Color Me Grey: Book One of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles (28 page)

“
I hope I have been of some help to you
in the search for your father. Mr. Red said he is going to help me
find a place where I can be safe now that my cousin’s crazy
followers have found me out.”

“
Good,” I said with genuine relief. Not
so much for the man I used to know as Jones, but because I hoped he
had been of some help. I wondered what he had told Mr. Red but
decided to wait until they were all done playing with the dead deer
before I asked any questions.

“
I can’t believe you took a bullet for
me. I appreciate it,” Salah added.

“
I didn’t do it on purpose,” I said
before I could stop myself.

Mr. Black let out his glorious laugh at my
last statement. The whole room quieted at the sound. Everyone had
turned and had looks of expectation. They wanted to know what was
so funny that it actually got a laugh from Mr. Black.

Mr. White spoke first saying, “Mr. Red, it’s
time for us to get down to business. Would you please go tuck in
the informant?”

Mr. Red came and collected Salah and left the
room with him. The other men took seats around the room. Mr. Black
gathered up the deer and put it back into the closet. Mr. Blue came
to the couch and sat next to me, telling me I should keep my leg
elevated. We waited for Mr. Red’s return, which didn’t take more
than a few minutes.

*****

It didn’t take long at all for Mr. Red to
walk back into the office. He must have stashed The Lion’s cousin
somewhere close by. I watched him saunter into the office and
decided Gabriella had been right. He did have an air about him that
screamed he thought he was better than all the rest.

After he had sat down, Mr. White asked him to
fill us in on what information Abdullah Salah had given him.

Mr. Red started by telling us Salah had given
him several locations we could check out. He pulled out a sheet of
paper and handed it to Mr. White, explaining it was a list of these
locations. He also said Mr. White would find some names on the list
that might be of some help to us now and possibly in the future as
well.

“
Did you get the impression Salah was
entirely forthcoming on this?” Mr. White asked him.

“
Yes, I did. He’s quite timid and I
don’t think he would have been able to lie efficiently,” Mr. Red
replied.

“
Alright, everyone,” Mr. White said.
“You should go get some rest. I want you all back here early
tomorrow morning.”

We all started to say our goodnights. Mr.
Blue came up to me and handed me a bottle of pills.

“
These are antibiotics. Take one pill
three times a day. You can start tonight before you go to bed, then
I recommend taking one with every meal.” He reminded me to keep off
my leg as much as possible and to keep it elevated before he walked
for the door.

My Mustang was still in the parking lot, but
I wasn’t sure I wanted to drive it home. I started to make my way
to the door when Mr. White came up to me.

“
You and I can start work tonight. If
you feel up to it,” he said with a glance at my bandaged
leg.

“
I’m fine,” I said. I was glad to be
able to do something other than wait. I hated waiting.

“
Alright, let me get some things
together, then we’ll go to my place, he said.

His place? He had seemed professional when he
said it, but my imagination started to chug along in full gear. I
was a nervous wreck by the time he said, “You ready?”

No, I’m not ready, I thought, but said, “Yep,
let’s go.” We walked out of the office together toward the
elevator. He matched my pace. I imagine he did this for the benefit
of my leg. I was grateful, but didn’t say anything.

Inside the elevator he pushed the button for
the eighth floor. I wondered if I had misunderstood him when he
said we were going to his place. Maybe he didn’t mean his home,
just another place he called his own.

The elevator ride was a short one since we
only went up one floor. He stepped out first and automatically
placed his hand in front of the doors so they wouldn’t close on me.
I had stopped inside the elevator and was looking around
suspiciously. The doors had opened onto a small room that was
painted a cream color. There was a beautiful door ahead of us. It
was offset to the left of the elevator by a few feet. The door had
beautiful molding around the frame and supported a small, brass
peephole.

“
Are you coming?” he asked in a droll
voice.

“
Yeah, I was just looking,” I said. He
smiled at me as I limped out of the elevator. With the first step I
had tried to add a little extra swing to my hips, but decided
against it.

Mr. White pulled his keys out of his pocket
and opened the door into a huge apartment. This obviously was his
home. If he just used it for another home, I couldn’t even imagine
what his main home would look like. My parents had a nice home and
I always thought of it in terms of a mansion, even though it was
actually pretty modest. With their worth, they could have had a
much larger, more opulent home, but they were comfortable with what
they had and I was glad to not have grown up in a museum home.

Mr. White had a similar concept to his home.
It was within comparison to my parents’ home. It was mostly open.
We walked in and he shut the door behind me while I took it all in.
I had stepped from the elevator to a cream colored carpet and then
to a tiled entryway. There was a mirror to my right with a small
table waiting for the keys or the mail to be set upon it. To my
left was a door; I assumed it was a closet. There were three stairs
leading down from the front door to the main part of the apartment.
I struggled down them because there was no railing. Mr. White
offered assistance, but I declined. I maybe should have taken it,
but I didn’t want to show any weakness. I had to lead with my
injured leg because it hurt more to bend it than to put weight on
it. I made it down one step at a time and it took me three times
longer than it should have.

It gave me a chance to take in the sites. Mr.
White had a plush dark gray carpet on the stairs and into the first
room. If I had seen the carpet in a store I might have thought it
would have given a room a gloomy feeling, but the feeling this room
gave off was one of total comfort. The room was a recessed living
room with a couch and entertainment system; which included a large
screen television and a nice stereo and other electronics. It
included some tasteful tables and cabinets and a couple of chairs
that matched the fabric on the couch.

