Page 13 of Once a Hero
“Shocked was more like it.” Helen sighed. “But the voice was filtered. It’s not her real voice.”
Earl stretched and slapped his thighs as he stood up and put on his vest. “I think it’s Philomena, overcome by guilt.”
Jake wasn’t as sure.
Chapter Six
When Beatrice and Raynelle returned to the Fisherman’s Wharf at ten o’clock at night, they found the café off limits with yellow police tape across the front door. The rest of the restaurants up and down the bay were still open. Tourists enjoyed themselves, laughing loudly, chatting to one another, taking night selfies.
Beatrice and Raynelle blended into the crowd.
“Whose bright idea was this?” Beatrice quietly said into her Bluetooth headphone. She knew Kenichi could hear her.
He was at the back of the van several blocks away, looking at the world through the cameras on Beatrice’s shirt button and Raynelle’s beanie cap button.
“Why are we here again?” Beatrice did not expect an answer. She hadn’t slept all day, and she was getting cranky.
In fact, she hadn’t wanted to come here a second time in twenty-four hours. However, Kenichi had obtained the security video from the same café and noticed that before Philomena had sat down with the FBI agent, she went to the ladies’ room.
The before-and-after photos showed that she went in with an amber-colored brooch on her lapel and came out without it. Had she dropped it somewhere in the restroom floor?
“Ladies’s room, people,” Kenichi said. “I’m not going in there.”
“Does it matter? The café is closed. Someone just died there.” That was Beatrice’s verdict.
Raynelle didn’t care if they went or not. She would still be paid whether she sat in their townhouse or in the van or accompanied Beatrice into the café.
“You better go with her,” Kenichi told Raynelle. “Two pairs of eyes are better than one.”
“I guess we could bring a metal detector.” Beatrice was still reluctant. “What if we’re caught?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll disable all the sensors before you go in.”
Six hours later, after a dinner of salmon on greens—yeah, Kenichi cooked too—the trio headed out to the Fisherman’s Wharf, and here they were.
Beatrice paid Kenichi and Raynelle very high salaries for their expertise. However, on a crowded street with security cameras all around them, how would they break into a locked café?
Beatrice did not want to hear that her employees hadn’t thought through their mission. In fact, if anything, she was to blame. She should have said—
“Walking off your chocolate cake?” A voice said to her.
Beatrice froze. It was the same voice from the café last night. Surely it could not be Jake Kessler.
“I recognize you even though you’re wearing a different nose tonight,” he added.
Beatrice turned.
“And different colored hair.”
It was indeed FBI Special Agent Jake Kessler. Again. However, he wasn’t supposed to know that she knew who he was. “And you are?”
“Jake.” He was wearing a plaid shirt of many dubious colors—the street lamp distorted the colors in the night. “There. I gave you my real name. What’s yours?”
“You must have mistaken me for another person.” Beatrice noticed Raynelle distancing herself from them.
She was going toward the café.
“I don’t think so,” Jake said. “You wore a prosthetic nose this morning.”
