Case 17: The Pair Grove

Still shivering the sensation of blood away from her skin, Nindy is of course left with the questions her last case gave to her.

Is distraction really what she needs at a time like this?  Or is it, yet again, uncannily related?

Coincidences seem to be eerie demands, however.

Not only do they raise questions along with the hair on her neck, but such correlations spur speculation into the past of not only her most trusted-but herself.

What is the Pair Grove, but on a coincidental level, what is the Snow Foundation, and what does Nindy have to do with it?

And still more, what does Schiele honestly know that he honestly refuses to share?

__________________________________________________________

The Pair Grove

 

Nindy Yards did not often put on a dress or skirt for any occasion. She was at the time wearing one, though, and was scratching at an uncomfortable seam in it.

“Stop,” Schiele caught her hand without even looking to it. “This is almost over.”

“I can’t even hear back here,” she whispered back. “Do we have to go to the reception or anything?”

“At least say something to her,” he allowed the bare minimum of politeness.

Nindy could feel the cheap thread pricking at her leg again, and in attempted distraction she craned her neck to try to see around the people seated in the pews ahead of them, observers packed into the acoustic cathedral.

Having fully intended to pretend she knew nothing about the event, Nindy had tossed an embossed ivory card into the trash, only to be put on the defensive when a frowning Schiele fished it out.

“An invitation to Joan Duncan’s wedding?” he had questioned her, holding the item up, his brows lifting alongside it.

“Is that what it is?” she had feigned ignorance.

“You know better,” he had shaken his head, smiling despite himself. “You even opened it, Nindy. You can’t lie about torn paper. Why don’t you want to go?”

“Because crowds make me nervous. Especially wedding crowds. And believe me,” she had gone on, all without looking up from the popular Forensics Today magazine she was hunched over, “Joan’s wedding will be a crowd.”

Once politeness put her in the reception room, Nindy wanted to kick Schiele in the shin for suggesting it. She was choking on perfume and finery, and began to lie when people would ask her what her name was and how she knew the bride.

“Hedy Lamarr,” she sipped the sparkling bubbles from the expensive champagne, arching a single brow at the inquirer. “I come to American to see beautiful pictures.”

“How nice,” the woman’s smile faltered enough to give away her thoughts. She turned to her more openly curious partner, suggesting to him, “Shall we find our way to the appetizers, darling? It was lovely to meet you,” she turned to Nindy.

“Dah.”

Schiele shook his head, smiling at her. “You’re going to get in trouble one day.”

“One day?” she grinned her reply.

Laughing, he turned when hearing their names called from nearby. “That would be our lovely bride Joan,” he identified the near squeal of delight.

“You came!”

Nindy found herself suddenly enveloped in chiffon, satin, and lace, her vision blurred white and her breath nearly squeezed out of her body by the arms that closed in tight around her. “Joan,” she managed to find enough air to sound the words, “Of course we came.”

She nodded when at least allowed escape from the gown, doing her best to disengage herself without being too rude about it. “Congratulations. It was a lovely ceremony.”

“Wasn’t it? Oh! Honey!” she twisted to locate her new husband, while calling him drawing the interest of all nearby to her reason for request, “You simply must meet Nindy Yards!”

Nindy caught Schiele’s sly, smiling eye, and again wished she could kick him.

Joan’s explanation was fast and breathless, her eyes sparkling and almost tearing up as she very briefly summarized their acquaintance, and relieved the two from a thorough narration by saying, “I told you all about them, I know it!”

“Yes,” he reached to shake their hands. “I am grateful to you as well. Had you not helped her out, I might have never gotten the chance to make this wonderful woman my wife.”

Schiele nodded while warmly exchanging the greeting. “We always do what we can to help. Congratulations-you both make a beautiful couple.”

“You must stay to the end!” Joan demanded. “Enjoy yourself, please!”

Nindy was hugged again: “Oh, I am so happy that you came!”

After she had gone, they stood quiet and unmoved before turning to each other.

“Drink?” Schiele took the nearly empty glass from Nindy’s hand.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Thank you. I’ll meet you back here. I’m going to find the bathroom. Give up on me if I don’t come back after five minutes. This place is a labrynth.”

It did not take five minutes to find the correct door, but she did have to wait for an opening to get through it. While washing her hands at the sink, she listened to the wedding related chatter all around her, woefully thinking of her escape all the more, and so hardly noticed that a woman outside the bathroom door was in fact trying to get her attention and not wrongfully cut the line.

“Nindy? Nindy!”

Startled, she stopped in her stride, having gotten to a quieter part of the hallway before feeling someone actually touch her arm. Turning on the prompt, she studied the small woman who was smiling through her amazed expression, her slender hand laid upon her breast, “My God, it is you! I thought that I heard Joan say your name earlier, and I simply had to find out if I had heard her correctly!”

Nindy’s mouth worked a bit helplessly. She had no clue for the name that matched that pretty face. She in no way understood why this stranger would seem to expect more from her. She was grateful that the woman’s excitement kept things from getting too uncomfortable.

“Olivia Baltimore,” her head bobbed as she identified herself. “Maybe you don’t remember me-we worked together at Childress Enterprises!”

“Childress Enterprises?” Nindy’s eyes narrowed, but not with memory of an occupation. Only memory of a name and person.

“Yes! Oh,” Olivia leaned while laughing, placing a hand on Nindy’s arm, “I know, I know, we aren’t supposed to talk about work.” She rolled her eyes, “But considering, I don’t see what harm could be done! I had wondered what happened to you,” her expression grew more serious, suddenly less silly. “All we heard was that there was some sort of mixup, and you left with Schiele.”

Nindy’s stare was uncontrolled.

“Schiele is the one that came with you tonight, isn’t it?” Olivia misunderstood Nindy’s stunned silence. “Or did we assume too much? It was strange, we thought, as he never encouraged you. When you left, we assumed you had both been planning something in secret. And you do have an office with him now, yes? I did understand Joan correctly, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” she was some how able to force the words out. She managed to put that answer with the question, though her mind was still reeling with the implication of it. “It’s-it’s great.”

Nodding, Olivia proudly told her, “We knew you could do it. Oh, but listen to me rambling on, I’m sure you would like to get back to the party. It is such a lovely wedding! It was good to see you again,” she exclaimed. “I’m happy to have good news to give to the rest of the Poole!”

Nindy could only smile, nodding her head in a mechanical gesture, turning it upon her neck to watch the stranger walk away.

After standing still, caught in the dazed wake of a stranger, she found her way to a door marked above by a glowing sign, and let the exit fall closed behind her.

She felt she hadn’t blinked in hours-or that she could even manage it. Her shaking hands automatically felt out her thighs before she realized the simple dress had no pockets in it. She remembered the purse dangling on her shoulder, though the strap began twisting up with her clumsy movements to grab it and open the snap-held flap.

She located the cigarettes, breaking the first in an attempt to pull it from the flimsy paper. The second gave up no fight, but the flame of the cheap lighter was shaking as much as her hand, and so barely made contact with the paper.

“Eyre,” she whispered the name. “Eyre Childress. I know that name.”

Her seemingly useless eyes turned to take in the clean alley between the well maintained buildings, though she saw nothing of it’s crisp red brick and grey cobbled floor. “Schiele..? I knew Schiele before?”

She wasn’t sure what to do with the information, or at least the suggestion. Part of her considered it a case of mistaken identity. Surely Olivia had Nindy confused with someone else. It was likely that Olivia had worked with someone who bore a similar name, and perhaps face, but was no one Nindy knew.

But Schiele? Maybe that’s what it was, she told herself. It was just someone that knew Schiele, likewise mistaking Nindy for someone that had worked with both of them. Eyre Childress was a name attached to Schiele’s past, and so it was Nindy’s only logical way to explain Olivia’s mistaken recognition. It would be impossible for it to be anything else.

For some reason, she did not think she should say anything about the encounter. She wasn’t sure what to think about it, and she wasn’t sure if she should mention the puzzle to Schiele. She did not expect him to give her any answer different than the one she was giving herself: it was just coincidence.

Schiele’s brow furrowed up in disgust. “You’ve been smoking,” he immediately caught the scent on her when she returned to his side.

“I’m… Just ready to go.”

“You said you were going to stop that.”

“I am, okay?” she turned to look up to him, her eyes matching the sharpness in her voice. “Lay off me, okay?”

He said nothing else, handing her the glass.

“I never have anyone lecturing me about the booze, you know,” she muttered into the cold drink.

“That’s because your alcohol problem doesn’t stink up the apartment.”

“Oh, if I got too involved, it would!” she countered.

“I said ‘your’,” he clarified. “I’m don’t have to live with anyone else’s habits.”

“It’s always nice of people to condemn something someone else does while they do ten things just as bad themselves.”

“Nindy,” his voice was a soft suggestion, “Let’s not get into this mood.”

Snorting out a breath, she relented.

“What the hell happened to you in the toilet?” he wondered.

“Nothing,” she lied. “I’m just ready to go, that’s all.”

“I wanted to introduce you to someone,” someone neither Nindy nor Schiele knew brought yet another stranger to them. “Nindy Yards, yes? We were just discussing a curious matter, and were reminded of Joan’s description of you! What a coincidence to find a private investigator among the crowd! Perhaps you can help to shed some light on this.”

Nindy’s eyes darted from the large bosomed and matronly woman draped in an orchid colored gown to the tall, militant looking young male at her side. He unclasped his hands long enough to shake Nindy’s own, his nod as crisp as the lapels of his tuxedo.

“Garith Embers,” he stated his name.

Nindy amusedly thought he might rattle off an ID number as well. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Embers.”

“Garith works for the prison,” the woman nodded her head, a feather stuck in the coordinated hat perched on her hair looking startled by the stirred up wind. “Captain, yes?” she turned to him.

He nodded his head. “My mother,” he kindly explained to them.

“Oh! Ah, nice to meet you,” Nindy smiled at her. “I had almost thought you would say he was in the armed forces.”

“Oh, he was!” she beamed.

