Searching Part three of the Brandt Family seriesChapter 11
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Searching - Part Three Of The Brandt Family SeriesChapter 4 free porn video
The entry gate sentry for the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station was naturally a Marine.
Katie exited the taxi after paying the fare and watched it drive away before approaching the sentry station. She already saw her next ride on the other side of the gate.
“Good afternoon Corporal. My name is Katie Brandt, and I believe you have a pass for me.”
The Marine Corporal didn’t salute her, but his demeanor noticeably stiffened as he said, “Yes Ma’am. If you can show me some ID I will get your pass for you. Your driver is waiting for you right over there.”
The Corporal pointed to the waiting Humvee on the other side of the gate. Katie presented her driver’s license, which the Marine inspected quickly and then handed her the pass that provided unescorted access to the entire facility. He didn’t know who this woman was, but he knew not to delay her progress.
“Thank you,” Katie said as she took the pass and clipped it to the pocket of her shirt.
She waited for the Corporal to open the pedestrian gate for her by pushing a button that released its lock. She then went through the gate and climbed into the Humvee. Without exchanging any words with the Marine driver, she climbed into the front passenger seat and began her journey through the massive weapons facility.
As they approached the World War Two National Submarine Memorial – West, she stared out her window and said a silent prayer for the souls of the more than three thousand American sailors who lost their lives on submarines during World War II. The driver slowed and stopped with her door aligned with the walkway that led to the memorial. Katie climbed out of the Humvee and heard it pull away as she walked up the path to meet the two men waiting for her on a bench.
Both men stood as Katie neared them. She greeted each of them with a kiss on the cheek, “Hi Joey. Hi Uncle Jason. What’s going on?”
Her cousin Joey directed her to sit between them on the bench before speaking, “We just wanted to see how you were doing and discuss some new activities that came to our attention.”
“As we always knew,” her uncle began, “the news media isn’t letting the events at Shoreline Mall fade into obscurity. Of course, they are being encouraged by all the politicians who continue to use the events to showcase their own agendas, whatever those might be.”
Her Uncle was the Director of Intelligence for Brandt Consulting, which in turn was contracted as the Operations Directorate for the Department of Homeland Security. Her cousin Joey also worked for Brandt Consulting, teaching counter-terrorism at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center near Brunswick, Georgia. They had summoned her to this meeting through a coded reply to an online blog that she had been following as a means of communicating with them and her father in an untraceable manner.
“Fill me in,” Katie told them.
Joey began to explain, “It has been easy getting the cooperation of Sheriff Radcliff to stonewall the investigation under National Security. He’s former Special Forces and knows the importance of protecting our assets. He also realizes that even if the woman at the mall was identified, no local prosecutor who wanted to ever get elected again would file charges against her.”
Her uncle continued the briefing, “Now, enter the Attorney General for the State of California. He is from the most liberal sections of the Bay area, has grandiose political ambitions, is fervently anti-gun ownership, hates the current administration in Washington and controls his own Department of Law Enforcement.”
Katie thought back to her conversation with Tyler at the car show. “I’ve heard of it,” she said.
“Well,” her uncle continued, “He has ordered his investigators to take over the case from Sheriff Radcliff’s department.”
“Uh oh,” Katie said. “Anything new on the guy I shot?”
“Bits and pieces keep coming in, but nothing that tells us why,” said Joey as he checked the screen on his cell phone.
“His name of record for the investigation is Tom Adams, but his true name was Andrew Carmichael, age twenty-nine. The mother’s name was Abigail. She died of liver cancer two months after his birth. She had apparently refused any treatment for the cancer while she was pregnant and there was little hope for her by the time the boy was born. Father was a British journalist who was killed five months before Andrew’s birth when a bomb exploded in the pub where he was conducting an interview. The pub was known to be a gathering spot for gay men, so the authorities assumed that the anti-homosexual movement in Great Britain at the time was behind the bombing, but no one was ever arrested or charged in the incident.”
“So, he was an orphan at two months of age?” asked Katie.
“Correct. Abigail Carmichael was an American citizen, so she returned to live with her grandmother in Morongo Valley, California while she suffered through the cancer and awaited the birth of the child that they had tried for so many years to have.”
“No other relatives?”
Joey continued reading, “Nope. The grandmother couldn’t care for the infant, so he bounced around from foster home to foster home his entire life. The amazing thing, at least to me, is that he appeared to make friends easily, was popular with his classmates, always excelled in academics and athletics, consistently being at the top of his classes all the way through the various schools he attended before graduating as the valedictorian of his high school.”
“What happened after high school?” asked Katie.
