BAITED BREATH

BAITED BREATH Part 2

CONTENT WARNING: Most chapters have references to death.

"Let's look at Tom's file again, Dad. Maybe we missed something."

John went to his home office and retrieved the flash drive his son had mailed him a few weeks before. It arrived in a cryptic letter saying to use it if anything happened to him. Because of their family's nature, Tom had not listed next-of-kin on any personnel forms when he enrolled in the police academy or later when he entered the Chicago police force. If his landlord hadn't reached out to them to clean out his apartment, his family would have continued to assume he was doing his own thing or working undercover. They had been so proud when he'd been promoted to detective.

John brought his laptop to the kitchen table and inserted the miniature storage device into the USB port. Ann jumped as Tom's voice came to life through the computer speakers.

"We didn't even get to go to the funeral. They should have given us a flag." She blotted tears with the mangled towel.

The muscles in John's jaw worked as he patted her hand. "Perhaps it would be better if you didn't watch this, dear."

Ann grasped his fingers and said she'd stay. The three squeezed their chairs onto one side of the table. For the next two hours they sifted through surveillance images, taken in various places around the state, of the man identified as Jerusalem Brown. As a police detective assigned to an organized crime task force, Tom's objective had been to catch Brown engaging in incriminating activities. In many, he had managed to include clues to the location. Bree, in deep disguise, had scoped out most of them in the last two days. At Ann's insistence, John zoomed in on Brown's face.

"That's a wig," Ann said. "That jacket has built-in padding in the arms and shoulders." It wasn't the first time she had observed those details.

Tom had also noticed them and commented on the wig and padding in his thorough notes. Bree refilled her coffee cup and reread them, beginning with the night Tom had met real estate mogul Jerry Bronwell at a fund-raising soiree for police widows and orphans. No one needed to tell Detective Ballard that a shooting occurred every thirty minutes or so in the greater Chicago metro area. Bronwell had listed point after point regarding law enforcement's perils in his impassioned speech to wealthy donors.

Ann Ballard, skilled at creating disguises and costumes, always cautioned that each person had a "tell" of which they weren't aware. She coached actors and gamblers, public speakers, and politicians to rid themselves of their mannerisms. But, despite her expertise in pointing out others' foibles, she had her own nervous habit she couldn't break.

According to Tom's notes, he had been reasonably sure as soon as he met Bronwell that he was also the criminal Jerusalem Brown. Both had a habit of rubbing their bottom lip with their left forefinger. So when he learned Bronwell's middle name, Salem, he was positive. But, the most compelling evidence was that the two shared the same hideous stench, detectable only to people with an extraordinary gift such as the one Bree and Tom had inherited from their father, John.

Tom used his remarkable sense of smell as a tool. Bree had demonstrated a second unusual ability as a small child, but so dramatically that it frightened her parents. Now at the age of twenty-four, she was experiencing freedom for the first time.

Bree scrolled through the pages of notes, more like speculation, of how Tom would convince his superiors that Jerusalem Brown was the alter ego of Jerry Salem Bronwell, the most influential real estate developer on Chicago's north side. Bronwell had recently built a diversity center offering art, music, entertainment, and study opportunities to the city's hodgepodge of ethnicities. Bree clicked on the search engine icon and googled the complex, North Side Cultural Center.

"Hey, there's a grand opening at that facility Bronwell built. I should go. Try to get a good look at the guy."

"When is it, Bree?"

"Just a second, Mom." Bree clicked a link and accessed the information. "It's not until a week from Saturday, but I won't be attending. It's by invitation only. He's using some kind of extreme inclusiveness ploy and only allowing minorities, gays, and the disabled. I wonder how he pared the list down out of the million non-straight, non-white people in this area?"

"John, why can't Bree go as a deaf sign-speaking person? She's had years of practice. It's the perfect costume," Ann said.

"That would work," John rinsed his cup and set it upside down on a towel. "I'll make the invitation happen tomorrow."

Ann accompanied Bree downstairs to her apartment while John resumed studying Tom's file on Jerusalem Brown.

Ann hugged her. "I'm so glad you're back and safe, Bree."

"You shouldn't have worried, Mom. I haven't been seen in public without a disguise for most of my life. Nothing happened."

Bree helped her mother pull crates out of storage beneath the basement stairs.

"Honey, you just don't understand how afraid we are for you. The last twenty-two years would have been for nothing if something had happened."

Bree understood their hesitance while at the same time reveling in her recent adventure. From the time she was a toddler, they had gone to great lengths to ensure no one discovered the existence of their only daughter, supposedly deceased from a tragic mishap with the family pet. Currently, if anyone did see her enter or leave the house, they said she was a student renting a couple of rooms.

     Bree often told her parents a college girl would be comfortable in this room with the wall of floor-to-ceiling shelves. A constellation of glow-in-the-dark stars, a souvenir from a trip to the planetarium, adorned the low ceiling. Her desk and computer were jammed into a space next to the bathroom door. A perfectly acceptable place to spend your time.

They dumped the boxes in the middle of her twin murphy bed and began picking through costumes the university's drama department had given away. "Now, Bree, I think you'd better start practicing today to be deaf. By next week, it'll be second nature again."

Bree signed her acquiescence. "Mom," she spoke in her voice, "if I can get close to Bronwell, I need to have a good reason other than thanking him for the invitation. I can't be seen or recorded on video speaking to him. You know why."

Ann frowned. Although the three had discussed continuing Tom's investigation, she resisted every suggested tactic.

"Naturally. Well, first, let's think about making you look different. It's all about illusion. Today, you appeared tall and slim."

They sorted through the props, discussing and discarding various scenarios.

"Mom. Look at this. I've never appeared in this outfit."

"A harem girl. Yes, we'll make you look short, dark, and curvy."

Bree laid the costume aside on her glider and pulled the adjustable reading light closer to the chair. "Does it need any repair? There are a lot of coins sewed to this thing." She shook the brassiere part of the costume. The metal coins made a tinkling rattle.

"I'll take care of it. Find a YouTube and start perfecting your dance moves while I work on these clothes."

** Hi readers. Are you wondering how Bree will pull off a harem girl act and also pretend to be deaf?

How's she going to score an invite to such a prestigious event at this late date?

Tune in next Friday to find out...

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Watch for even numbered installments every Tuesday and odd chapters on Friday.