I could see into the kitchen too. It was on
the other side of the living room. There were three stairs up into
the kitchen area and it had a similar tile to the entryway, white
with a gray marbled affect. The kitchen was a bit enclosed because
the appliances need walls behind them, but there was a large island
on the far end of the kitchen. The island was surrounded by
high-backed barstools. The frames were metal and the backs had an
intricate open design with loops and curls. The cushions were a
light gray color that went well with the tile.

The apartment seemed to mainly be the two
rooms. The far wall to my right had three doors. I could see into
two of the rooms well enough to determine one was a bedroom and the
other was a bathroom. Both were quite large. The third door was
closed. Mr. White led me to that door, unlocked it and we went
in.

The room looked like a spy’s dream. There
were TV monitors on part of one wall, with a couple computers
available. It was a large area and felt cold, unlike the rest of
the apartment. The room also held various other items such as
filing cabinets and tables and chairs.

All the monitors and computers were turned
off, so Mr. White walked to one of the computers and switched it
on. He motioned me to the chair in front of it and said, “You can
use this computer. I need you to track down these places and names
for me.” He placed the list Mr. Red had given him on the desk next
to the keyboard.

“
Okay,” I said as I sat in the
chair.

“
I have access to satellite feeds all
over the world and limited access to government data bases. Use
what you need. Get to work and I’ll go fix us something to eat,” he
said as he turned to go back to the kitchen.

I got to work on the places first. If I could
access satellites without worrying about getting into trouble I
might even be able to
see
if my dad was there. I just had to
be in the right place at the right time.

Mr. White left the door open and I could hear
him working in the kitchen. I hadn’t even noticed I was hungry
until he mentioned making us something. Now my stomach was
growling.

I continued to check out all the different
places while he made cooking noises in the background. I was able
to figure out how to locate the position of every single person at
any given place, but if they were inside buildings I wasn’t able to
determine whether or not one of these people was my dad.

Mr. White returned and said, “How’s it
going?”

“
I don’t know. I’m not finding anything
that’s helpful yet,” I said, discouraged.

“
Well come on out and we’ll eat, maybe
that will help,” he said.

I stood up away from the computer screen and
limped after him to the kitchen. He helped me up the stairs to the
island, even after I had tried to pull away.

“
I don’t want to stand around for half
an hour while you try to get up the stairs,” he said. “I’m hungry
and I want to eat it while it’s hot.”

Mr. White had made us hot sandwiches with
roast beef, sautéed onions and green peppers, all topped with Swiss
cheese. I was about to reach for my sandwich when he reminded me of
my antibiotics that Mr. Blue had given me.

I sighed and began to get off the chair.

“
Where are you going?” he
asked.

“
I left them by the computer in the
other room,” I said tiredly.

“
I’ll get them,” he said, already on
his way.

During the brief moment he was away I
realized I wasn’t as affected by him as I had been before. Don’t
get me wrong, I still thought he was as sexy as they get, but I was
able to control my thoughts away from the sex, for the most
part.

Sometimes, just a glimpse of him brought on a
hot flash, but it seemed now he was becoming something more than
just a face and a body. Up until today, I had never allowed myself
to think of him as a person.

He returned just as I was philosophizing and
wouldn’t you know it, I got a hot flash. He handed me a single pill
and set the bottle next to me. I swallowed it down and then reached
for my food. This was better than the egg concoction he had made at
the cabin and I finished it in no time. Mr. White had finished
before me, but he was still sitting at the island. After I was done
he took the plates and put them in the dishwasher. I waited until
he finished so he could help me down the stairs again.

The dishwasher was humming me a lullaby when
he came around to my side of the island. He helped me off the chair
and back to my seat at the computer.

“
Feel better?” he asked.

“
A little,” I said with a tired
smile.

He reached over and brought another chair up
to the desk. At first I thought he was going to sit in it next to
me but he told me to put my leg up on it. Then he left the room
again.

I decided I would try the people angle this
time to see where it got me. I was able to find all the people on
the list and print out all their information by the time he
returned. He had hot coffee and a pillow to put under my leg. Then
he grabbed another chair and sat beside me at the computer. I told
him what I had done with the names.

“
Good. I’ll get them to Mr. Red first
thing in the morning. How about the satellite pictures?” he
said.

“
I was just getting back to them,” I
explained. I took a sip of my coffee then pulled up the satellite
on the computer. We sifted through all the sites and found nothing
out of the ordinary. Mr. White went to the printer and we started
reading through the people and the information that had come up for
them. I also added Abdullah Salah and Abbas Salah, A.K.A., The
Lion. Just for good measure.

With every name there was another location to
check. Some of them were repeats of places we had already checked,
so we skipped them. Abaas had a long list of locations displayed
with the rest of his information. Someone had done their homework
on this guy.

I put in each place systematically. The
satellites would snap pictures as they passed over the coordinates.
Mr. White had refilled our coffee cups twice and we still hadn’t
found anything. He had told me while we were searching it could
take several days to locate anything that could be of help, but
reassured me the other guys would help speed things along. We were
looking at a small village that had come up next on The Lion’s long
list. We were using several different types of satellites to
achieve one picture. It was complicated and time consuming. But
with the different views, such as the high magnification lenses,
infrared and sonic signatures we were able to see almost
everything, inside and out.

In one of the buildings in this small village
was a person sitting in a chair surrounded by other people. At
first it didn’t look suspicious, but then the pictures showed that
the man in the chair was hit in the face and slumped over in the
chair.

My dad! Was that my dad getting beat up? I
hoped we had found him, but I didn’t want it to be him in that
chair.