“It appears that he tried to get a scholarship to several universities, but because he was a white male, and the quotas at the time stacked the opportunities against him. He took whatever classes he could get at community colleges, but these were all vocational training-focused courses in electronics, drafting, and so on. Even the community colleges were required to give preference on the degree-track courses to women and minorities, so he seldom found an opening in one of these that he could take advantage of.”
“What about his social life?” asked Katie. “Anything there, any associations, jobs or anything that might point to a motive for wanting to shoot up a shopping mall?”
“Nothing so far. People who knew him thought that he might have someone special in his life, but no one could identify who it might have been. The employers that have been interviewed all stated that he was a hard worker and would have gone a lot further with their companies if they had been able to base career opportunities on merit and job performance instead of gender, race and other similar factors. It looks like whenever one of his employers had to make personnel cuts, they were forced to choose him first.”
“Sounds like the cards were stacked against him...”
“It appears that way,” agreed her uncle. “However, we haven’t found anything yet that indicates that he expressed any anger or resentment over the biases that he faced in life. It would seem to be a triggering factor, but we haven’t found anything yet. We’re still looking.”
“Well, while you’re looking, here’s something else that might become an issue for us,” Katie said, and she proceeded to tell them about her new neighbor and about the request he had made to her while on her way to this meeting.
“Do you think this guy suspects something?” asked her uncle.
“No” assured Katie, “he’s just nosey by nature. It wouldn’t hurt to try and shut down this new investigation though.”
“That will take some serious discussion,” Joey told her. “If we go to this Attorney General and play the national security card, he won’t be intimidated. He’ll more than likely hold a press conference touting his refusal to cooperate, to protect the citizens of California and similar garbage. We would need to find some way of convincing him that dropping the investigation was more in his future interests than pursuing it.”
“How?” Katie asked.
Her uncle put his arm around her shoulder and said, “We don’t know right now, but we’ll get a team working on it as soon as I get back to the office. You should try to avoid your new neighbor as much as possible for a while, though.”
“I have been avoiding him already, but that’s just because he won’t usually accept, ‘It’s none of your business’ when delivered in a polite manner.”
“That might work in your favor,” said Joey. “If you’ve already established a relationship where you are reluctant to answer his questions, refusing to answer any now, especially related to the shooting, won’t be viewed as unusual.”
“Good point,” she said as she stood. “I need to get back and help Cile. Have you made any arrangements for my ride or do I need to call a taxi?”
“We’ll drive you to the main gate,” her uncle said. “There should be an unmarked Sheriff’s car waiting for you there. The female deputy in it will drive you wherever you want to go.”
When they got to her uncle and cousin’s car, she hugged them both before she climbed into the back seat. “When are you flying back?” she asked.
Her uncle turned around slightly in the front passenger seat to answer her, “We have your dad’s plane at John Wayne airport. Our plan is for Cile to join us Sunday morning. Her or Joey will fly us all back to San Antonio together. We have some business to deal with at the border crossing at San Ysidro tomorrow, so we’re heading to San Diego for the night.”
Katie checked the time on her phone and said, “You’re going to be in the worst of Friday afternoon rush hour traffic if you leave now. Are you sure that you don’t want to have dinner with us or something and then head down?”
“Oh, we’re not driving down to San Diego,” Joey told her. “We have a Marine helicopter standing by for us at the base helipad.”
“Boys and their toys,” Katie said, and they all laughed.
Tyler opened the garage door using the controls mounted on the wall, just outside the kitchen door. As soon as he walked out of the garage into the alley behind their condo on his way to his car, he saw that Katie’s garage door was open. He stopped to look inside and saw a strange woman rummaging through boxes on the shelves in Katie’s garage.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Do you mind telling me who you are?”
The woman turned to face him. She was stunningly beautiful, with long hair the color of wheat, a body that would make a swimsuit model envious, and an expression that could only be described as ‘challenging’ to his inquiry.
“Who wants to know?” she said defiantly. Her voice held a stronger hint of the accent he and Taylor had detected from Katie.
Tyler smiled and flashed his badge at her. She didn’t appear the least bit impressed.
“Oh, you must be Tyler,” she observed. “I’m Celia. I’m Katie’s cousin. If she mentioned me at all she probably called me ‘Cile’.”
Tyler approached the entrance to Katie’s garage. The fluorescent fixtures bathed the entire area in light bright enough to perform surgery. He had assumed previously that they must be LED lights, but had never asked to confirm that assumption.
“Katie’s not home. Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing in her garage?”
“I know,” Cile said, “that’s why I have my own key. And yes, I do mind you asking.”
“It must run in the family,” Tyler thought. Why challenge every question posed to them?
Tyler smiled at her and said, “Well then, maybe you wouldn’t mind me asking if you need any help?”
