Color Me Grey: Book One of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles (24 page)

I rolled over the back of the couch and
quietly walked to the bathroom. I locked the door in case he woke
up while I was gone. I didn’t want him barging in on me.

When I got out of the bathroom Mr. White was
making some coffee.

“
So you’re awake finally,” I
said.

“
Yep. I needed that,” he had his coffee
cup where the pot belonged and the machine was happily filling it
for him.

I went to the cupboard and got myself a cup.
I sat at the table waiting for his to get full so I could do what
he was doing.

“
What do you want to do today?” I
asked.

“
I thought we could go to the shore and
practice hand-to-hand maneuvers,” he replied. “My style is a bit
different than Mr. Black’s and I think you could benefit from
it.”

“
Okay,” I said, but I wasn’t really all
that okay with the idea. I would have to get close to him and then
I would think about things that I shouldn’t, especially with my dad
being in trouble. I knew today was going to be a day of guilt for
me. I just won’t let him get to me, I told myself. Besides, I’m not
drunk this time; maybe he won’t get the best of me so quickly like
he did in the parking lot of the Skylight.

We sat across the table from each other. The
satellite phone was sitting beside Mr. White and that’s where my
eyes strayed. I just couldn’t get rid of the feeling there had to
be something I could do. I had been racking my brain but I hadn’t
come up with a solution.

“
How did my dad know that the target
was going to be on his yacht in that particular place and time?” I
asked.

“
I’m sure he had an informant of
sorts,” Mr. White said.

“
But who? Maybe they could help,” I
said with hope.

“
I don’t know who. Admiral Stanton is
the only one who knows that. It’s possible that they could help
but…” he left it hanging.

“
Well, are you trying to find out who
this person is?” I asked.

“
We have no way of finding out,” he
replied getting a bit irritated.

“
Did you have someone go through my
dad’s files at home and his computer?” I asked.

“
Yes and there was nothing there. We
are doing everything to find him Alex,” he said.

Alex? He had never called me anything other
than Ms. Stanton or Ms. Grey.

“
Well, Malone,” I threw it back at him.
“I bet he has it listed somewhere. He’s meticulous with that kind
of thing. It might not be listed as ‘The Lion informant’.” I was
getting irritated myself.

“
Fine. Have it your way. I’ll call
Black and have him double check,” he said after a short stare down.
I liked getting my way.

He picked up the phone and punched in some
numbers. After a bit of a wait he started talking to someone. The
conversation lasted a few seconds. Then he turned to me and said,
“Mr. Black is on his way to your parent’s house right now. He’ll
call us back when he gets there.”

Finally, I was doing something to help my
father. I just hoped it wasn’t a waste of time. Mr. White must have
thought it was a good enough idea to actually have Mr. Black go
check it out. I was pretty pleased with myself.

We both sat at the table and waited for the
call back. The wait was only about half an hour but seemed like a
lifetime.

Mr. White answered the phone and told Mr.
Black to look through all the filing cabinets for something that
seemed to be linked to The Lion in any way. Mr. White was quiet for
a second then looked to me and said,

“
Gabriella’s with him. He’s just
telling her what to look for.” Then he looked back down at the
table and said into the phone, “Okay, now I need you to get back
onto the computer and start looking there.” He paused. “That’s
fine, here you go,” and he handed the phone to me. “Hello?” I
said.

“
Ms. Grey.” it was Mr. Black. “How are
things up there?” he asked.

“
Nerve racking, but fine. Have you
gotten anywhere yet?” I questioned him.

“
Not really. The guy your mom shot
doesn’t speak English. Mr. Red is fluent in several different
languages and until today we were trying to have him translate by
phone. But he got into town a few hours ago. It’s hard to
intimidate a person over the phone so I think we should make
progress with him now,” he explained. “I’m going to look through
the files. I’m going to let Gabriella get on the computer. She has
more experience with them than I do. Just a sec.” He must have
handed the phone to Gabriella because next thing I knew she was on
the line.

“
Ms. Grey?” I heard her ask.

“
Yes,” I said.

“
What am I looking for?” she
asked.

“
I need you to get into my dad’s
personal files. They are password protected so I’ll walk you
through it,” I said.

“
Okay,” she replied. “Ready whenever
you are.”

I told her to turn on the computer. Then I
gave her my dad’s password to open up the main screen. She had no
problem with that. I had her bring up the files on the screen and
had her read them to me. There had been a few I made her open and
they turned out to be nothing. Then she found one labeled
‘Friends’. I had her click on it. The computer asked for a
password. I told her to use my dad’s password for starting the main
computer. It was denied. If only I could have been the one there, I
might be able to get into it. I could usually figure out my dad’s
passwords but this one I had no idea about. It helped me when I was
sitting in his chair, thinking about what I would put down if I
were him. I closed my eyes and tried to put myself in his place. I
rubbed my eyes with my free hand and told myself to think.

Soon Gabriella said, “Ms. Grey?”

“
I’m still here,” I replied. “Just give
me a second.” I needed to work on my concentration skills. Her
voice brought me right back to the real world and I lost my train
of thought.

“
What other kinds of work does my dad
have you do?” I asked Mr. White.

“
All kinds of things,” he said. “He’s
had us go overseas to retrieve people and parcels. We’ve been a
delivery service, we’ve even taken high profile people off his
list,” he said.

This caught me off guard. They killed people
for my dad? Is that what he meant by taking them off the list? I
came back to my senses and said, “What kinds of things does he have
you do that could use the help of informers?” I asked, trying to
stay on track in my mind. “Specific jobs.”

