She parked outside a shady-looking building on a bad side of the town.
“Are you sure this is the place?”
“That’s what his pin location says, and honestly, he usually lives in areas like these. Something about “easy to run and hide when needed” according to him.”
It took them about ten minutes to find the right building and the apartment. “There you are! Where have you been girl!?” A tall, lanky guy with dark hair, mostly covering his face, opened the door.
“Drake!! I swear I am going to kill you.”
“Whoa! What did I do?” He stepped aside to let Sanjay and Nicole inside. The place was dark, as Sanjay had expected, and there were plenty of neon lights. In the middle of the room stood a large table with multiple screens and devices. A smaller table beside it was loaded with food, mostly leftovers, half-eaten sandwiches, takeaway containers, candy, and chips.
“I gave you an assignment and you never got back to me!”
“What?! Noooooo! That can’t be right. I did send you something. Didn’t, I? Yeah! I think I did.”
“No, you didn’t, and your phone was out of service for who knows how many days…”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to… umm… keep a low profile…” Drake muttered, offering Sanjay a bag of half empty chips.
“No. Thank you. Umm… Nicole,” Sanjay said, “We should probably get started with what we came here for.”
“Right!” Diaz turned to Drake, “I am not done with you yet. But this is important.” She took out the USB and handed it to Drake. “We need the information from this device. It is encrypted.”
“Ah! Easy.” He went toward his desk and plugged the USB in. “Just give me a few seconds. Also… I know I got back to you with that assignment aaaaannnnddd I never got paid for it.”
“Drake! I swear I will…” Diaz took a deep breath. “Just get this done.”
“It’s done.”
“WHAT?!” both Diaz and Sanjay jumped up.
“Yeah. I am looking at all the files right now. Do you want me to cop… Ohhkaay then…!” Diaz and Sanjay had crowded around him and were staring at the screen.
“Are these bank statements?”
“Yeah… financial records… I think phone records too…”
Drake excused himself and let them both go through the files.
“There is a number that I have seen multiple times… look… there…”
“What are these financial records for… I think these are records of various companies…”
“Shit! This looks like a map…”
“Seems like some kind of message… a drop off maybe… a meeting spot?”
“We should get all of these printed out…”
“SHIT!!”
Sanjay and Diaz both jumped and turned around to see Drake holding a large envelope in his hand, looking guilty. “What the hell Drake. You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“Ummm…” stammered Drake, his eyes wide.
Sanjay took a step forward, “What? What is it?”
“Nicole! I am sorry. Crap! I was so sure I sent this to you. I was going through my stuff to find the receipt of the parcel that I sent to you to, you know… prove that I was right. Umm… but it turns out I never did. Shit man! I am really sorry.”
Diaz rolled her eyes, “That’s okay. I think we found something better here,” Diaz and Sanjay both turned their attention toward the screen, “Oh! But what were you sending me?” she asked.
“You asked me to find the guy in the hoodie…. Well… I found him!”
Sanjay and Diaz both looked at one another and turned to Drake, eyeing the envelope. Diaz practically raced toward him and grabbed the envelope. She looked at Sanjay, who came next to her and nodded. She opened the envelope and took out the papers inside. There was a black and white photo of a man. He was wearing the hood over his head, but the camera had caught his side profile. Their jaw dropped when they looked closely and realized the man strongly resembled someone they knew.
“Wayne!” whispered Diaz. “It was him! He was trying to help Aria.”
“What the….” whispered Sanjay.
“Why… why didn’t he just tell us?”
“He was probably being threatened, or maybe he realized who he was dealing with and didn’t know who to trust.”
“I just wish… he … ugghh!!” Diaz let out a frustrated sigh. “I can’t believe this! These people are taking innocent people’s lives. He was… he was only trying to help us.”
Drake looked uncomfortably at them both, and stammered, “Is… is the guy… uumm… dead … because of me?”
“What?! No!” Sanjay replied immediately.
“If I hadn’t messed it up… you guys could have saved him, right?”
Sanjay shook his head, “It isn’t that simple. Please, don’t think this is your fault.”
“Hey!” Diaz said softly, patting Drake’s shoulder, “Don’t be hard on yourself, okay? You didn’t do anything.”
Drake nodded, “Can I do something to help?”
“Do you have a printer? We want everything on this USB printed out.”
“On it!”
After an hour, Diaz and Sanjay were both in Sanjay’s apartment, sitting on the floor in his living room with all the printed papers spread on the carpet. There was too much to go through and they had to connect everything together. “Where do you think Wayne got all of this from?”
“He probably found them by accident and realized what they were. I am guessing he was already aware that something fishy was happening at his company, especially after what happened with Aria.”
“These coordinates… do you think we should check this place out. It might help us make sense of all of this. I know we have everything here. We just must connect the dots. We can