“Army. Twelve years. Retired.”

Nindy’s nod was slow. She glanced to Schiele to see his brows lightly lift.

‘Thank you for your service,” he said. “What made you consider work with the prison, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Protection,” he wasted no time with the answer. “I’m a firm believer in protecting this country, and that means in our states as well as across our borders.”

“Why not the police force?” Schiele wondered.

“Too much politics.”

Schiele smiled in quiet approval of that estimation.

“Probably have your hands more full in the prison,” Nindy noted.

He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am. I suppose that could be said. But they aren’t generally tied, either.”

“Tell them, Dear,” his mother was anxious to begin. “Tell them what you told me is happening. It’s simply curious!” she turned to assure them again, terrifying the feather once more. “I hardly know what to think of it!”

Strangers with strange stories seemed to be in common that night. Nindy forgot one for another, though. At least for the time.

“We adopted a highway,” Garith began in his level and easy voice. His right hand lightly gestured away from his left, but only for a moment, “It is a community effort that my squad and I take part in. It isn’t far from the prison. The route is one that leads away from the city and more into the countryside. It tends to collect litter, as it is also the popular route to the city disposal site.”

“Trash dump,” Nindy called it. “I know the road. That’s an undertaking, cleaning that one up!”

He nodded. “We decided to do something about it. Of course, we had no arguments with anyone about that stretch. The council was anxious for anyone to take it up.”

“This is related to the problem?” Schiele questioned.

“We keep finding things.”

Both of the inquisitors perked up. Imaginations began to roll, but their ears were simply aching to hear what would be said next to narrow the channel. “Things” was such a broad word, but for those “things” to be curious narrowed it down to the unusual spectrum. That was enticing.

“What kind of things?” Nindy nearly fidgeted in anticipation.

“Shoes.”

“Shoes!” his mother repeated. “It is so bizarre!”

Schiele was disappointed. “I imagine that shoes are not a terribly unusual litter.”

“The first few we found, I did not think much of myself,” Garith stated. “But we found more. And we found pairs.”

“Pairs,” Nindy slowly repeated, still unsure what the puzzle actually was.

“Pairs,” his mother again stepped in. “One week, they find one shoe-the next, they find the pair to it! They aren’t found at the same time, and who would throw a matched pair out in the same spot they had supposedly lost one already?”

Exchanging glances, they had no real answer to that.

“I looked more closely at the second pair we found,” Garith further explained. “There was a paper folded up and tucked into the toe. I do not have it now, but I will bring it to you. If you do decide you would care to look into this. I do realize it is a bit strange of a request.”

“Considering,” Nindy hesitated, “That we don’t have a reason or billable party?”

He chuckled. “I am willing to take on the fees.”

“And why would that be?” Schiele was quick to question, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What made this seem effectual to you?”

“The folded paper,” Garith said. “There was seeming gibberish on it. The first of three lines had a number on it. It wasn’t a telephone number. Below it, another longer number. There were two letters below it all. It didn’t mean anything to me, or to anyone else, until we found a second shoe. One of my guards began to draw conclusions. He’s always been a bit skittish when it comes to trust, and so he is always considering someone’s angle to ‘get at’ him. So long in the prison has made his imagination a bit fantastic, I think. He said the first four digits matched the number of his street address. He said the next matched his postal code. He said the two letters matched his first and last name.”

Nindy chewed her lip. “Hmm!”

“You see?” his mother drew their focus again. “How strange is that? I do wonder what it means!”

“So do I, now,” Nindy admitted.

“If you’re interested, I can bring the paper to you,” Garith said. “I honestly do not see what threat there is to anyone, but as said-we are quite curious. And my man is more on edge than ever. It might make us all relax a little more if we knew there was no meaning behind it. Coincidences happen,” he shrugged one shoulder. “We can’t go making conspiracies out of every little one of them.”

“Come on by,” Nindy encouraged. “As said, I’m curious now. I’d be happy to look into the matter.”

He nodded. “Thank you. I won’t bother you with directions, as I’m sure I can find you in the telephone book. Mother,” he turned to her, “We should excuse ourselves. We have taken up enough of their time. It was a pleasure to meet you both,” he turned to them. “I apologize for bringing up work at a time like this.”

“No problem,” Nindy grinned. “It keeps me from being bored.”

He chuckled, seeming to understand that sentiment himself. “I’ll see you soon.”

Schiele’s head tilted a bit, his eyes following the daper other. His next breath was a softly snorted out one as he turned to survey the grand room and the glittering people still mingling cheerfully in it. “Let’s go.”

“Finally!” she exclaimed, setting the glass on a nearby window sill.

Laughing, he said, “Don’t sound so sad to be going! See the bride off, and we’ll catch a cab back to our side of town.”

Riding in that quiet, work weathered cab, they were both watching the curb-sides and road sides. Nindy knew Schiele was as equally interested in what was usually left on the side of a street. Typically, trash of the sort was ignored. But giving such attention to the cast off was, Nindy discovered, an informative look at the nature of the litter-bugs as well as the disposable culture they were a part of.

They saw no shoes, however.

Nindy lay awake that night, unblinking gaze on the sleeping shadow beside her. Her mind had been questioning shoes before she had laid down in an attempt to still it, but in the quiet darkness, her questions had settled upon another subject. Another puzzle had been presented to her, and it was one that she alone was troubled by. “Coincidence,” she whispered the prison guard’s words. “Can’t make a conspiracy out of every one of them.”

After a pause, her eyes narrowed. “But how do you know the ones to single out of the ignored? Find information. I find information,” she realized. “I don’t have to ask Schiele. I need to find out who this Olivia girl is and what the devil she is talking about. That’s the place to start,” she decided it. “Then I’ll know if she does have someone else in mind.”

The next morning Garith Embers entered the small, second floor office.

Promptly on time for their opening hour, and as perfectly dressed in his pressed, dark navy uniform. “On my way to work,” he explained his intimidating appearance, smiling as Nindy looked him over in surprise.

“I’ll bet you still polish your shoes every night,” Nindy teased him.

Schiele turned his head, watching from his desk, but saying nothing.

“Yes ma’am. The paper,” he handed off the said item, neatly folded into a square that had fit perfectly into one of his starched jacket pockets. “I had dismissed it for litter before hand. You’ll see why. My card,” he handed that to her as well, “Has my contact information on it. If you have any questions for me, or any of the men, do not hesitate to call me. Again, thank you for looking into it. I do realize it is a somewhat odd request made after so suddenly accosting you.”

“We like the odd ones,” Nindy grinned.

Smiling, he said, “I have noticed a trend with you in the papers. Well,” he nodded in parting, “I will be going then. Have a great morning.”

“You too.”

Nindy turned to Schiele after the door had closed. She held up the card, saying of it, “What kind of anal retentive has a personal business card?”

“That kind.” He stood up. “He’s been out of the army for five years, but you’d never know it, would you? Some of them should stay in.”

Nindy question was made with a small laugh, “Why is that?”

“They are tailored for that kind of life. Like the suit to the business. What is this?” he turned his attention to the paper.

Sitting down behind the desk, Nindy unfolded and laid flat the paper. “Looks like some kind of advertisement ripped from a newspaper. Cheap paper, cheap ink, standard colours with sloppy screening. Definitely something that is run often, maybe even daily. This is the block they mean, I suppose,” she tapped her finger to the squared section, mostly blank and tinted pink. “Address numbers, zip code, and initials. Looks like it was hand written on,” she was curious, turning the paper around to more clearly see the indentations of an ink pen pressed into the pulp. “Made after it was printed. They tried to copy the look of the font, but this was done by hand.”

“Well,” Schiele turned back to his computer, dropping back down into the chair, “We can find out about this paranoid ‘him’ real quickly, in that case. More than our client, even.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Pull a map of the road as well. And any near it, yeah?”

“Mmhmm.”

It didn’t take the tracker long to narrow part of it down. “1810 Crestridge Parkway,” Schiele found the house.

She blew out a whistle. “Nice,” she recognized the name and neighborhood.

“I’m sure his job pays fairly well.”

“What else can you get on him?”

“Give me a little time,” he smiled over his shoulder, “And I’ll have some history for you. And if he’s that nervous about some random numbers, most likely something juicy enough for a tabloid. I suggest you look at those other ads visible on the tear off. If any of them are real, we might be able to track down the common resource, and thusly our strange advertiser.”

“Gotcha. Might turn out to be nothing at all.”

“It very well could be nothing,” he shrugged one shoulder. “There are social networking ‘games’ that work like that. Clues and notes and names: nonsense searches that use GPS and a desire to do something constructive with one’s time. People mark a location, give others a clue, and someone goes to find it-the process repeats. That may be all that this pertains to.”

“And if we find out who places this particular ad, a game may be all it turns out to be.”

The ads neighboring their curiosity were real. Matching numbers and addresses to those in the telephone book, Nindy called several of the businesses to ask which paper medias they advertised with. After working through a scratched out grid on a piece of printer paper, slashing those that applied, she found that all three visible for identification in the torn page were promotions made in the “Corina Chronicle“.

Finding the small, locally printed paper had an even smaller web-site, Nindy scrolled through several digital pages and reference links. Chin in hand, rather bored with the tedium of it, she looked up when Schiele set a glass beside her and then sat down on the couch with another of his own.

She closed the laptop. “What you got?” she lifted herself upright in the chair.

“Trey Wickerson.”

“Oo, pictures,” she scrambled out of the chair when he lifted the paper to show the image to her.

Chuckling, he waited for her to bounce down onto the couch end opposite him and then settle in. Handing the paper off, he said of their client, “Not sure if our military boy knows one of his men has been on the wrong side of a jail cell.”

“I’d bet he does,” she studied the photograph and the typically unflattering picture of the dark haired man captured in it. “That was taken seven years ago.” She looked up. “Probably is willing to overlook it. How long has he been working at the prison?”

“He was on before Embers.”

“I didn’t know you could work in a prison with a record,” Nindy slowly considered it.

