Playing Jacks

vi. Life's Dangerous. Let's Ban it. Part 2

“He’ll be back,” Jeremy promises in a dark voice, his eyes moving to the road, as if he would see him rumble onto the scene at that very moment.

Nodding, Sophie turns back to her apartment.  She’ll work- or pretend to work- and keep her vigil.  Just as she reaches the gate, however, her phone rings.  The screen announces Thomas’ name and Sophie’s chest twists with guilt. 

“Hi, Thomas,” she greets, faking cheer.

“Hello, Elia,” his soft baritone croons through the phone, just as if he were one of the jazz singers that flavor the air everywhere he goes. “Tell me you’re caught up in work.  Tell me you’re so screamingly busy that you can’t spare a minute to speak with me.”

Sophie leans against the gate, perplexed. “Well, okay . . . but I’m not.”

Thomas groans, sounding defeated. “I want blow this place and find you- take you to the gardens for a long walk and a picnic . . . but I’ve got this boss . . .”

Sophie laughs, the light sound tickling her chest into a lighter mood.  

“It’d be a hell of a lot easier to resist the temptation if you’d tell me you were swamped, too.”

“Nope,” Sophie admits with a smile.

Thomas curses. “You’re cruel.”  When Sophie doesn’t answer with anything more than her laughter, he demands something more. “Tell me where you are.  Right now.  Tell me and I’ll imagine myself right there, beside you.”

Sophie looks around the side yard of the Mancuso home and, playing Thomas’ game, describes exactly where she is.

“Go out with me tonight,” Thomas demands.

But Jeremy stands at the edge of the driveway, his hands jammed into his pockets, staring down the street as if Jacks would materialize at any moment.  Sophie’s heart wretches uncomfortably.  Thomas is a nice guy- truly sweet and doting and so considerate.  He’s exactly the sort of man she should want and yet . . .

“I’ll take your silence as a no,” Thomas interjects into her thoughts.

“Not tonight, please,” Sophie pleads. “Just . . . not tonight.”

The FBI office is a paradox of the bored and the busy.  Amidst the bustle of people with places to go and those that line the wall in a kind of limbo, Agent Callan sits at his desk and writes an update on his investigation.

“The victim, 47-yr-old Maria Mancuso’s activities immediately prior to the incident indicated that she may have been aware of her danger.  She opened a bank account in and purchased plane tickets to Argentina.  She was murdered on the day she was due to leave the country, her bags packed in the truck of the abandoned car found in the airport parking lot.  Security tapes confirm that the victim was abducted in the airport parking lot.  The assailant was of medium build with no visibly distinguishing features to characterize said assailant as either male or female.”

The woman that sits at the edge of the room pops her gum again, prompting Callan to lift his eyes from his work- only just briefly.  With focused self-discipline he returns to the report.

“Coroner’s report states that the victim was shot twice through the head at the location where the body was discovered but there was a secondary site that is currently under investigation- an apartment in the name of Elia Sophie Amando Mancuso that was unoccupied at the time of the murder.  Blood was found on the living room floor and sprayed on the walls; a trail that led from said living room to the hallway and the parking garage, to a parking spot leased to same, E. Sophie Amando Mancuso.  The blood on the walls and in the garage has been typed as Maria Mancuso’s blood, but the majority of the blood in the carpet was discovered to be pig’s blood.  Witnesses reported seeing Marie Mancuso at the secondary site.  Approximate time places her in the apartment building between the hours of 2 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. but there is no witness or evidence of  E. Sophie A. Mancuso.  Witnesses at Jekyll Island report that E. Sophie Amando Mercano was at the beach-side condo of a friend at the time of the murder.