Brave

Say what you want to say
And let the words fall ou
Honestly, I want to see you be brave
With what you want to say

 

Honey Wheeler made phone calls. For years she claimed one very specific area of expertise -- working the lines of communication. She’d been handling calls for her parents since she first became a teen-ager, and modern technology only seemed to make things easier. If she couldn’t call, she’d text. If she couldn’t call or text, then she’d turn to email to communicate what she needed. If necessary, a fax would be sent. By the time she’d employed every form of communication in her arsenal, Honey would accomplish what she needed to get done. She’d already spoken to her father and asked him to move the family business from Ben’s firm. He’d agreed to discuss her concerns, but in the meantime, he was on his way back to Sleepyside to check on things there. Translation: Matthew Wheeler had enough of fundraiser activities and need to unwind in the game preserve with a brisk ride on his favorite horse.

She returned a call from her boss, the district attorney, about a problem with a pending case. That gave her the opening she needed to bring up the bigger problem with her job. After answering his questions about the case, she gave him her verbal notice and confirmed she’d be leaving to take the job offer in Chicago. He expressed his understanding, and they finished the call with a discussion on how to reassign her current caseload.

Next, she placed a call to the marina, and demanded to speak with the owner. She was able to confirm Maria Coleman was indeed an employee of the Marina. He also assured her that the area around the Langhams’ yacht would be cleaned up before nine the following morning. That spurred an unanswered call to Trixie; she followed up with a text. Finally she called the Belden Wheeler Detective Agency and confirmed with Sean that Harold Langham's private security would remain in place for the duration of his stay in the hospital.

She then fielded an awkward call from the sister of her former boyfriend, which left her wondering about all the communicating she’d accomplished from the back seat of a taxi cab. She could call everyone and anyone—except the one person she should be able to talk to about anything—her fiancé, Brian Belden.

Enough! Calling his number was hard and she found herself feeling relieved when it rolled to voice mail. She left him a message about her plans for the evening, which were quite simple: an early night at her parents’ penthouse apartment. After that, she tried Trixie one more time, this time meeting with success.

“Trixie?”

“Yeah, Honey. What’s up?”

The simple question was easy. “Did you get my text about Maria?”

“Yes, good news. Is that all?”

“Not exactly,” she hedged chewing on her lips. “Listen, Trixie we have to talk. I took this thing off Ben’s desk when he was out of his office. It’s not his phone, at least not the one he was using, and … well, we have to talk.”

“Did you look at what was on it?”

“No, but it looks a lot like the phone thing that you use. Do you want me to turn it on?”

“No!” Trixie hurried to inform her. “If it has GPS we don’t want anyone to know where it is.”

“Do you want to meet me tonight?”

“No, we can meet at the office, first thing in the morning, okay?”

“That’s fine. I’m heading to Mother and Daddy’s penthouse to stay the rest of the week. They’re in Sleepyside so I’ll have the place to myself and there’s plenty of room to work.”

“Okay, we’ll talk tomorrow. Don’t worry about it, Honey. Ben’s an ass. We both know it.”

Honey chuckled. “Okay, later.”

She hung up and smiled for the first time since starting her call marathon. One thing was certain. Trixie was right. Her cousin was a complete and total ass.

 

 

“Before we talk about your flash drive, let’s deal with Riker,” Beth Patterson said as soon as Trixie disconnected the call. “What are we going to do about him? If he has the code words there's no telling how much of this mission has been compromised. We can't just ignore him.”

“You have a suggestion?” Trixie asked.

Beth shook her head. “Not at the moment, but he didn’t get that code phrase from me. Obviously, he didn’t get it from you, so ….”

They both stared at each other arriving at the same conclusion. Trixie broke the silence.

“There’s a leak in the CIB,” she said softly. “That would explain the PDA Honey just told me she lifted from his desk. She said it looks like mine.”

“Good thinking, telling her not to turn it on. But if there’s a leak ….”

Trixie nodded. “We’re not telling anyone about the PDA, about this software, about anything. Deal?”

“Deal!” Beth stuck out her hand and they shook hands. “For now I’m leaving Riker to you and your partner. But listen, Belden -- I have to ask -- Do you think that there’s any way your boyfriend Frayne is responsible for this software?”

“Not a chance,” Trixie replied immediately. “He’s a teacher, an educator. He has a doctorate in Psychology and Education. He's not a software programmer. He doesn't even know how —” She stopped, remembering that Jim did indeed know how to write software. He'd written an entire program for one of his grad school projects with none other than Mike King. Not to mention, it was a program for which they'd never gotten the security portion to work properly before the assignment was due. If there was one thing Jim Frayne relished, it was a challenge. He'd never given up on making that program work. Now that she really thought about what he’d said, she was certain that making the program work was the project he’d been working on with Mike. It wasn’t just a presentation for the fundraiser that featured his plans for Frayler Academy, but also a demonstration of the SMARTSchool software program that he hoped would make it a model for all educational institutions in the future. It was software he hoped would fund the foundation for long after he was gone.

“Belden?” Beth prodded. “Beatrix? What is it?”

“Listen, just leave Jim to me, okay?” She retorted with a hard look. “If I'm willing to trust you with this computer, then you need to trust me to handle him.”

Beth searched her face as if looking for a sign. Apparently satisfied she nodded. “What about Mike? Do you think he's responsible?”

“I think he has to be,” Trixie said slowly. “I just don't know he's involved. I suspect he's the primary author of this software.”

“Because ...” Beth encouraged her to continue.

“Because if he's not, then I've been wrong about Reid Beckhart and B3’s involvement in this entire case. It would mean I've been wrong about a lot of things for quite some time.”

“Have you ever been wrong before?”

Trixie rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Of course. Several times. It's Rule 51.”

“Sometimes you're wrong,” Beth replied immediately. Trixie’s eyebrows shot up.

“You know the rules?”

For the first time since they encountered each other on the yacht, Beth laughed. “Belden, everyone in the CIB knows the rules. We wouldn't be working for them if we didn't. Now, let's roll—we have to have a plan and right now I only know two things for sure.”

“Oh, what two things.”

“First, I don't think you're wrong. You leave Mike King to me.”

“Okay, you have a plan?” Trixie asked.

“Maybe,” Beth replied. “I think it's about five years too late, but I have a plan.”

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Wait just a minute,” Trixie stood up, hands on her hips and studied Elizabeth Patterson closely. “Jim told me that Mike King moved to D.C. to get away from you. How do you plan to handle that?”

It was Beth's turn to roll her eyes. “Please,” she said. “Mike left because of his mother. His poor, pitiful, blame-everything-on-me mother. Whatever you may have heard, or been told, I never, ever, ever, slept with Mike's father.”

Trixie went quiet, her mind whirring as she recalled previous discussions relative to Beth’s relationship with Mike. “What did you just say?”

“I said that despite what everyone thought and what it may have looked like, I did not sleep with Mike's father. Nothing inappropriate ever happened between us.”

“You're not the first person in this case to say something like that,” Trixie said. “And every one of those comments happened about five years ago.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying there's no such thing as coincidence,” she replied slowly. Their eyes met and they both echoed at the same time.

“Rule 39!”