Cile studied him for a few seconds and said, “You could pull those two boxes down from the top shelf so that I don’t have to go get a step stool.”
Tyler walked into the garage without responding and silently lifted the two boxes that Cile had indicated down from the shelf and placed them onto the workbench where she was waiting.
“Thank you,” she said. “I had expected Katie to be here to get the higher boxes down. She wouldn’t need a step stool either.”
“I got the impression that Katie was away for the weekend,” Tyler said as he leaned back against the side of Katie’s truck.
Cile smiled at him and said, “I can’t help your impressions, Tyler, but Katie is not away for the weekend. I wouldn’t be here if she was. We’re working on this project together.”
“And what project is that?”
She studied him for a second before responding, “Tyler, do you always ask so many questions?”
“How else am I supposed to learn about a person,” he replied with a smile.
“You might want to consider patiently gaining their trust and allowing them to openly share with you the things about themselves that they want you to know. That doesn’t mean that you can’t ask any questions, just try to make them less personal or private in nature.”
“Asking what you and Katie are working on is a personal or private question?” he asked.
“In this case it is, and that’s part of my point. Until you know a person better, you will likely be challenged to recognize what things they consider personal. It’s best if you let what they share with you be your guide.”
Tyler contemplated her words as he watched her open one of the boxes and flip through numerous framed photographs inside it. He couldn’t see any of the photos, but judging by the changing expression that some of them prompted on Cile’s face, he surmised that these were pictures of family or events that she remembered fondly.
“Okay,” Tyler finally said, “This is an observation and not a question. This propensity for privacy appears to be a family trait shared by you and Katie.”
Cile turned to face him, leaning against the workbench and crossing her arms. If she wore any make-up on her face it wasn’t obvious, yet her complexion was flawless, and her cheeks glowed with a natural blush that drew attention to them. From there it was a short journey to her sparkling green eyes that seemed to dance with laughter even when she wasn’t even smiling. Like now.
“Katie and I grew up together,” she stated. “It’s only natural that we would share certain ‘traits’ as you call them. I think we both believe that asking questions that are none of our business is rude social behavior. Wouldn’t it be hypocritical of us to believe asking a personal question was rude but answering them wasn’t? Now, if you wanted to ask me my opinion about something, I would likely share that information with you, depending on the subject of course.”
Tyler had been raised in what he had always assumed was proper high-society culture. He knew which fork to use when, how to properly shake hands, how late to a party he could be without being disrespectful, he was taught as a child that when in the presence of adults, he shouldn’t speak unless they first spoke to him, and all the other acceptable behaviors that his social status had demanded he learn. For him to now be verbally spanked by two different women for asking innocent questions didn’t sit well with him.
“I don’t imagine that either of you get many offers to date,” he told Cile.
The laughter never left her eyes as she said, “I only date gentlemen who respect me. If he doesn’t respect my privacy, he isn’t going to respect me. It’s not like they can’t ask me anything at all, they should just keep their questions appropriate. For example, on a first date, it is perfectly appropriate to ask me what I do for a living, but it’s not appropriate to ask me where I work. Do you see the difference?”
“Okay, so what do you do for a living?” Tyler asked with a chuckle.
“We’re not on a date,” Cile teased. “However, I’ll tell you anyway. I’m a nurse practitioner.”
“There you are!”
Both Cile and Tyler turned at the sound of Katie’s voice. She was just stepping down from the kitchen door into the garage to join them. There was not enough space for her to go behind the truck, so Katie walked around the hood, smiled at Tyler as she passed him and embraced Cile. Tyler stood and just watched the two cousins while he considered what he should do.
“How was your trip?” Katie asked.
“Uneventful,” replied Cile. “How was your meeting?”
Katie glanced in Tyler’s direction and said, “I’ll tell you later. Did you find all the photos we discussed?”
Cile and Katie turned back to the boxes on the workbench, seeming to ignore Tyler’s presence. They started discussing the photos that Cile had pulled out of the boxes between themselves in voices that, while not whispers, were intended to make overhearing them difficult for him. After about five minutes, Katie finally turned to him.
Cile turned to face him as well, but it was Katie who addressed him first. Her sky-blue eyes were smiling as brightly as he had ever seen. “Hello Tyler, I want to apologize for disconnecting our call so abruptly earlier. My situation changed suddenly, and I had to react faster than I would have preferred. I’m sorry. Now, is there something that I can do for you?”
“Have dinner with me,” he said, surprising himself as much as he did Katie.
Katie grinned at him and said, “I have a guest, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Tyler smiled back at her, “The invitation was for you and your guest. Taylor is out with friends and I was heading out to get some dinner. I met Cile here and would enjoy continuing my education in proper manners. Between the two of you, I’ll be completely schooled by the end of the day. I’m certain of that.”