Schiele shrugged. “We might have to look into that a little more thoroughly. It was an arrest, but not a conviction. He didn’t serve any time. At any rate, he’s been working for the prison, has no documented trouble outside of it, and goes home to his cozy little house on Crestridge Parkway.”

“Family?”

“Recently divorced. He has a nine year old daughter. His wife is fighting for custody.”

She took the next image handed to her, watching him look to yet another page of his building file.

“Emily Wickerson.”

She took the third, eyes narrowed to see the little girl in that image. What looked like a dirty smudge on the side of the girls neck wasn’t a mark left from a day playing outside.

“Lea Wickerson. The school noticed bruises on her arm one day during recess.” He turned to meet Nindy’s solemn gaze. “That’s what started the divorce process. He claims Emily is hurting the child. She claims that he is. Social services were sent in to investigate, but as thorough as they are,” his sarcasm marked that, “They cited no problems found at all.”

“So it’s going to court.”

“It’s been to court. Emily can only have her daughter two weekends out of the month.”

“They don’t often side with the father in these kinds of cases,” Nindy skeptically noted. “What did he have against her?”

“From what I can gather,” he flipped up another page to find the legal documentation, “She has a part time job at a fast food restaurant, and so he said she could not afford to raise the child. He also said she had no reliable vehicle, no family for support should she need it, and lived in a questionable neighborhood.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I’m sure he knew someone that knew someone, if you follow me.”

“Given his occupation.”

“Yes.”

“But maybe he was right to take the kid away. Mother’s hurt their kids, too, you know. You’re sounding a little biased in her favor.”

“I am,” he stated. He nodded when she frowned. “Despite statistics that stack against fathers, there is something about this particular case that makes me disbelieve him.”

“What? What,” she lifted her chin with sudden suspicion, “Was he arrested for?”

“There you go,” he teased with a wink. “Assault. Charges dropped. But Emily claimed that he punched her in the face during an argument. This,” he handed her yet another set of police photos, “Was what they got from her that night.”

Nindy winced. It was obvious from the black eyes that Emily’s nose had been broken by the blow. The “punch” did not appear to be a single strike, either. She was bruised around her left temple and jaw. On her left shoulder were several oval shaped marks, the pattern that of a hand that had held her fighting body in place. Her right forearm had a darker, larger bruise on it.

“He held her arm down,” Nindy whispered. “With his knee, right? Probably had her on the floor. Held her shoulder with his left hand and hit her with his right.”

She swallowed hard to choke down a sudden sweep of nausea. Rubbing her suddenly perspiring forehead, she sat forward to quickly pick up the glass and down the contents.

Schiele quietly watched her before saying, “Looks that way to me. That much violence? No, I don’t trust that kind of background. He wasn’t charged with it,” he took the paper from her numb and trembling hand. “But he probably has a good reason to be looking over his shoulder.”

“She doesn’t have a family, you said. Or he said,” she corrected in reference to the court documentation. “No father or protective brother coming after him with a well deserved tire iron.”

“No,” he agreed, collecting together the papers laid upon the cushion between them. Dropping them on the coffee table to align the edges, he said over the decisive tapping of the fibers, “But that doesn’t mean she’s alone.”

“Back to the shoe,” Nindy quietly agreed. “I didn’t even ask Ember what kind it was.”

“Got a little sloppy with that,” he coolly agreed.

Nindy’s eyes narrowed in offense. After studying him a moment, she pushed against the giving cushion to stand. Picking up the glass, she asked while carrying it to the desk and the bottle on the edge of it, “Why didn’t you bring it up when he was here?”

“I don’t generally get in the middle of these things, Nindy,” was his answer behind her. “I let you do your thing, you know that.”

She returned the cork to the bottle, eyes on the amber liquid still rolling inside it. “That last guy you worked for ever ask for your input?”

“No,” he said. “Never. I told you when I came, I was only there to gather information. That’s what I do.”

She turned around, in doing so almost startled by the look in his eyes as he studied her. It was a strange one, she thought. One she’d not seen or been subject to if she had. It seemed to her as if his focus was staring past her eyes and into her very brain. “Something wrong?” she slowly asked of it.

“No. If you can get that information from Ember, we might have something of a start. Or at least what may tie the two together other than a strange piece of newspaper with an ad on it. Speaking of-“

“Corina Chronicle,” she leaned back, sitting on the edge of the desk and prying up the top of the laptop before turning it around to see the screen. “Just one of those local papers that carry more on community than news or sports. This ad runs constantly on the seventh page, bottom right.”

“Constantly?”

“As far back as I can find digital copies of the paper,” she said. “The letters and numbers aren’t there. They’re empty.”

Rising, he approached with a furrowed brow and accompanying frown. “Did you get a copy for the file?”

She swiped it up. “Explains the hand written note. You know,” she looked to him as he stood back, “This seems like some kind of messaging system. Blank advertisement that is made to look like it means something, but that just has blanks in it to fill in. Street, zip-code, initials. This is a way to find someone.” She rifled around the loose papers on the desk to find the business card she had tossed aside. “I’ll bet it was a child’s shoe.”

Schiele returned to the couch. Sitting down, he slowly cycled through the pages once more. “But what kind of system is this? And to what purpose?”

When asked, Ember thought a moment before telling them, “It was a little shoe, come to think of it. I think it was white with some pink trim on it; pink laces. I remembered it as matching another because it had a sticker of a flower on the toe of it. The odds of a sticker like that matching another shoe like that-no, it was a pair, I could see that easily.”

He did not recall any other shoes, however. Or the other paper that they had found. He also stated they had thrown it out with the rest of the trash collected.

“We’ve gotta watch that road,” Nindy stated, slumped down into the armchair and holding the glass near her cheek, distracted with so many thoughts. “Someone sent that message. Someone will be by to get it.”

“I’ll pull a map of the area. Take a gun, Nindy.”

“You got it,” she looked up, agreeing without hesitation.

“Just surveillance right now?” he suggested it.

Nindy smiled. “Yes, I’m only watching right now,” she assured him, watching him rise to return to his computer. “Calm down. I’ve had enough bad things happen by running in blind, so I know what you mean by advising caution. I do listen to you now, you know.”

“Good,” he leaned to kiss her cheek. Straightening, he flopped the folder on the top of her head, “It’s hard to get through that skull of yours sometimes!”

Knotted Pine Drive, the letters in white stood against the fading green of the old street sign. Nindy looked up at it, hands in pockets, eyes squinted against the wind and a light rain falling onto the quiet, scenic countryside.

On one side of her was a small field, the far edge lined with thickly clustered trees. On the other side, a larger field that rolled around a few stubborn green giants, down hills and into smaller valleys prior to running up other slopes. Waves of grains in the wet wind seemed to run like children across the rolling countryside, playing an eerie sort of game under the grey skies.

It was a strange part of the world to Nindy. She was so used to being in the city that she often forgot that there was something much different beyond the dirty perimeter of it.

She could hear occasional insects humming in the swaying grass and leaves, she could hear a variety of birds calling each other to the drier branches, she was almost certain she could hear wood creatures whispering to each other about an invader.

A car tore past her, the wind from it’s speed and closeness nearly throwing the tails of her long coat over her head. She turned with a scowl, watching the vehicle zoom around a corner and turn into nothing but an out of place noise lost behind the trees.

Walking a short way from the road, she began to follow the water run-off ditch, looking to the debris that had already been thrown out of windows by careless people.

She paused, digging up the pack of cigarettes, lighting one with a guilty look around her. She rather expected Schiele to come popping up out of the grass to waggle his finger at her and command, “Put that out!”

Another car tore past her, a larger truck rumbling behind it, matching the speed.

“Good place to get run over!” she marveled. “And they walk alongside this thing picking up trash? That’s a good deed that’s going to get someone killed for sure!”

She stopped short. The cigarette was frozen between her fingers and her lips, one foot behind the other, her stance one of a forgotten step.

About three feet ahead of her lay a shoe.

Stepping past plastic soda bottles and crumpled beer cans, she approached the item as if she were nearing an archealogical prize. Kneeling down, she pushed aside the taller stalks of grass to more clearly expose it. Taking out her camera, she took several pictures to mark where she had found it. The shoe in relation to the road, to the field, and to the trash around it. She then picked it up and looked inside.

Tucked down into the toe, weakly wedged against the worn sole and the soft tongue, she found the folded paper. Snapping a quick picture of that, she hastily plucked it out before looking down to what was written out.

“1810…” She slowed at seeing the other numbers were the same. The letters were the same. She frowned, looking to the nearly invisible number that had once been inked on the inside of the simple child’s tennis shoe. “5.”

Looking to the pink laces, she shook her head. Turning her squinting gaze around the quiet land, she wondered if someone were watching her. She wondered what was really going on. Finding that shoe and the paper inside it only cemented it into her mind: this was a problem.

Slowly rising, she began to search the trees and fields for any place someone could be hiding. She looked for anyone that might be driving by slowly, but in the time that she was on the side of the road, she was only recklessly ignored.

“Don’t pick up the road again,” Nindy told Ember over the telephone.

“Don’t?” he was horrified by the mere idea of such neglect. “You mean just leave all that trash out there?”

“I know it won’t be easy for you,” she was almost too amused to say it without smiling through it, “But it might help us find out what is going on here.”

“So you think you have something?”

“We have some ideas,” she replied. “But it might help to leave the area alone for a while, just to see what might be done. You understand.”

“Hmm,” he mulled it over. “True. We did step into something that might have already been in progress. Stepping back out will return it to the original condition. It would be easier to observe and plan.”

At that point, she wondered what sort of work he had done for the military. “Right. We need to see what was going on before you came across this.”

“Fair enough. But let’s not let this go on too long,” he said. “If there isn’t anything there to find, there isn’t anything. Let’s not drag it out.”

“Deal.”

Schiele watched her pull on the bulky clothes before asking, “You-?”

“Damnit,” she leaned her head back with a groan, arms dropping limp at her sides, “Yes, your bug is still in my head! You want to feel it?” she flopped her body forward, her hair falling down around her face.

