Sylvie

Initially taking three different trolleys, so she could double back and see if she was being followed, Ellie felt confident that she’d shaken anyone that might have been following her from the office.  Happy that the city had extended the use of the open air street cars, Ellie was able to see who left and boarded the little train as she made her way to the location in the letter.

-There are two possibilities. One is the complex that was damaged in Hurricane Hazel a few years ago, the other is from Royal-Heaven Mall abandoned when the internet made most of the stores obsolete.-

Noting that the train was closing in on her first possible location, Ellie quickly retrieved her phone and tapped the screen to learn the differences between the two places. “Gotcha.  Royal-Heaven here I come.”  Ellie bounced lightly in her seat and waved when the lady beside her stared at her oddly. “Just excited, ma’am.”  When the woman smiled and nodded, Ellie settled back down and waited for her stop.

Jumping off the car while it was still coming to a stop, Ellie had to stop herself from running a few times as she approached the deserted mall.  Aware that the area was mostly devoid of people, Ellie crossed through a construction fence and headed directly for the old movie theater.  Thinking to check her pocket once more, she found the ripped note in her pocket and cursed herself for a few seconds before burning it and watching the ashes float away into the air.   Content that she’d done as asked, Ellie walked up the four flights of stone stairs and looked around.  

Right in front of her was the wide expanse of glass and doors that made the huge movie building such a draw.  Once used billboards that had all manner of paper that advertised sales or rentals now had the remains of tack pins rusting in the corkboard.  White walls that once ushered people towards the ticket box and the ornate glass doors, now were covered in soot and debris from the construction crew diligently working to free up the land that the mall once used.  Plastic displays that once held movie posters and flashed with different lights, were nothing more than empty shells that now had various spray paint splattered on them with various illegible words and symbols that Ellie knew to be local gang emblems. 

Turning over her wrist to look at the time, Ellie noted that it was already half past noon, and didn’t see anyone other than the few people running cranes in the distance.  Taking a chance, Ellie walked to the windows and peered inside to see nothing but overturned benches and torn carpet. “Damn.”  She huffed and walked to the rear of the building, pushing and pulling on the exit doors the best she could.  She pulled her phone free again and looked at the two locations once more. “This has got to be it, damnit.” Ellie cursed and jumped when the door behind her opened.

“It is, get in here.”  Sarah’s voice whispered from the darkness.  Quickly closing the door after Ellie entered Sarah smiled. “I had to be sure that you weren’t followed.”  She shrugged, “It would appear that no one is interested in us.”  Pulling a small device from her pocket, Sarah pressed the button and waited.  Within a few seconds a band of yellow lights pulsed softly for roughly a minute before the yellow lights stopped spinning and went solid neon green. “Okay, safe.  Supposedly we can’t be tracked.”

“That’s a relief.” Ellie sarcastically spoke, “What’s with the cloak and dagger, boss?”

Laughing, Sarah led the two of them to the front and into the wrecked lobby. “That’s the second time a movie has been used today.”  She looked at Ellie, “Cloak and Dagger?  Old movie from the 80s?” Sarah picked up one of the half broken benches, “Help me with this so we have a place to sit and discuss things in private.”

Assisting her boss with the few pieces of furniture, Ellie sat down across from her boss and handed her the folder. “You asked me to bring this.” She pulled off her satchel and sat it beside her. “I still don’t know what this is all about.”

“First, I needed someplace outside the building that wasn’t being monitored.”  Sarah pointed her finger up and whirled it. “I highly doubt that anyone else would think to use a broken down movie theater for a meeting between colleagues.”  Sarah waited until Ellie nodded.  “Second, simply put, I believe you.”  Deputy Director Powell opened the dossier and pointed to the images. “I think what’s in this folder can assist you with the situation we both want to know more about.”   She pointed to a grainy satellite photo. “See that?”

Ellie peered at the horrible picture. “Yeah, but all I see are half images of white and green.”

“That was all I could get before the more detailed images were somehow removed.”  She tapped the picture. “That was real time.”  She pointed at the barely perceivable outlines. “There, that is the farm, the ground that is whited-out and what looks to be green lightning.” Sarah paused and tied her red hair into a tight bun, “This wasn’t a digital camera, or it would have been perfect.  I suspect the better images are no longer in existence..”  She tapped the image. “Something went on down there that night.”  She slid the picture to Ellie. “Can you fill in the blanks? Let me hear from you what your girlfriend had to do with all of it?  I mean it had to be pretty bad for you to put everything on the line.”

Nodding slowly, Agent Miller took a deep breath and looked at the distorted image of the farmhouse. “Angelie Kino and I were set to get married, oddly enough, back in September.  She used to love everything to do with harvest time at the end of Summer.”  Ellie let out a nervous laugh, “She would have loved this year, the summer lasting longer than it has in years.”  

“I am sorry she’s gone, Agent Miller.”  Sarah softened her tone, “If it is too hard, I will understand.  I can go on with my idea without the information, but it will help me put the pieces together if you continue.”

Clearing away a few tears that had streaked down her cheeks, Ellie shook her head. “No, it’s alright.  It is just hard to think about.”  She sniffled then reached into her bag and pulled out a handkerchief, politely clearing her nose. “It was a cascade of events that I couldn’t grapple with.  I was up to my neck in work thanks to all the gang violence in Richmond and the locals asked for FBI assistance.”

“I remember that.”  Sarah paused, “Not much changed there, Richmond is still a shithole.”

Thankful for the tension breaker, Ellie briefly smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t do a good job there either.  I think it was mostly because of what Angelie was going through at the time.”  Ellie paused and leafed through the other documents, not paying attention to the pages. “She’d just left the Army.”  Ellie looked up at her boss. “She’d been in for ten years, and didn’t want to get another deployment to the Middle East.”

“I can understand that.”  Sarah patted her Agent on the hand lightly. 

Leaning back and dropping her hands to her lap, Ellie exhaled like she’d been defeated. “I agreed with her.  My own selfish whim for her to stay here with me, she gave up a career where she only had to wait out another ten years for a pension.”  Relieved when Sarah leaned in to pay better attention to the little story, Ellie took a breath and kept going. “At first it was alright, she had plenty of savings and still about three months of leave that she used as her separation package.”  She held up three fingers. “It was after those initial months that stress replaced affection.”

“Unable to find a job?”  Sarah inquired and slowly moved the first image to the bottom of the pile.

Ellie shook her head and squinted her eyes, “That was part of it, sure.”  Ellie reached into her bag and pulled out a cloth with a couple metal bars on it, “She was a captain.  She was used to a company and command.”  She waved her hand and rubbed the metal rank in her fingers. “Nothing around here could give her a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging.”  Ellie looked down at the emblem again, “I wasn’t enough.”