“
Let me see…” He paused and then began
to tell me about separate jobs that my dad could have used some
outside help. None of the descriptions were helpful though and he
didn’t know for sure where my dad got his information for most of
them.

“
Okay, Gabriella? Are you still there?”
I asked.

“
Yep,” she said.

“
Okay. Let me see. That file is labeled
‘Friends’.” I thought on it some more. “What’s another name for
friend?” I said out loud. “Try acquaintance for the
password.”

“
Okay.” I heard her typing. “Not
it.”

“
Try ‘advisor’.” But that didn’t work
either. We went through several different words and then Gabriella
said, “Uh-oh. I think the computer just crashed.”

“
What?” I said. “What
happened?”

“
It just shut itself off and now I
can’t get it to come back on,” she said.

I tried to figure out what was going on
through the phone. I gave her several different things to try
including totally unplugging the computer from the wall and letting
it sit for a couple of minutes. She had even made sure the
electricity in the house was still on. Nothing helped. The computer
had shut down. I gave the phone back to Mr. White who spoke with
Mr. Black for a few moments. While he was still talking to him I
was in the background saying I thought we should go back and maybe
I could do something with the computer.

He disconnected and said, “I’ve arranged for
Mr. Brown to come get us. He should be here sometime this
evening.”

“
Finally,” I said. I began to pace
again and kept it up until Mr. White said, “That’s it. We’re going
to go get rid of some of your energy.”

We walked to the lake where Mr. White
proceeded to teach me a few new moves. They were similar to ones I
already knew but he had different little tricks to add. His
movements were more fluid than of any other person I had sparred
with. It was like it was second nature to him to fight.

Before too long Mr. White told me, “Show me
what you’ve got.”

We circled each other a few times and I made
my move. He counteracted me and had me on the ground. He stayed on
top of me while he explained what I did wrong and how he knew I was
going to do what I did.

“
Let’s go,” he said as he finally got
off me. Sitting over the top of me with his face close to mine, his
breath hot on my neck had disoriented me. I think he knew it too.
It took me a second or two to finally shake the feeling enough to
get up off the ground.

“
Get your mind on what you are doing,
Ms. Grey,” he said and lunged for me. I went low to the ground and
was barely able to get out of the way.

“
Good. Keep it up,” he said while we
began to circle each other again.

This went on for a while, then I heard the
chopper in the distance. Mr. White looked to the sky and I went for
him. I had him down on the ground in no time. I had him pinned with
a move Mr. Black had shown me and he couldn’t get away.

“
What are you doing? The chopper’s
coming,” he said, flustered.

“
What was it you said to me at the
Skylight? Oh, yes. I’m just taking advantage of a situation,” I
said in a calm cool voice as close to his neck as I could get
without being obvious. I could tell I had completely caught him off
guard. The closeness of me affected him the same way it had
affected me every time he had gotten me down.

“
Let me up,” he said. “We have to get
out of the way so they can land.”

I got off him and he was up off the ground in
a flash. I was in defense mode and jumped away from him
instinctively. He grinned that devious grin of his and I couldn’t
help but smile myself. Then thoughts of my dad flowed over the
excitement of the moment.

“
Let’s get back to the cabin and get
things ready to close up,” he said as he began to walk in that
direction.

It didn’t take us long to get things put away
and ourselves packed. I wondered if I should leave my deer skin
hanging out back and Mr. White said we should bring it home with
us. He’d have it dropped off at the taxidermist so I could keep it.
I wasn’t all that sure I wanted to keep it, but hey, maybe I could
sell it someday, or show it to my grandkids.

As I was bringing in the deerskin, Mr. Brown
walked up. He had landed the chopper and came to see if we needed
any help closing up the cabin. I told him I thought we were pretty
much ready. Then he commented on my buck.

“
Nice buck. Mr. Black told me you had
bagged yourself a big one.” His infectious smile had returned to
its normal position on his face.

“
Thanks,” I said. I still wasn’t sure
about him. He had a way of saying the wrong things. I waited for it
to come but it didn’t.

When we got inside he grabbed one of the two
packs waiting to be carted off and headed back to the chopper. Mr.
White grabbed the other and told me I needed to carry the deer.

We were in the air and headed home within a
matter of minutes. The trip seemed to take longer than it had
before but I knew it was because I was in a hurry to get there.
After we reached the office we went straight to my parent’s
house.

I walked into Mr. Black and Gabriella looking
through paperwork of my father’s.

“
Did you find anything?” Mr. White
asked as he came through the office door.

“
Nothing,” Mr. Black
answered.

I went straight to the computer and tried to
get it to work. It wasn’t off, the screen was just blank. I tried
to shut it off and it wouldn’t shut off so I unplugged it again.
This shut it off. I plugged it back in but the start up screen
didn’t appear. I tried several basic commands but they wouldn’t
work either. Nothing was working. Then I got an idea.

I walked to my house and Mr. White was right
on my heels. I got inside and went straight to my computer. I
turned it on and tried to access my dad’s computer from mine. I got
it up. I started a simple search of the hard drive and found the
file labeled ‘Friends’. I hoped this was the correct file or I had
just wasted a lot of everyone’s time. I was just about to try to
open the file when Mr. Black walked in.

“
The computer screen came back on over
there,” he said.

“
Good,” I replied as I got up out of my
chair. It was best to try it from the master computer. We all went
back to my dad’s office and I sat back down at the computer. I
started putting in passwords that we had already tried. I had Mr.
White writing them down as I tried them and had him cross them off
one by one. I got to the last one we put in before the computer
crashed and didn’t use it. I tried another because I wanted to see
if it had been the word that had shut off the screen or the number
of try’s we had done.