He laughed, throwing his hand up. “No, no. I’m not going to be that far behind you, I’m only confirming it!”

“I don’t like us splitting up any more than you do,” she straightened, tone dry as she informed him. She pulled tight the strap of her gun holster. “We get into bigger messes by trying to play it safe like that. Think I need the other one?” she gestured to a second weapon.

“We’re just watching, Nindy,” was his quiet response.

She paused, hand on hip, watching him loading the long barreled rifle before him. “Yeah, well, seeing you break that thing out makes me nervous.”

He glanced up with a smile.

“I can’t even imagine where you get a gun like that.”

“It gets the job done. I’ll be behind you-just don’t step between me and anyone else that might come up, got that? Keep in mind where I am.”

“Got it.”

Nindy had rented a small car for the day. They drove quiet to the area, Nindy on occasion looking to Schiele as he looked out from the window of the passenger seat.

Elbow propped against the window sill, his gloved hand resting listless under his chin, she watched his dark eyes moving through the landscape in a way looking for something. She glanced over to see him shift the light jacket aside, with his finger and thumb feeling out the handgun at his side, flipping off the safety.

She returned her gaze to the road, biting her lip.

She let him out just before the field, and watched him slip in among the trees and disappear, the long weapon slung across his back.

She parked the car near the edge of the field before stepping out herself.

Schiele, she knew, was making his way to one of the trees he’d picked out during a slow morning drive through the country. She wanted to wait to move away from the car until she was sure that he had climbed up into it and was ready to strike.

“Where did he even learn to shoot like that?” she wondered in a mutter.

She turned to look around. The day was sunny, and because of the previous rain, humid. It made the air hot and stuffy. Nindy scratched at her leg after a touring insect grazed her.

“Ugh! This better not be for nothing!”

She began walking in the direction of Knotted Pine Drive. Around the curve, wincing in the sunlight, and trudging through the damp, heavy grass, she stopped short. She then darted to a nearby tree, crouched down near the trunk and behind several smaller shrubs.

“Nice,” she heard Schiele’s voice in her ear. “We’ve still got adopt-a-highway.”

She slowly lifted her hand. “I don’t remember any females being in Ember’s group,” she said of the names she had been given.

“There weren’t any,” Schiele agreed.

“Well, those are tits,” she stated, watching the woman moving slow along the side of the road, stabbing at trash with the long pick, or bending to pick debris up. “She’s dressed like them. Same bags they use…”

“Sign even,” she guessed he had turned the scope to find it.

There were several brightly colored bags already left on the side of the road, neatly tied up and ready to be picked up. And to all driving by, it was just another clean up in progress.

Nindy wanted a look at this woman, though. She hastily dug through the pockets of her bulky, cargo shorts, not yet taking her eyes off of their curiosity. “Ain’t technology great,” she whispered while powering the small device on and then lifting it to her eyes, watching the focus zoom in.

“Can’t stay there long,” Schiele said. “She’s moving in your direction. And right now we don’t want anyone getting wise.”

Nindy was waiting for a time the woman would lift her head, though. She wore a wide brimmed hat and large brown tinted sunglasses. There wasn’t much that could be seen of anyone’s face with those articles. But she at one point paused, taking the hat away and wiping at her brow.

“Better than nothing,” Nindy remarked back in the office, standing behind Schiele and watching him sort through the photographs on his computer. “I didn’t see a vehicle anywhere. I don’t know how she got there.”

“Drop off maybe.” He shook his head. “Not much we can work with as far as an ID.”

“Wait, wait!” Nindy nearly leapt over him, grabbing the chair back and jostling him despite his instant protest. “Look! That!”

“What? I can’t get much closer, this will get pretty pixilated, Nindy-“

“No, no, it’s right there! Behind her! Almost can’t see it for how it’s parked!”

Squinting past the end of her finger, Schiele leaned in before moving their focus. “A motorcycle…”

“That’s how she got there! And there’s a tag on it!” she crowed. “You can get the numbers, right? Please say you can get the numbers,” she was begging of the heavens, hands clasped and head leaned back.

“We can get them,” he laughed at her. “But there is no saying it’s her bike, got it? It could be someone that stopped off for a piss. It could be a friend-who knows.”

“It’s a start is what I know! Find out! I’ll run get us some dinner,” she hastily dug into the pockets of the pants. “I found twenty dollars while I was out there.”

He twisted around to look up at her with a frown.

“I did,” she smiled. “Was sticking out of someone’s fast food bag. How’s that for a bit of karma? Surprised I didn’t find their bank card as well. Hey,” she slapped his shoulder before going to the door, “Charge up. If we find a name, we might be able to get some answers from this woman before tonight!”

The motorcycle was registered to one Angelica Norse.

“Sixty two years old,” Schiele began.

They sat at the kitchen table in their apartment, deli sandwiches on waxed paper at their elbows, their work and real focus between them. Nindy finished her bite, took a drink from her glass, and asked while sitting back, grinning, “She’s a biker chick at sixty two?”

“Why couldn’t she be?” he grinned in return. “Angelica has a pretty interesting back-story, too.”

“Oh? How interesting?”

“Military interesting. Quiet kind of military at that. I can’t get much about her. All I was able to get was that she had originally been cleaning that part of the highway, but was somehow lost on the books when Ember went to request it.”

“She must not have been doing a great job if he stepped in,” she had to point out. “But with one person, it would take longer. I’ll bet she’ll file a complaint soon. If one could actually call it a complaint.”

Nindy sat a moment, studying the pictures she had taken before narrowing her eyes. “She knows how to kill.”

“Pardon?” he questioned that sudden remark.

She looked up. “That message is for her. Someone identified a target to her, and she’s going to take it. Why, is what I wonder.”

“A target… You think she’s the one that put that empty ad in the paper?”

“Has to be. But how did someone else know to take it and fill it in? She knows something about this, Schiele,” she jabbed her finger. “She knows all about it, I’ll wager. I just have to find a way to get her talking. I need to go to her with something she can’t deny.”

“Well, you have nothing to really tie her to it.”

“I need to find out who placed that ad.”

The girl that Nindy was shuffled around desks to looked like she was working part time during the summer. She was chewing on a wad of gum bigger than her thumb, and texting on her telephone. Nindy winced when approaching, and winced while standing aside waiting.

“Snow Foundation,” the girl said around the squishing mass. Her disinterested gaze lifted. “They run it all the time. Some kind of charity thing or something.” Her listless shoulder lifted as her eyes have closed: “I dunno. You want their number?”

“Yes, please.”

She heaved out a sigh. After a pause of staring at her own desk and then the computer screen, she pulled open a few drawers to locate a pen. Then a pad of paper. She then slowly wrote the numbers out.

“Thanks,” Nindy said, nodding as she stepped back.

“I wonder what happened to that kid we busted with the meth problem,” Nindy said to Schiele once on the street with her telephone, looking down to the paper in her hand.

“What caused that to resurface?”

“Met a kid with the same damn attitude… I got a name. Snow Foundation. It’s a charity, she said. Got an address?”

She looked around the street, scanning pedestrians and cars while waiting. She could hear the keys clicking in the background, and smiled when he gave her the information. “I’ll call ahead for you.”

“Thanks.”

The Snow Foundation was set up in a quiet neighborhood, in a warm, yellow brick building with tall windows and iron fencing around a large, perfectly maintained play ground. Nindy walked past that sturdy fencing, watching the children inside that were running for the slides, others pushing each other on swings. She saw several attendants standing on the outskirts, one with a cigarette, all talking while watching for safety. “Uniforms,” she noted. “They work here.”

The building was several stories high, and one of the historic sites in the city. It had once been a school, but with time and growth, the education system moved away. Eventually the foundation bought the building and restored it. While pulling open one of the heavy wooden doors at the front, Nindy’s eyes went to the city’s History Society’s plaquard mounted to the center column.

Across from her in that cool lobby was a large desk, and a smiling woman rose from behind it to greet her.

“You must be Nindy Yards.”

“I am.”

“Tracy Gordon. Your assistant called ahead to inform us of your interest. Are you affiliated with any media outlet?”

“No,” Nindy smiled, tucking her hands into her pockets. “I’m actually looking into a matter for a client.”

“Ah.” The woman clasped her hands before her, eyes momentarily lowered as she nodded to herself. “We aren’t unused to that. Private investigators that work with law offices tend to come here with questions.”

Nindy lifted her chin. “Lawyers? On legal business then?”

“Yes. Let me show you around,” Tracy gestured with a smile, her sturdy and sensible heels sounding out the start of the tour. “You might get a better understanding of us if you see what we do here.”

Nindy looked to framed photographs on walls, murals in hallways, even awards and recognitions. She smiled with a gesture. “Key to the city. Didn’t know they still did that.”

Tracy smiled. “We’re quite proud of that. Mayor Hadin gave that to us several years ago for the work we do in the community. This,” she paused beside two open double doors, beyond it several desks in a small classroom, “Is is one of the classrooms where we train our employees as well as volunteers.”

Nindy’s eyes darted to the board, wiped clean of most marks, but written across with blue, “No Tears in Vain!”

“Are you a kind of-rescue mission?” she asked then, turning to follow Tracy on.

“That could be said, I suppose. We step in with financial aid when approached with cases of child abuse that are not properly pursued and prosecuted.” She turned to Nindy, still wearing a smile she found bizarre for the conversation. “It isn’t often that parents, or even children, have the resources they need to be removed from abusive situations. It isn’t often they can get help. With our government programs and policing so overwhelmed with so much, there is a great deal that is often overlooked. For any number of reasons. We do what we can to prevent those still important cases from slipping through the cracks. We do what we can to let anyone, parent or child alike, know that there is help to be found.”

“I wondered about the ad I saw in the Corina Chronicle,” Nindy explained her reason for the visit. “I came across it recently, and after looking back at it, saw it did not change. Why have a blank advertisement like that? What does it mean?”

