A Matter of Circumstance by M J Marlow (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud .TXT) 📖

a ring in my life!” She was angry then. “I don’t know what your game is and I’m too tired to care. Agent Martin will have a few questions for you, I’m certain.” “That ring cost your father $25,000, Miss Ryan,” Steven hissed. “If you’ve lost it, I want to know.” “Then go ask someone who knows where it is, Agent Gunther,” Victoria replied tightly. “Leave me alone.” Steven left the room and Martin shook his head. The man hadn’t exhibited any emotions other than anger and increasing annoyance. There was something very wrong about the man and he knew Hawk had already gotten the ball rolling on him. “I don’t know how he got in here, Victoria,” Martin apologized. “He certainly didn’t have authorization to come speak to you.” He sank down in a chair. “We did not need someone walking in here without being challenged. Where was your hall guard?” He nodded to her absently and saw the man down at the nurses’ station flirting with a pretty nurse. Even in the Federal Building’s medical wing, he should have had more sense. Victoria was standing in the doorway watching Martin ream the young man for his dereliction of duty when Michael got off the elevator. “Should you be out of bed, Miss Ryan?” Michael asked as he came down the hall. He looked at her critically. “Your color is better but you shouldn’t push yourself.” He saw the bear she was holding. “Gift from an admirer?’ “This is Pippin,” she said as she showed him the bear. “My grandfather gave him to my mother the day I was born. He’s been with me every day since.” “Someone found your family then?” He looked relieved. “My uncle,” Victoria nodded. She looked guilty as she thought of the hall guard. “That poor guy. I feel responsible.” “Isn’t that the young man who’s supposed to be standing at your door here?” Michael asked her. She nodded. “He’s getting off light. I’d have him beaten for leaving you unguarded…” He saw her pale and caught her as her knees buckled. “Miss Ryan?” he asked worriedly as he carried her back to the bed and set her down. “Are you all right?” “What you said,” Victoria said softly. “It was a bit extreme, don’t you think?” This man was creeping her out. She pulled the bear close, shivering as she tried to calm down. She turned on the television and froze as she saw a familiar face on the screen. “Poppy?” “The Reverend of the Saint Peter Episcopal Church,” the announcer was saying as she turned up the volume on the set, “was found shot dead this morning after walking in on a burglar.” The remote slipped from Victoria’s fingers and went unheeded. She hadn’t expected this action and she was not feigning her alarm. Was this planned or had her beloved uncle actually been killed? “Reverend Ryan is survived by a niece who is currently in protective custody after being shot on the night of August 10th by an unknown assailant. Police are not saying if the two incidents are related.” “Miss Ryan?” Michael noticed that she was frozen in place. He patted her cheeks and the tears started to fall. He held her as she mourned for her uncle. “They’ll find the man responsible.” “I should have been there,” Victoria sobbed. “Poppy’s dead because I wasn’t there to help him.” “You don’t know that,” Michael said gently. “Sometimes tragic things happen for no reason. You can’t blame yourself for something that might turn out to just be a case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’, Miss Ryan.” The phone rang and she answered it. The voice on the other end was familiar to her. She had heard it before her shooting. Her hand gripped the receiver tight as anger flooded through her. “You tell your father,” her former kidnapper spat at her, “that we can get to anyone he cares for. If he does not stop what he is doing, Mademoiselle Beauclerc,” he finished, “we will come for you again. Next time, you will not wake up.” “You have it?” Victoria turned as Martin came into the room. He nodded. “That was the man who abducted me,” she said to him as she sank back against the pillows. “We know why I was shot now. My father is going to pay for this!” “It sounds to me like someone shot your uncle to make your father behave, Victoria,” Martin said to her. “He did not order this shooting…” “He might as well have!” Victoria snapped. She was too upset to care. “He brought the hunters down on us!” “I think we should leave Miss Ryan alone,” Michael said to Martin. “If you need to talk, the nurse has my contact info, Miss Ryan.” Victoria nodded and closed her eyes. She was holding on to hope by a fragile thread. The phone rang again and she picked it up. Only three words were spoken but it was enough for her to understand that her uncle was not dead. It was all an act. “Hello?” she said wearily. “Sorry,” her father’s voice sounded in her ears, “wrong number.” Her uncle was safe! Victoria’s tears were those of relief as the nurse came in to check on her. The woman held her and she let the woman comfort her, though she didn’t need it now. The family code ‘wrong number’ meant that the scene had been set as a trap. In the world in which her father hunted, that meant the man who had hurt her would be dead quite soon. 11 Hawk and Martin were standing in the church watching the police investigators go over the scene of the murder. Something about this whole situation did not ring true. They excused themselves and went into the Rectory. Upstairs, in Victoria’s room, they found signs of true damage. The