Part Four
or: Myla is worried
Missed Part Three? Read it here!
“Where are you?” a familiar voice asked as soon as Myla picked up the phone.
“Where am I? Uh… where I’m supposed to be. Where are you?” she responded, trying to hide her sudden panic. Reina stopped walking to peer at her partner.
The caller sighed. “Agent Myla Runeri. Where. Are. You?”
Myla didn’t answer, choosing to mouth ‘It’s the boss’ to Reina instead.
“And I suppose you won’t answer why you left the police station, either? Or what you’re doing talking to mentally unstable suspects?”
A long pause ensued, during which Myla studied a poster on the wall. ‘Recognize the signs of a stroke. BE FAST. B: Balance Issues. E: Eyesight Changes. F: Face Drooping. A—’
“As usual. Come into the Washington Office. Now. There should be a bus at the hospital at 2100 hours. I expect you to be in my office before 2200.”
“Yes, sir,” Myla muttered, before realizing that he’d already hung up.
“That didn’t sound good,” Reina noticed as they walked down the hall.
“It wasn’t. We’re taking a bus to the office.” Myla didn’t bother elaborating, and for once Reina stayed quiet. Halfway down to the entrance, the girls realized that it was a minute before nine, and started running to catch the bus. They got there a minute late. Not that it mattered, as the bus was six minutes late.
Myla and Reina paid the fare and sat down in the back. It was surprisingly empty, for a DC Metrobus. Then again, it was a cold Tuesday night.
Reina insisted on sitting closer to the aisle, so she could observe all the people who came and went, which suited Myla just fine. Instead of people watching, she stared out the window and tried not to think about the conversation with her boss. The current case was a perfect distraction from the phone call that could only mean trouble. If only there was anything they actually knew about the case.
At the very least, Myla knew that the Detective was on the wrong track. Sure, he’d been right in some things. POTUS had asked Myla and Reina to wait in the lobby while he had a meeting in the conference room. And it would have been stupid for them to listen to him. After all, protecting the President was their job! That’s why they hadn’t waited in the lobby. Instead, the agents had followed discreetly, and waited outside the door during the President’s meeting.
The weird part was that they hadn’t heard anything unusual. A few voices that spoke too quietly to be heard, a chair or two moving around, and… that’s all. Nothing had been out of the ordinary until the crash and scream.
Even now, Myla’s pulse quickened as she remembered what happened. Reina had called out “Mr. President!” as both agents tried the door. There was no answer, and the door was locked. This was strange, Myla now realized. The hotel was old enough to use metal keys, but she hadn’t heard one locking the door earlier.
Both agents had run to the front lobby, where someone was already on the phone with the police. Reina stayed there, asking the people for the key to the conference room while trying to keep the situation under control. In the meantime, Myla had run outside, scouring the windows and surrounding area for any sign of the President or what had happened. Then she called her boss.
Now Myla sighed. Seeing her breath fog up the bus window, she drew a simple map of the conference room on it, trying to figure out how the kidnapper had escaped. Kidnapper? Myla thought back to the explanation Detective Williams gave. If POTUS had really been kidnapped, what was that pool of blood they’d found? Was the President of the United States dead? And if so, was it her and Reina’s fault?
Myla squeezed her eyes shut. This line of thought wasn’t helping her worry. She wished she was back in her car—My Car! Myla opened her eyes to glare up at the bus roof. Even the author couldn’t get the name right.
The agent had always found that she could think better in My Car. Sharing ideas aloud, even without another person to talk to, often helped her think. She could hardly talk like that here. It just wasn’t the same, and she’d appear mentally unstable herself.
Of course, the best thing would be to talk to another person. Not Reina. Myla loved Reina, both as her coworker, friend, and cousin, but sometimes she was a bit much. Besides, what she really wanted was an outside perspective: thoughts from someone who didn’t know the case or share the burden of failing such an important job. What Myla really wanted was to talk to her brother.
Fortunately for Myla and her repeatedly crashing trains of thought, the bus finally arrived at the stop closest to the Secret Service field office in Washington, DC.