Tracy had a cool and rational answer for that: “It is left blank to represent the emptiness in a child’s life and heart when they are abandoned by all caretakers. We do it to remind the public that this problem does not simply go away-it may not be talked about, or thought about, or even considered-but it is a real problem.”

Nindy paused beside another of the walls, photographs of the board members, volunteers, employees, even children spread along the length of it. She paused with a smile, eyes on one of the faces among them. “Quite an impressive collection. Mostly women,” she turned to note.

“Yes. We were originally an all female organization. We are delighted to find more and more men are becoming interested in the mission. It is good to have a diverse and unified force, but better yet to have male role models that do not represent danger to those already traumatized.”

She turned to lead the way again. “You no doubt noticed the children outside. Ones we tend to while their parents are still in the process of extraction. We give them structure and order, but that which is love and consideration. We bring them back to trust, while teaching them to always find a way to speak out-to not be afraid. We teach them that their pain does not have to continue.”

“I don’t imagine you have many fans in the prosecuted,” Nindy remarked.

“Of course not. But we are not afraid.”

“And the spouses? Are they not afraid?”

“We do not teach fear here, Miss Yards. We confront it.” She gestured to the door that led outside and to the lively playground. “We have our foundation offices here, educational courses and therapy, as well as temporary housing for victims. We work closely with law enforcement as well as social services. We do what we feel is necessary to fill in the gap.”

Nindy’s smile was small when the other was facing her.

“We do our best to ensure that this conflict is not pushed away and forgotten by those that would rather not think about such crimes. It’s a war against apathy. If a blank ad draws someone’s curiosity, and so encourages them to fight alongside us, I consider that a step in the right direction. I consider that an effective campaign.”

Nindy thanked Tracy for her time, and while leaving the grounds looked through the iron bars to the children once more. She paused at the corner, though, studying several who were sitting in the sand nearby. She watched one wobble up onto their legs, obviously still unused to them, and teeter towards one of the attendants who knelt with a smile to catch them.

She could see several bruises around the ears and wrists. She could only wonder at what would make someone capable of causing such.

“I see enough horrible treatment among adults,” Nindy told Schiele that evening. “In a way, that’s easier to choke down. Children are…”

“Weak and naive,” he quietly answered for her. “They don’t know why something is happening to them. What did you think about the Snow Foundation?”

“There’s something a little weird about them,” Nindy told him, lightly shaking her head. “She gave me fliers and a booklet, and they seem like the normal charity song and dance. They have touching graphics and moving stories. They host fundraiser events, they sponsor others involved in the ‘fight’… There’s just something a little off about it all.”

“Off?”

She paused. “I don’t know how to explain the feeling I got in that place. It was almost like it was…” She shook her head while trying to find the right words for it. “Like a war.” She nodded, meeting his curious gaze. “I was reminded of soldiers. They had uniforms, they had a regimen,” she clapped her fist into her palm. “They were trained and educated for their battles. It… Even some of the words they use.”

“Some people would consider that PR. Most charities use those sort of analogies to stir up emotion and response.”

“They weren’t just using it,” she stated. “To them, it was real. I wrote down the names I could find in those information packets on a separate sheet. Pull what you can about them. I want to know how many of them were in the service.”

Schiele’s brows lifted. “All right. Anything else?”

“No. Tomorrow I’m going to go talk to Angelica. I saw her name on a board of members. So she’s tied to them somehow.”

“That defiantly puts the two together,” he agreed.

“The ad in a child’s shoe? Especially a child with a parent like that? This military thing? The Snow Foundation behind it all?” She shook her head. “Definitely something going on here.”

Schiele paused before saying, “If… If you do find out they’re doing something to these abusers, what… What are you going to do, Nindy?”

She cocked her head. “What do you mean? We’re going to do the right thing.”

He slowly nodded. “The right thing.”

Curious, she studied him a moment more before shrugging. “Just find out about the other members. I’ll see if Angelica talks at all.”

Angelica Norse lived on a sprawling working farm.

A farm located on a road off of Knotted Pine Drive, Nindy noted. She passed the mailbox with the name painted onto the side of it, and slowly drove along a gravel drive bordered with wildflowers and split-plank fencing. She could see horses on one side, leisurely cows on another. There were barns and a silo, and large white farm house settled among them all. Picturesque.

She was greeted by one of the farm hands. He turned away from a truck bed loaded with a rich, earthy scented mulch that he had been shoveling out and spreading into flower beds. Clapping his gloved hands together and knocking larger debris away, he watched the visitor step out of the car.

“You must be Nindy Yards,” he said.

Nindy paused before slowly approaching. “I am.”

She was gun-shy about anyone knowing her. About anyone anticipating her encounters. She’d walked into traps before.

“Angelica’s expecting you.” He turned, Nindy facing about herself, both hearing the door on the nearby porch opening with a squeak in the springs.

“You just missed lunch!” Angelica smiled.

Nindy wasn’t sure what to say. She stood looking up at the other in confusion.

Angelica removed a canvas apron, tossing it aside on the arm of a rocking chair, distinct gardening tools looped to it rattling together in the landing. She took the steps down to the ground, her boot heels sounding against the wooden planks.

She was smaller than Nindy, but there was something about her that projected so much larger. Her glasses were smoked, her white tank top marked with the shades of her work, and her jeans and boots damp with soil. “We’re just putting some melons into the bed,” she explained. “You don’t get much fresh food in the city, now do you, Miss Yards?”

“No,” she answered, turning to watch the woman move into the yard.

“Jacob,” Angelica gestured to him, “I’m just going to take a break with Miss Yards here. Have a little visit. We’ll be right back.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Nindy reluctantly followed. Her skin was suddenly burning where she knew the tracking bug lay under it. Her hand unconsciously went to her side and the gun under her shirt. She did not even notice Angelica’s sly glance of recognizing motion.

“Where are we going, Ms. Norse?” she asked, eyes scanning the farmland around them as the walked under tall, shading trees, out of the sun and heat.

“One of my favorite places on the farm,” she said. ” It isn’t too far, and a lovely day for a stroll. You have nothing to worry about, now. I know you don’t like trusting people, but you can trust me.”

Nindy looked to her sideways, unsure of that.

“I told my man where I was going to be should you leave me out there dead.”

Nindy couldn’t help a perplexed stare.

“I know who you’re with,” Angellica coolly said. She gestured her hand. “It’s in the woods there. The oldest grove of trees on this land. Beautiful place. So you asked around and went to the Foundation, hmm? I had hoped to leave them uninvolved.”

“I’m only here to find out what you might be doing picking up shoes,” Nindy said, not liking at all Angelica’s seemingly thorough knowledge.

“And I will tell you.” Angelica smiled, gaze even. “I don’t intend to lie to you, Miss Yards. I have no reason to. Once I explain things to you, maybe you’ll understand why it isn’t me that is calling any of the shots now.”

They walked along a simple path, wordless for the most part. Angelica might on occasion point out a site on the farm, or comment on the breed of trees that were growing larger and taller and thicker around them. The grass began to fade into soft earth, the sun lost in the lace of branches and leaves, and they were in a shaded grove in the woods.

But it wasn’t the calm wind in the leaves and the tranquil quiet that made Nindy slow. It wasn’t nature she was stopping to admire, it was a human element in the branches. Hanging all around her, from nearly every branch available, were shoes. Not just singles, but pairs-the laces tied together and the sets thrown over branches like so many strung across power lines.

She turned slowly, eyes lifting to find more and more. “My god,” she murmured. “There must be-hundreds!”

“I lost count,” Angelica said.

Nindy’s eyes moved quickly to her. “What is this?” she asked uneasily, her hand moving to her gun. “What is this? Do you have some sick arrangement with these-these monsters that are hurting these kids? Is this some kind of twisted code to open them up for-for something even sicker?”

“You are so accustomed to the ugly that you can hardly see beyond it,” Angelica quietly noted. “We aren’t hurting them. We are freeing them.”

Nindy’s jaw remained set, her gaze unblinking. She felt the wind, heard the leaves rustle, and even the stirring of the shoes hanging all around her. Her eyes darted around, her skin prickling with a chill. So many children’s shoes, empty, dirty, aged and abandoned, dangling in the trees like corpses on the gallows made the grove a creepy graveyard.

“What is going on?”

“There are those of us who had seen enough,” Angelica stated. “We saw enough pain and misery in the world, but we knew it couldn’t all be avoided. That at time violence is necessary in avoidance of more. But some of it,” she lifted her hand, “Some of it can be avoided. And some of it can be stopped. We found her sitting in the rain on the steps of that building.”

Nindy shifted on her feet. “Who?”

“Snow. Seven years old. Bleeding and beaten. And she was waiting to be picked up by this so-called parent and to be taken back to her so-called home. So…” She looked sidelong with a smile. “We followed. And we saw it.”

When she turned her gaze back to Nindy, the other shivered.

“And we stopped it.”

Nindy felt as if she couldn’t really catch her breath, hardly knowing how to hear the story.

“We waited for the right time, of course. And we handled it clean. They got away. It was over. The more we considered and calculated, the more we realized we had a necessary service to offer. We set up the Snow Foundation. We set up the ad. We set up informants. Schools, courts, services-if there is something that slips down into the dirt under courtroom floorboards, we are there to pick it up.”

“But..? Why… Why an ad? Why shoes? What the hell does that have to do with any of this?”

“One can’t exactly make a phone call for this sort of thing,” Angelica said. “Information was slipped to those that would need it. Fill out the paper. Drop the shoe in the designated place. We would find it.”

Nindy’s mind worked through it, her voice low as she realized, “Identify and pass along to you… Research already done, they wouldn’t have gotten that tip without someone telling them what to do… My god. How long has this been going on?”

Angelica Norse simply smiled, turning to gaze up among the trees, a serene eye traveling through the many shoes hanging like heavy wind-chimes in the boughs.

“Why shoes?” Nindy again asked.

