include rooms for everyone and the skins would
hang in everyone’s separate room. They just hadn’t gotten around to
building on yet. He said it was a good thing too, because now I
could have my own room.

Before long, Mr. White came in and without
words Mr. Black and I followed him to his office. Mr. Black shut
the door behind us and we all took seats. It was quiet for a while
and the look on Mr. White’s face didn’t seem promising. He finally
broke the silence by saying Mr. Red had gotten in touch with the
informant but he wouldn’t help us unless he had proof Mr. Red was
who he said he was. The only proof he would accept was me.

All these different people knew me and I
didn’t have a clue as to who they were. I really wished I had
snooped more into what my dad’s job was.

“
What does he want me to do?” I
asked.

“
He will meet only with you,” Mr. White
said. “But we can’t do that, because I don’t know if we can trust
him.”

“
We’ll just have to take the chance,
won’t we,” I said defiantly.

“
Ms. Grey might be right,” Mr. Black
said. “I don’t want to put her in danger, but we could control the
meeting. We’d have everyone posted around to make sure nothing
could happen to her. We just need to choose the right place for the
meeting,” he said.

“
I would prefer someplace public where
it would be hard to spot us and hard for them to get to her,” Mr.
White said.

“
It couldn’t be a large place like a
mall though,” Mr. Black said.

I cut in and said, “What about the Skylight?
Pretty much everyone there knows me and it’s a small type of bar.
The building is fairly large, but it’s mostly open and the
clientele doesn’t change much. I could probably pick out the people
who didn’t belong or I could have Colin check things out before I
go in.”

It was quiet for a moment then Mr. Black
said, “That would probably work.”

“
It could, but I’m not sure about
putting you in that kind of danger,” Mr. White said.

“
If he is my dad’s informant then I
should be safe right?” I asked and got an affirmative nod from Mr.
White. “If he’s not, then you guys will be around so I should still
be safe,” I said.

“
Should be,” Mr. White said. “Okay,
I’ll set up the meeting for tonight. You can use Gabriella’s phone
to see if you can set it up with your friend. I’ll get Mr. Red on
the phone and get him started on setting up the meeting with
Salah.”

“
Should I tell him everything that’s
going on?” I asked. “Colin likes to know what’s going on in my
life.”

“
Don’t tell him all the details, but
you can tell him some of them. Just be as discreet as you can be,”
he said as I walked to the front office to use the phone. I looked
back and he was already on his phone. I assumed he was calling Mr.
Red to get the ball rolling.

I asked permission from Gabriella before I
picked up her phone. Then I dialed Colin. I was glad to hear his
voice. It had been a while since we last talked. I asked him how he
was doing and what he had been up to. He had met a girl while I had
been gone but it wasn’t serious. I felt a pang of jealousy at this
because Colin had always been mine even though I didn’t really want
him. He had had other girlfriends in the past and I never liked any
of them. We did a little more catching up before I asked my favor.
Finally I said, “I was wondering if you could do me a favor
tonight?”

“
Depends on what it is,” he said. “I’m
supposed to meet Olivia tonight at the Skylight.” Olivia was his
new girl.