place looked like a storm had hit it. There was also blood in the kitchen and a role of duct tape and scissors on the counter near a chair. They called the investigators and told them what they had found. “Someone wanted to ask the Reverend some serious questions,” Hawk said as they drove back to the hospital a bit faster than the speed limit allowed for. “That robbery was staged. They were after something on Victoria’s computer or Victoria herself.” “Or that damned ring Gunther was so eager to find?” Martin added his own question. They were practically running when they got to the floor where Victoria’s room was. The guard was nowhere to be seen. They got to her room and she was not there. The nurses could not tell them where Victoria had gone. As they started to panic, they saw a door open and Victoria and her guard came out of Michael’s office. “She heard about her uncle,” Michael told them, “and had another attack. I’ve spent the last half hour trying to convince her that it was not her fault.” “It’s time to move, Victoria,” Hawk said as he cupped her elbow in his hand and guided her away. He left Martin to find the doctor to sign her out as he led her to her room. They stood on the threshold to see the same storm had hit this room as her room at home. “Someone thinks you have information they don’t want shared, Victoria,” he frowned as she gathered her things and dressed quickly. “We’re out of here.” They hurried out of the hospital and got into Hawk’s car. Martin and Joanna followed behind with the field agent. Hawk took her to the Federal Building and they went to the Tech section where Glen Arnold was putting the files through a decoding program. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days as he looked at Victoria. “You wouldn’t want to take pity on this poor beleaguered hacker and just tell me your password?” he asked her plaintively. He saw the bear she held out to him. “Cute.” He fingered the collar on its throat and saw the name on it. He typed it in and the files opened. “Very cute.” “Pippin is the gatekeeper,” Victoria said absently as she looked around the room. She looked at Hawk, puzzled by something. “Where is my car?” “Martin?” “It’s in the Impound Lot,” Martin answered Hawk’s question. He pulled a key ring out and Victoria grabbed them and ran for the elevators. Hawk and Martin followed her. “Where’s the silver Jaguar, Murph?” “Spot 17,” the bald man said without looking from the security monitor. “You’re the second person to ask about it. Other party is still there.” He shook his head as Martin and Hawk took off without another word. “Where are people’s manners these days?” Hawk and Martin got to the car and saw a man they both recognized just closing the trunk. Steven Gunther froze as they drew their guns and stepped away. He pulled out his identification and they met a member of the elite counter-terrorism force. He told them that he had been asked to keep an eye on Victoria when the missing man, Fernand Cabrera had started contacting her. He was a known terrorist. “It’s time for you to tell us the truth, Miss Ryan,” Steven turned on her then. “Why are men on the terrorist watch list contacting you? Are you the agent who has been helping them get past our nets? Did you cooperate in your own kidnapping to extort money from your father?” “No,” Victoria looked at the man in shock. “The man said he had news about my family.” She looked at his cold eyes and knew he was judging and condemning her. “That’s all I remember.” She leaned against the car, shaking in reaction to his charges. “I would never do anything like you suggest!” “How do you know?” Steven taunted her. “Maybe you got get involved in something to get back at your father and Cabrera or one of his associates decided to shoot you because they knew the net was tightening around you?” He stepped towards her and she moved closer to Hawk instinctively. “You say you never wore a ring but we have a picture of you wearing a very expensive cocktail piece that our research has led us to believe is being used to hide some very volatile information.” He took the photo out and shoved it in her face. “Explain that Miss ‘I am a Victim’ Ryan.” “Mama,” Victoria choked as she saw the picture. She took it from Steven before he could yank it away and ran the tip of one finger along the woman’s jaw line. “This is my mother, Agent Gunther,” she told him coldly as she slapped the photo against his chest. “She had dark brown eyes and mine are blue.” She saw him cringe and knew he hadn’t been paying any attention to such things. My God, how is he still alive? “She was wearing that ring the night she was murdered. I remember watching the light dancing off of it as she made shadow puppets…” Pain exploded in her head and she went down on her knees sobbing. “Please,” she looked up at Hawk in misery. “Make it stop!” “Are you through tormenting her, Gunther?” Hawk asked as he crouched down at her side. “He’s done now,” he started to say then changed his mind. “Victoria, why did you come out here to the car?” “I needed to see the car,” Victoria told him. “To make the shooting more real in my mind.” She looked at it then and shook her head. “But this isn’t my car,” she said to him. “My car has the security features Papa had built in when he gave it to me,” she continued. “They’re not there, Hawk,” she drew his attention to the missing security features. “What’s going on here?” “We’ll figure it out, Victoria,” Hawk said softly. “Trust me.” He put his arm around