“Why not? What is litter easily ignored, but easily identified? What can house a plea for help, yet still lie in the rain before the waters eat through to it? Why not clean the mire from the footsteps of the innocent? One for the job. One for the completion. You have one of mine,” Angelica turned.

“Yours,” Nindy muttered. “You aren’t the only one doing this, are you?”

“No. But this is our district. I’ve lost one pair already to the very prison keeper. You have the first of the second attempt. What happens next is up to you.”

Her mouth went dry. Nindy swallowed hard, blinking even against the shadows of the trees.

“I need a pair to hang in the grove,” Angelica’s voice was soothing. “I know what may happen to us, we all do. But it is your decision to make now, Nindy Yards. You can take us to the law, and put an end to our work and the Foundation. Or you can step aside, and avoid all that you learned on the side of a dirty road.”

Nindy stood strung in debate. She stood studying the calm woman across from her. The silver hair flashed in the light, her common clothes and earthy work all marks of a seeming deception. She slowly stepped back. “I don’t know what to do,” she hoarsely admitted.

“Then think about it. We’ll go back now,” Angelica nodded. “But you know your way here. You know where to find me. I am only waiting for you now. Lea is only waiting for you.”

The walk back to the farm house felt like torture to Nindy. It went fast, the ground covered, but her thoughts made it seem eternity. She watched Angelica smile to the man at the flower bed, commenting, “Well, you made it farther than I’d thought!”

“We’ll round the corner tonight, for sure, Ms. Norse!” he laughed.

“Have a good night, Miss Yards,” Angelica turned to see her off. “It was good to talk to you. I’m sure we will be meeting again soon.”

Nindy made no response, in sound or gesture. She got into the car, starting the engine while still staring through the glass.

She later sat on the couch in the dark office, staring at the shadows under her desk.

“I don’t know if I can trust her,” Nindy admitted to Schiele, who sat aside in the armchair, his own gaze on the drink in his hand.

“You have a lot of justifiable reasons not to trust people,” he quietly agreed.

“Every time I see your skin, I-I don’t want to believe any good in anyone,” she weakly admitted.

He looked over, expression blank.

“They drew it onto you, demons like that.”

“You stopped it, Nindy.”

She looked away.

After a quiet pause, he said, “We can find out about her.”

“How?” her laugh was dry and incredulous. “If you can’t get it, Schiele, who can? I know Pansy can’t get any more than you did.”

“I don’t mean Pansy.”

“Who, then?”

His smile was small. “We just need to consult with MTHR.”

“Oh, fuck me!” Billy flung himself back in his chair, the wooden legs grating against the aged tile floor as he threw his arms up and his body pushed against the furniture. He watched them enter the simple interrogation room, his head shaking, “Hell no. No!” He rounded to glare up at his guard, “I’m not letting this bitch take a crack at me!”

The guard remained indifferent. His gaze went to the chains that linked to others in the hard floor before he left the room. His only concern was insuring their security.

Schiele smiled while sitting down across the table, watching the scowling and fidgeting other.

Nindy sat down as well, glancing to the guard while wondering why he did leave the room. She considered that a bit irregular. How would he know what was happening in that room? How would he know they weren’t gutting someone for “knowing” something?

Billy certainly seemed to consider it part of standard procedure to something, though. “I’ve got nothing to say to you,” he stated, lip snarled. “I offered you a deal, and you had my ass thrown in here.”

‘”I’m sure it’s taken care of,” Schiele quietly remarked. “We need information, Billy.”

“And why would I help you out, huh?”

His eyes darted between them, his arms folded staunch over his already muscle widened chest. He’d been putting his time to good use, Nindy thought.

“Why the hell would I do anything for you?” he questioned.

“We need to know what is really going on with someone,” Nindy attempted to explain.

“You’re a fine pair to talk to me about that,” he snorted out his disgust.

Nindy’s brow furrowed.

“Let’s make this easy,” Schiele clasped his hands before him on the table, sitting as straight and poised as ever. His lips turned in a small smile, his gaze direct. “We’re going to give you a name. We are asking that you consult, and relay back information. We are not asking you to expose your network, or even compromise it to us. All we want is information attached to a name.”

“What, your own?” he smirked. “We don’t have the time to go into that.”

“I’m not your concern yet,” Schiele replied. “We need the kind of information only you have access to. That’s all this about. This isn’t personal.”

“Oh, it isn’t, is it? I don’t make deals with people like you, Rohebeth.”

“You’re about to,” was his cold command.

“Let’s say you pay like the rest of the tricks,” Billy snapped. “Let’s say I do this for you, what do I get out of it?”

“Let’s say you get that information and I don’t cut all your toes off.”

Nindy shot a quick, sideways and disbelieving stare at Schiele. But what made her look harder at Billy was seeing his closed-lip smile twisting on his teeth as he thought it over in the following silence. The threat was bizarre enough, but to see Billy actually considering it was outlandish. Nindy suddenly wondered who she was sitting beside. This wasn’t Schiele-was it? What was it about him that made this cutthroat mercenary honestly debate the possibility of a threat like that?

“Fine,” Billy finally relented. “I’ll see what can be dug up.”

That nearly floored Nindy. Her jaw nearly went slack. She turned a stare to Schiele.

“Good,” he smiled in soft approval. “Angelica Norse. Ex-military. Find out what you can about that.”

“Fine.” Billy pushed his chair back, shouting to the door behind him, “Can you get me away from this psycho, yeah?”

The door clattered open, and the guard came back in, another carrying a key behind him.

Schiele stood quietly watching the man be released and led away, smiling, eye contact unbroken until the door was shut once more.

“What the hell was that?” Nindy demanded, jumping to following him to and out the door on their own side of the room. “What the hell kind of threat was that? And what made him even take it seriously?”

“I’m a good bluffer,” he laughed, looking over to her as they walked down the hallways, passing guards as well as inmates. “I can’t say why he believed me.”

“He sat there thinking about it liked he’d heard that kind of thing before,” Nindy was not swayed. “Like he’d seen it actually done before!”

“So maybe I took advantage of that,” he shrugged in dismissal. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Nindy wasn’t sure what to say. She was glad to have the help of that mysterious network, but she wasn’t so sure about how they had obtained it. Or what might happen as a result of that encouragement.

“When we find out more about Angelica Norse, then you can decide what to do about her. For now, all we can do is wait.”

Waiting was always torture to Nindy.

She wandered the apartment and office for two quiet days, her mind in constant battle with suspicions and comfortable history.

A wait in the Snow Foundation motivation only gave her time to consider her own increasing confusions with Schiele.

“I know… This is going to sound weird,” she glanced up to Pansy, rubbing her neck. “I want you to-to find out what you can about Schiele.”

“Huh?” the detective was immediately thrown off.

Nindy glanced around the quiet diner before nodding with returned gaze. “I… This… I just want to know-a few things.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“I can’t. Not about his kind of thing. Just trust me, Pansy.”

Pansy sat quiet a moment, eyes narrowed before she sighed. “What is it you don’t know about him already, Nindy? You two are practically joined at the hip. I don’t suspect one of you blinks without the other knowing it.”

“He doesn’t-talk a whole lot about some things,” Nindy managed to find a way to admit only part of the truth. “Things that happened before we met, you know? I kind of wonder what he did then. Where he worked. He doesn’t talk about that guy much.”

“Well,” Pansy shrugged, “I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise anything is going to be news to you. What’s going on? You okay?”

“‘I’m fine.”

“This got anything to do with a case you’re working on?”

“No, not really.”

“Okay… But you’d tell me if something was wrong, I hope.”

“I would, Pansy.”

Pansy remained skeptical. But she said nothing else, her spoon clanking a thoughtful rhythm against the sides of the heavy ceramic mug.

Nindy sat watching the motion in the other’s wrist, listening to the metronome of contact, wondering herself if she were being a bit ridiculous for thinking Billy’s reactions were anything to base suspicions upon.

“I can’t forget this… One woman. I met her at that wedding we had to go to. Joan’?”

“Duncan?”

“Yeah. Olivia Baltimore.” She watched Pansy whip an ink pen out of the bun on the top of her head and scribble the letters down onto the flimsy paper napkin swiped from under her cup. “She acted like she knew me. And I don’t know how.”

“Lot of people mistake other people.”

“She knew Schiele as well. She identified us together.”

“Okay,” Pansy admitted, the pen paused, “That is a bit weird. Why don’t you remember her yourself?”

“I just… Don’t.”

Slowly nodding, Pansy sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Nindy received a telephone call from the prison that next morning. Glancing to the identified number on the phone, she swiped it up, “Hello?”

“Well, least you didn’t cost me any more money,” Billy greeted her. “I got something for you. But you come alone.”

“Alone?”

Schiele turned around, his brow pulled down in question, his eyes on her lips and the words on them.

“Yeah. I don’t want that butcher coming with you, okay?”

It wasn’t the most honest thing to do, she knew, but she answered with sounds. “Mmhmm.”

“You can get some time at about eleven this morning. Just call up and confirm it, you got more pull than I do.”

“I’ll be there.” She hung up the phone, looking to the clock and calculating the time as she did. “I’m going out,” she told Schiele.

He slowly nodded. “Where?”

“Billy. You get anything else for me on those Snow members?”

“No.”

“Do that while I’m gone, okay?”

His expression was blank, but his eyes were sharply calculating every muscle on her face. She could simply feel the examination. She turned away, picking up her purse. “I won’t be gone long.”

“Be safe,” was all he said.

Billy sat in his chair watching the corners of the door revealed when Nindy was admitted to the room. Only when the door was shut did he then relax. “Didn’t know if you’d do it.”

“Why don’t you like him, Billy?” she asked.

“We here about your sniper or your bully?” he chuckled. He rooted around in his pockets, the chains restraining him jostling with the movement. Lighting a cigarette, he said through the ignition smoke puff, “Rohebeth just isn’t my kind of guy. Angelica Norse, right? She’s your girl.”

“I’m curious about her, yes.”

“What, like what she’s done in the past? Ex-military, sure, but she went onto the books that get burned when questions get asked.”

