Teacher and the Thief

Chapter 20

 Peter was wracking through the kitchen, and I was in the living room, searching through drawers, flipping over couch cushions, and looking under furniture for anything. Around where the television was, I did find pictures on the shelves I never thought existed. There were younger kids, and  recognized one as my Mom right away, and one of the others was probably Trisha. They were pictures of her and her siblings. She has these pictures… family has to mean something to her, right?

"Find anything, Belle?" Peter asked, and I stepped back from the pictures, getting back on track.

"No, not yet. You?" I asked, and he shook his head. "What about you, Jane?"

"No, she actually seems pretty normal. Boring." She groaned, "But what if nothing is here? We'll be trespassing without a reason."

"Well then, we leave empty-handed. Hopefully no security footage can be seen, because the only camera was at the front, right?"

"That's what the blueprints say." Milo jumped into the conversation, "But still looked out for battery-operated ones. They'd be disguised."

"I hate those ones." Jane and I stated in unison.

"But before we leave, we have to search everywhere first." Peter veered the conversation back on the mission, stepping out of the kitchen, looking into another room. "This has to be her bedroom. Something has to be good in here."

I headed to the next room, turning it, but it was locked. "This one's locked. I'll figure it out." I replied, bending down, pulling out a new bobby pin to play with. When the door clicked, I whipped the flashlight around a couple times to get a glimpse of the room. "This is the study, I'll check in here."

I entered the room, leaving the door slightly ajar as I scanned the room more closely. I examined the desk, finding notebooks that were flipped to specific pages, but mostly written in Russian. I opened and closed drawers simultaneously, trying to find anything that may prove who she's working for. All I found was more papers that I couldn't read.

"Damn it, Trisha, what are you hiding?" I breathed, whipping around, seeing a black bed sheet covering a flat board. I hurried over and ripped it off, and stepped back to see the thing as a whole. "Oh my God…" I breathed, cupping a hand over my mouth. On the board was pictures of a lot of different people, notes, and blueprints of both my house and the agency building. Some of it was in Russian, but some was in English. But the pictures opened my eyes like nothing else. There were pictures of me, my family, some singles of my father, but I slowly crept towards the one that scared me the most. She had one of Jack and I, holding hands, smiling widely.

"Anyone find anything?" I heard Alex's voice in my ear, followed by the negative answers from my team members. But I said nothing.

She had so many pictures just hanging on the board. I found more of Jack, some by himself, with our team, and some with me. I also found some of my Dad, and one had a big red sharpie circle around his face. And then the others… were of Adam, alone, some including me, and some with his son.

"No…" I pulled his picture from the board, thinking of where he was when this picture was taken. It had to be at Fullerton, or his apartment. There were no other options.

She was watching everyone that I was connected to.

"Guys!" I shrieked loudly, keeping my light on the whole board. "Guys, come here, please!"

Peter and Jane were in the study in about five seconds, and I was about to start talking, but then Alex joined. "What? What is it?"

"Look." I whimpered, and they all shone their lights on the board. "She's been following us."