Cile giggled, and Katie raised an eyebrow at her before answering, “We already have plans for dinner, but if you give us a few seconds to discuss your offer, I’ll let you know.”
The two women left Tyler leaning against Katie’s truck as they walked around it and into the kitchen of her condo and closed the door behind them. Tyler couldn’t hear what was being said, but he couldn’t miss the few muffled words being followed by raucous laughter from two people. The kitchen door opened once more, and Katie led Cile back around the truck and spoke to Tyler.
“We would like to suggest an alternative to your offer. We would like to invite you to join us tonight for our traditional taco feast. Cile and I make them whenever we’re together these days. If you want to do something to help, we’ll let you supply the Margaritas.”
“Frozen or on the rocks?” Tyler asked as he moved away from the side of the truck. Then he smiled broadly at Cile and added, “If that question isn’t too personal for you?”
“I’ll let it slide this time,” she retorted. “On the rocks, with all fresh ingredients. No yucky mixed stuff for us.”
“And make sure you use a high-quality tequila,” added Katie. “We will be able to tell the difference.”
“Leave it all to me,” stated Tyler. “I worked as a bartender while at UCLA. You ladies are going to be drinking the best Margaritas you have ever tasted.”
“Tyler,” said Katie with a laugh, “Everything is bigger in Texas, but your boasting might exceed even that. You have an hour before we’ll be ready to eat, so use your time wisely.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said as he blew them both kisses and headed out of the garage to his car.
Cile smiled up at her cousin and stated, “If you’re not interested in that guy just let me know. I’ll pack him up and bring him back to Texas with me. In fact, if I didn’t love you, I would take him back with me whether you were interested or not. He’s adorable!”
“Well, cool your jets because I am interested in him,” Katie said as she took Cile’s hand and guided her back into the kitchen, closing the garage door on the way. “Things with him are very complicated though. So much so that either of us being interested in him poses risks.”
“Complicated how?” Katie had captured her attention with that remark.
“He’s looking for me,” Katie told her.
“What do you mean? He obviously knows where to find you.”
Katie sighed and told Cile, “No, he’s looking for ‘me’ as in the woman who stopped the active shooter incident at the mall. The case was just assigned to him today and he’s already complicated things between us as a result. He’s asked for my help identifying the make and model of car that I – or the woman – drove that day.”
“So, he doesn’t suspect that you’re the woman he is looking for, but he is asking you for your help finding her?” verified Cile.
“In a manner of speaking, yes. Your dad and Joey will try to find a way to shut the investigation down, but it might get tricky for political reasons. I need to keep laying low and being interested in one of the investigators assigned to the case would make that more challenging.”
Cile thought about her cousin’s dilemma for a few minutes before offering a suggestion. “I think that you should let him find you...”
“What? Are you crazy?” asked Katie. “I would instantly become the most famous woman in the world. I’m not worried about any legal consequences, because I was clearly acting within the law to shoot the guy, but becoming a household name around the world would be disastrous for my career plans, and probably JR’s as well.”
“Not you the mystery woman, you the woman that you are,” emphasized Cile. “Open up to him slowly, as you would with any new relationship. At the same time, you will get to know him better and likely be able to steer his opinions on the search in the best direction to prevent him and his team from ever identifying you as the woman they seek. You know the saying, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’...”
“Well, in that case, we’re on the same wavelength. Even before I found out that Tyler had been assigned to find me, I had toyed with the idea of ‘toying with him’. Have you noticed the way that he looks at me? I don’t know what he sees, but his interest in me is unlike anything I have ever experienced.”
Katie explained Tyler’s interest in behavioral science and the way that she had teased him, much the same way that Cile had about asking personal questions. Cile had to sit down when her laughter over Tyler asking if Katie was gay made her legs weak.
“Oh my God, I wish I could stay longer,” Cile exclaimed. “We have always shared our toys and this one tops them all.”
“I’ll make sure that you get his contact information so that you can stay in touch and tease him to your heart’s content, but that’s where I draw the line with sharing this toy for now.”
“I have no problem with that,” Cile said. “Why don’t you start tonight? Go change into something that will make you look so contrary to what he has seen from you so far. Make his mouth water and his mind muddy.”
“Let’s get dinner started first and I’ll think about it,” Katie said.
Tyler sat on the sofa in Katie’s living room, alternately looking around the containers for a sign of the jerboa and watching as she and Cile finished putting the last of their dinner dishes into the dishwasher. They then refilled their drinks from the pitcher of Margaritas that he had made while they cleaned up. It was the third pitcher of the evening and he hoped that it wouldn’t be the last.
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