Nindy cocked her head. “Secret sort of stuff?”

“Yeah,” he was amused. “‘Secret sort of stuff’. Assassin, to be exact. She was one of the distance record holders, if you could actually document a hit like that. She took out a real sicko, so I suppose she has comfort in that and not a title.”

“What…” She paused while considering the question before asking, “What interest would she have in vigilante justice?”

“She’s all about it. Shit, Uncle Sam trained and paid her well for it. Snow Foundation, right?” he smiled with the knowledge.

“Damnit. So it’s not just some charity.”

“Oh, it’s a charity. But if you want to bust them up, maybe you need to stop and see what it is they’re busting up themselves. Some of the shit I saw, it..” He paused, eyes averted. “We kill those guys in here because even we don’t want them out there.” He looked up to her. “Angelica started that foundation with some friends she’d made in her squad. Most of them are still military. They run that place like a militia as well. You get some sick fuck beating his kids, or worse, and the Snow Foundation is there to get rid of them. Not just put them in prison for a few years to let them out and do it again? No. No legal tape. No ‘rehabilitation’ or technicalities-Snow gets rid of them. Quick.”

“Do you know how?”

“No. I just know they have an international hit squad in them. No names, nothing. But no one asks. No one wants to.” Billy leaned forward, asking quietly, “Why would you want to stop them? You turn them into the legal lines, you know what happens? You know what is allowed to live?”

She slowly nodded, her own gaze on her folded hands.

“I don’t know what Schiele turned you into, but I can bet you money he doesn’t want you reaching this far with the legal arm.”

Her eyes sharply lifted. “Turned me into?” she sharply repeated.

“Look, Yards,” his voice was nearly inaudible, “I did my homework, remember? You even called me on it in that hotel. I got sloppy. I didn’t take it seriously when I saw Rohebeth was a proximity ID. I didn’t think he was really up your ass the way he is. I’m lucky I walked away from that one.”

“Who the fuck is he, Billy?” she hissed the question.

He shook his head. “That’s something you have to figure out yourself. That’s the only way you’ll believe it.”

“And Eyre Childress?”

“She’s real proud of the product that is you,” was all he said.

For several minutes she sat staring back into his cool gaze, neither of them moved, speaking or even blinking. She slowly sat back, eyes darting around. “I’m only here for Angelica.”

“That’s right,” he agreed. “She’s lethal punishment. To the core. Born and bred and will be to the day she dies. But she’s not the one you need to be chasing. We aren’t all bad in the underbelly, you know. There isn’t any distinction in good and bad any more, but there are still some moral understandings.”

“I’m finding a lot of the good is…”

“Frowned upon.”

She slowly nodded.

“That’s just the vengeance in you talking. That’s real justice asking to be let out. That’s gone now, Nindy. Doesn’t exist. And that’s what the Snow Foundation is all about.”

“And Schiele?”

“Schiele never had a direction. He never will. You want a gun, you look at him. You point him and you pull the trigger. That’s something you gotta work through on your own, Nindy. As I said, I can’t tell you. You have to find it yourself. And you know that.”

She sat quiet, feeling that more than she heard it.

“You know that.”

“I do…”

“Snow,” he shrugged. “They’re pure driven. What becomes of them is up to you, I’m guessing. So you need to figure that out for yourself. Kinda funny,” he chuckled. “They’re putting that in your hands. Makes me wonder why, really.”

“They’re legit, Billy?”

“As legit as you were when strapped to the feet of a dirty bed and choking the shit out of a politician.”

“Why didn’t you shoot me, Billy?”

Billy smiled. “I know what to let live.”

She looked away, frowning, confused.

“Information. Take it as you will. MTHR is always here for that kind of advise, but it doesn’t say what to do with the information it gives. That’s what always attracts me to it. It’s power-but not in the sense that most people look at it. It’s not MTHR that decides anything-it’s the individual. I like the personalization in that.”

“Did he cut someone’s toes off, Billy?”

“All but one.”

Her blood rushed cold with adrenaline and disgust.

“But he got the information.” He tapped his finger on the table top. “Focus, Nindy Yards. This isn’t about you and Schiele. This is about Snow.”

“And Snow was sitting brutalized on a stoop,” she thought while walking towards the heavy doors of the prison, her eyes seeing only the metal grid in the glass. “Snow was immortalized, the same way that MTHR was… Information. But what do you do with it?”

She stopped at the side of the car, keys in hand. “And why get it? Why seek it out?”

She sat in the shower that night, the rain washing down her back, studying her fragile feet, trying to imagine looking down at them and seeing nothing at the end. She tried to imagine walking without her toes. She tried to imagine reaching into a cabinet without their grip or leverage, she tried to calculate balance.

What made anyone clever enough to threaten that, and what made anyone cold enough to follow through?

She had locked the door, and looked over to it, starting at hearing the knob jerk against the restraint. Part of her knew it was no real barrier, but part of her was relieved it wasn’t overcome. “Yeah?”

“You okay in there?” Schiele asked.

“I’m okay. Just thinking.”

“Just do the right thing, Nindy,” came the advise through the door, a voice she considered tainted and deceptive giving it to her.

“What’s right?” she asked. “Does it even matter any more?”

“You know what’s right, Nindy.”

She lay staring at the shadow again that night, but she knew he wasn’t asleep. She said nothing, but she watched headlights of street lights pass across his exposed skin and likewise define the dark scars left in intricate scrolls upon him.

She made up her mind then.

Some of it could be avoided-some could be stopped.

She knew the house. She stood in the last shadows of a warm, green spring night, watching as a new model vehicle pulled into the spotless driveway. She heard the engine shut off. She heard the soft sound of well oiled latches open. She watched a woman step out first. She heard another signal, and watched a child slowly round the front of the vehicle, clutching a plastic grocery bag tight to her chest.

“You at least feed her?”

Nindy’s skin crawled.

Emily looked down to the child. Her hand reached out, hovering near her daughter before it was removed as he took a step forward and she one back. “I did.”

“Fast food?”

“I-“

“That shit is poison. You want that? What kind of mother are you?”

She said nothing, head hanging down. Her fingers were tightly gripping the shiny keys of the new model car.

“Don’t they want that thing back yet?” he commented on the vehicle.

“I… Insurance is still settling-“

“You aren’t getting shit out of me,” he shoved her hard, her body slamming back into the side of the rental.

Nindy’s eyes narrowed to see the metal give just enough, but spring back into place without telling.

“You stay away from us.”

Emily’s nod was small and tight, her gaze fixed on her child. “Lea-“

The girl began to cry. She pushed her face down into the plastic bag, and Nindy could hear the rustle of panicked breath and petroleum.

“-You-you don’t give your father any trouble. You hear me?”

“Go on, now,” he said, pushing the woman again.

And to Nindy’s disgust, or perhaps shame, she saw Emily feel out the latch of the door and open it, squirming into the small opening to get in. She heard the smooth engine start-she watched it softly engage and roll away.

She looked back to the small figure that looked up to the taller.

“You hungry?”

“No, Sir.”

“Go inside. Take a bath. It’s late.”

Blood boiling, Nindy watched Lea walk to the door and open it. She watched the man pull the bag from her hand and throw it aside on the porch. The door shut. She heard the hydraulic slam of the slider, and lifted her hands to her face, fingers digging into her own skull.

It was quiet in the street again.

She could hear crickets and even an owl. Darkness settled heavier and thicker, and she felt she couldn’t breath in the night. Slowly pulling the coat from her arms, she then slid the strap of the gun over her shoulder and head. Setting it on the ground, she pulled her clothes back in place before picking the weapon up.

The weight was conclusive in her hands. The power in the simple trigger seemed apocalyptic, even with a simple brush of contact. She slung the strap and set out across the street with a decided stride.

The first shot blew the bolt of the lock through the door and into the opposite wall of the kitchen. She head a swear in the next room, and a shriek of terror following it. She stepped around the frame, eyes sharp, watching for the first shadow that rounded to find her, her calculations looking for a certain height.

She knew him in the instant.

The second shot bucked against her arms and the strap, pulling her shoulder back, but her focus only seemed sharper. She watched the man grab at his side, blood splashing onto the wall behind him like the tail of a bloody peacock, his body crashing into the door frame while his mind was realizing there was an invader in the home. She saw him round the corner to locate the gun to use against her, but she took on the casual stride and fired a third time.

That hit threw him into the far wall of the hall.

She could hear a whimpering cry somewhere else in the house, but slowly reached to feel out a switch. With the sudden glare of overhead illumination she saw the blood pooling onto the hardwood floor, and the man attempting to crawl even still, holding his stomach.

“Hurts, right?” she quietly asked.

“Get the fuck out of my house!” was his hissed reply. “I’ll fuck you up, you stupid bitch-!”

She felt as if the word was mere reflex to the weapon, and shut her eyes momentarily at hearing it sound the same time as the gun before looking again.

Lea had crawled to the doorway, still crying, her face marked with tears, her nose dripping water as well as blood.

“Don’t look, Lea,” Nindy softly told her.

“Don’t kill me!”

“I’m not here for you.”

“Don’t hurt me! Please don’t hurt me!” she was screaming, pulling herself into a ball on her knees, her arms wrapped tight around her head as she doubled over. “Please! Please!”

“You,” Nindy cocked her head at seeing something else in the skin of the man bleeding upon on the floor, hearing his following words like grinning sandpaper on her nerves, “Can’t do anything to me! I’ll fuck you up for this! You can’t do a damn thing to me!”

What she did was put an end to it.

In the sudden quiet, she stood looking down at the body, holding the gun in her hands, feeling the weight on her shoulder, unable to realize what had really happened. It seemed like a bizarre dream. It seemed like a strange story that had unfolded with her.

She turned.

Lea’s shrieks grew more, and she wedged herself into the corner of the kitchen when Nindy knelt in front of her.

Gaze direct and dedicated, Nindy said nothing, jerking hard at one of Lea’s feet and then the other. She pulled the bows free of the straining pink laces and tore away first one shoe and then the other.

