I wondered what Sully's motive was in telling me that her mother was a Marine, and I wondered what they had hoped to find. I also thought about her mention of my previous brush with the legal system, which reminded me of the upcoming group therapy I had to attend. Forty hours, court-ordered. I was almost there, just six hours away from finishing up. Six very long hours. But I'm a Marine. We eat torture for breakfast. This morning, however, I added some scrambled eggs and a second cup of coffee.
Sully had done me the solid of kicking the paper inside when she arrived to serve the search warrant. I spread the pages across the table and ate my breakfast, holding the plate in one hand and managing the fork and pages with the other.
I finished my small-ish breakfast, washed the dishes, and put a few more peanuts out for Rocky. And then my phone rang. It was Alex Kingsley.
"That was quick," I said.
"I thought you might want to know this sooner rather than later," she said, her voice low. Almost comically conspiratorial. "But I can't tell you now. We have to meet."
I would have laughed and said, "Sure. Under a bridge or in a parking garage at midnight?" But her not-at-all-comical tone was chilling.
"Okay. When? Where?"
"As soon as you can. How about Hyattsville? I'm wearing a distinctive orange-and-blue top."
This was an unexpected turn of events. Alex and I had never actually met, always dealing with each other by email, text, or phone. She agreed to meet me in an hour at Busboys and Poets, a local bookstore and cafe. I took my time getting there and still arrived early.
The weather had warmed over the past day or two, and people were out, enjoying the light green buds on the trees and the sun on their faces. The Hyattsville Arts District is another one of those "new urban" mini-cities relatively close to D.C.
As I strolled around the multitude of tidy brick buildings to kill time, the pungent smell of Thai and Mexican restaurant cooking wafted around me. If I closed my eyes, those aromas could easily transport me to a more exotic place. Of course, I had already been to one of those, but my timing was lousy.
As I started my second trip around the block, I noticed an orange-and-blue Mets shirt. The person wearing it was in her late 30s, and she was also wearing jeans and a pair of high-tops. She had shoulder-length brown hair and clear blue eyes. "Are you Erica Jensen?" she asked in a curious and amused voice.
"Alex Kingsley?" I said.
"Yes. It's so nice to meet you."
I revised my previous assessment of Alex. Up closer, I could see the faint wrinkles of a woman in her 40s. She also had streaks of gray in her light brown hair.
We made the usual bit of polite chit-chat as we approached the coffee shop. "I don't usually hang out here," Alex said. "I live in Northwest." Meaning the northwest quadrant of D.C. Residents often describe the city in terms of quadrants, because that's how the place was laid out by that French guy who was clearly obsessed with geometry.
After we had settled in with our coffee, Alex got to the point.
"Embrace the Wild," she said, her voice low. "It's much more than a petting zoo gone wrong."
"Yeah. That whole . . . pseudo-safari thing. Pretty big-time stuff."
Alex leaned toward me. "This is serious."
"Exactly what do you mean?" I did a quick visual scan of the room. No sign of anyone interested in us or any other sign of trouble. Yet.
"It's a front for someone."
"The mob?"
"I don't know. And I'm not sure I want to know."
I squinted. "Why?" When she didn't respond, I added, "Are we talking terrorists? Drug cartels? Sex traffickers? What?"
Alex sighed while shrugging her shoulders, working out frustration or kinks. "Yes," she said.