In the passing of chaotic, panicked moments she was silent, rising and returning to the door. Pausing at it, she turned to look at the terrified child. “Call your mother,” she said. “Just your mother.”

Gulping for air, gasping around sobs, the girl nodded, her hands clenched tightly into the tangled locks of her hair.

There was a moon out that night, and while walking under the boughs of the tall trees, Nindy thought it was a surreal transition to what she had traversed before.

She knotted the laces between her fingers while walking, still feeling the vibration of the machine she carried on her back coursing through her fingers. She could still feel something hot and angry in her blood, she could still feel something violent and vengeful.

She stopped, head leaned back, gaze fixed beyond the leaves and on the silver glitter seen in the horizon. That was the spot. She simply felt it. She simply knew it.

She bent, arm back, grip tight on one of the cheap plastic soles, before rising fast, throwing her arm up and releasing the shoe to the night. She watched one spiral madly around the other, she watched them twist and spin and whirl before wrapping tight onto a branch above, latching like ivy love onto the tree.

She heard a voice she somehow knew but did not yet register: her own. “It can be stopped.”

Standing in the moonlight lace and soft contrast of the moonlit night, Nindy felt as if she were a million miles away from her body. She felt her shoulders fall slack, and the gun drop past her arm and fingers into the soft soil. She felt her knees relax, and her body fall into the giving ground. She could only sit staring up through the leaves and shadows of countless shoes, only stare at the moon like a wolf baying for a blood she couldn’t name.

“You didn’t used to be this, Nindy,” another voice approached softly in the darkness.

“I’m not that anymore,” her response was automatic.

“You used to be on the other side of the tape. But you can’t run from it any longer.”

Her glazed eyes turned and recognized the other. “Who was Snow?”

Angelica’s voice was soft in the silver. “You.”

Nindy’s gaze lingered, but only as long as her catching breath allowed it. She dropped her head into her shaking hands, the tears tearing into her body like knives through paper. She didn’t believe it-not for one minute. But there was such a horrible ripping at her bones, and such an awful aching in her soul that made her shake and tremble with conflict, confusion, question and doubt.

“My God,” she cried, lifting her tear stained face to the crystal moon, “What am I?”

Angelica bent to pick up the heavy gun in one hand. She took Nindy’s arm into the other, helping her onto her feet. “He’s here to take you home.”

“Schiele?” Nindy asked with a near spit. “He’s been following me, hasn’t he?”

“Best that he does,” was all she said.

Nindy walked slow under the strong arm and matronly guidance, her steps heavy and mechanical. She saw the shadowed form waiting in the driveway of the farmhouse, and watched him reach to take the weapon from Angelica.

“She’s just shaken up, is all,” Angelica quietly told him.

“I can see that,” he replied. “Probably not as badly as that kid she left behind.”

“Don’t be so hard on her,” she coolly advised him. “You may know quite a bit about Nindy here, but you don’t know everything. You aren’t the only one with demons you want to choke down, Rohebeth.”

Nindy’s eyes narrowed. She was fast learning that those inside of that strangely secret and violent world knew him by a name she rarely considered. It wasn’t a common name he had, and so there could be no coincidences in that. She wiped at her tearing eyes, and jerked away from his hand when he reached to lead her to the car.

Angelica watched her round the vehicle. “We’ll take care of the rest of it,” she said.

“Oh?” he turned, pausing with the driver door open, still holding the gun at his side. “I don’t see how you’re going to cover something like that up, Ms. Norse. No offense to your highly trained organization.”

She smiled. “You know exactly how we’re going to do it. You have a good night now. And thank you both for not exposing us the way you could have.”

“The way I once would have?” Nindy slowly asked.

Schiele’s gaze turned sharply to her. Studying her a moment longer, he then looked Angelica over. He set the gun in the car, and stepped in, shutting the door before anything else could be said among them.

Sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, hands clasped and looking over them, Schiele watched Nindy look through the file collected.

“Why kill him like that Nindy?” he quietly asked.

“You know why.”

“Not in front of the kid, I don’t know why you did that. You’re not making anything easy for her by having done that.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she looked up to him, brows furrowed. “Those aren’t things I need to hear from you, Schiele. I need to know what you know. I need to know how you-how you-…”

His brows lightly lifted in prompt.

She looked away, disturbed but reluctant to voice any more. She turned the page of the file to hide the battered face of the woman. “I wish I remembered. I don’t… I never wondered so much before, but it’s like everything is beginning to hinge on that. It does matter what that past was, Schiele.”

“I can’t help you with that,” was his quiet answer.

She turned her gaze to him again, still finding it hard to believe and understand his lying to her so easily. But she was beginning to think that there was something to be afraid of in that past.

“She said I was… She said I was that kid they found, Schiele.”

He shook his head.

“Did you find that out?”

His gaze lowered.

“You did,” she softly realized. “How long did you know?”

“Only when I was looking up the foundation members did I find it. You were adopted into another family. Your father-no one knew who he was to begin with.”

Nindy’s could feel her eyes beginning to sting, her lip trembling, her stomach sinking more and more into her fearful insides.

“They changed your name then.” He looked up to her again. “I’m sorry, Nindy. I honestly didn’t know any of that before then. If I had, I… I would have most likely suggested that we stop the investigation. I know it can’t be easy to learn something like this.”

“I’m learning a lot of things I wish I didn’t,” was her tearful response. “I want to know more, but I’m afraid of what I’m going to find out.”

He did not answer, only shook his head once more.

“And what do I tell Garith Ember?”

“I’ll handle that.”

She couldn’t help a small smile, wiping her hand across her eyes. “You never involve yourself like that, Schiele,” she reminded him of his words.

“Sometimes it’s best that I do. Come on, put that up,” he rose and gestured to the file on her desk. “You need some sleep. I know I’m looking forward from a break in this. It’s eerie how many coincidences led to this much-trouble. Just get some rest for now. Try to forget it for a bit.”

Garith Ember sat on that same couch, staring at Nindy first and then Schiele who was leaning on the edge of the desk she sat behind. “You’re telling me the police report was accurate?” he was dumbfound.

Schiele handed him the collected pages of the file, pages that they were willing to show.

Nindy watched him slowly turn through them, lingering on the photographs of Emily.

“My god,” he murmured. “I had no idea.”

“I’m sure that if he admitted his past record, he had a good story for it,” Nindy noted.

“He did,” Garith stated. “He claimed it was a simple argument, and the charges placed were done so with basis. An attempt to quarrel more, he said. And I believed him,” that part seemed to amaze him the most. “What about the paper in the shoe? What is this Snow Foundation?”

“A charity set up to assist abused children,” Nindy answered. “They offer a range of services from housing to legal aide. We can give you one of their information booklets if you’d like.”

“The ad is run for public awareness,” Schiele replied. “It’s been in that paper for years. It’s always blank. The information found on the paper you had was written on. Probably scratch paper used at some point. We can not positively say it was a means to single him out. We could perhaps go further and examine the shoe-“

Garith stopped them. He sharply lifted his hand, his dark eyes still fixed on the paper before him. “It doesn’t matter.” He looked up to them. “I don’t need to see this go any further.”

Nindy couldn’t help a curious frown while watching him stand. He held the file back out to Schiele.

“He made some bad decisions,” their client said in his same level and decisive tone. “And it’s over. Thank you for doing what you could, but I don’t suppose it matters now, as he has nothing else to fear other than God itself.”

Schiele saw him out before turning to Nindy. “I suspect he figured that one out himself,” he commented upon the abrupt end of the meeting.

“Most likely thought it was a signal for a single hitman,” she quietly agreed. “He didn’t seem too concerned about it, regardless.”

“He’s a firm believer in protection,” he smiled. “He said it before.”

“But-? Nevermind,” she sighed. “I’m starting find out that not all the law and order is handled by the police.”

Chuckling, he settled down on the couch. “You’re defiantly right about that. Come here, Nindy.”

She did not move right away, instead studying him in debate. The Snow Foundation and their Pair Grove were clear to her, but he was still a mystery. That question was still always lurking in her thoughts. She sighed in resignation, though. She did not like the feeling of distrust or distance. Maybe it was nothing at all, she told herself, and so such growing uneasiness towards him was unwarranted. As comfortable and content as she had always been with Schiele, she did not want anything to change that.

Standing and joining him on the couch, pulling her feet up, she leaned into him when she felt his arm around her shoulders. Looking to the windows as well, she said nothing for several minutes

“How are they going to cover it up, Schiele?” she then wondered at Angelica’s comment to him.

“You saw the paper.”

“I know, but I figured that was just a story they gave the press. A temporary response for the bloodthirsty. A robbery isn’t-isn’t terribly accurate for the way they found the scene,” she pointed out. “Anyone with an ounce of common sense would be able to figure out it was an intentional attack.”

He looked down to her with a smile. Pushing her hair from his eyes, he quietly repeated her, “Not all the law and order is handled by the police-but don’t think that they don’t know when to overlook it.”

The phone rang, and she sighed while looking over to the desk where it sat. Schiele only smiled when she looked up to him. Nindy momentarily buried her face against him, wishing the ringing would stop. But it didn’t.

“Ugh,” she relented and slowly pushed up and then onto her feet. “Can’t avoid an opportunity to pay the bills.” Shuffling over to the desk, she swiped up the phone, answering, “Nindy Yards speaking.”

“Pansy,” she identified herself. “Just calling to let you know what I found out. I didn’t get too far into it, but I figure we can set up a time if you want more details, yeah?”

“Sure. So?”

“Schiele Rohebeth worked for Childress Enterprises.” Pansy’s pause was followed by a sigh. “And so did you, Nindy.”

Nindy’s hands went numb. Her body went numb. Her eyes turned to Schiele sitting quietly on the couch watching her with that chilling look in his eye, his lips lightly turned in a smile. She couldn’t move any more than that though, only stand frozen while hearing Pansy’s voice:

“You knew him long before he started working in that office.”