(Jake's P.O.V)
When I pulled into the garage it was around 4 in the afternoon. I had missed lunch at the office so I grabbed Pizza from a Domino's. Pearce and Ross hadn't come into the office since they've left in the morning. I assumed they were taking a nap. Part of me wanted to kiss Pearce awake but I knew she was tired from staying awake.
Taking a bite of my pizza I opened my front door. I flipped on the lights as Pearce's dog, Max came running. I petted him and let him finish off my pizza. I went over to the bookshelf and grabbed the red Bible. I had carved out a rectangle in the pages, to hide Dante's duplicated phone, in case he ever had his men go through my apartment. Better safe than dead. The Bible felt oddly heavy.
After hours of going through Capaldi's bank records, I grew bored and told the team I was going out to get a late lunch. I decided to give cracking Dante's phone another try.
Derek Jones's number flashed on my phone as it rang. "Can you swing by your place and wake up Pearce?"
"I'm here right now. Why don't you give her call?"
"I did she's not picking up. Probably sleeping."
"Alright."
"If she refuses to come tell her that BPD released a statement declaring Gomez's death an accidental drowning."
I knocked on Pearce's door a few times and she didn't answer the door. Using the spare key I had I entered her apartment. Everything was where it was except a blanket and pillow on sofa, which meant Ross had slept over. A pang of jealously hit me. I shook it away. Ross and Pearce were best friends, if he stayed over it shouldn't bother me.
I went to her bedroom and found the bed empty but it was made. I opened the safe in the wall of her closet and found her gun and badge missing. So was her laptop which was always on the kitchen table and car keys were gone.
I dialed Jones's number. "They're not here?"
"They?"
"Yeah Ross stayed over, there's an extra blanket and pillow on the sofa. Her car keys and laptop are gone. I couldn't find her badge or gun."
"Maybe they're chasing down a lead. Is her car still in parking lot?"
"I'll see."
Pearce's SUV was in it's parking lot, looking untouched. There were tire skid marks from another car in the space next to her car. Using the set of her car keys I had I unlocked the door. It was empty except for a backpack in the back seat. I grabbed the backpack and locked the car. I called her and Ross's phone but only reached voicemail.
Back in my apartment I emptied out the contents of the bag on the floor. I found Pearce's laptop in the midst of all the paper and files. I picked a file, which was autopsy report. Reading through it I realized it was James's autopsy. How did she get this? I booted up her computer as I went through the rest for her stuff. I found a USB drive with a sticky note that read 'Voicemail copy'. Her laptop unlocked and revealed bank statements, specifically Vivian Morgan's bank statements. Why was she looking into Viv's bank statements?
There were more personal information on Vivian: her son's medical records and a website of a clinical trial. None of which made sense. I plugged in the USB as I grabbed the other file, which had 'MOLE&MURDERER' sprawled on the cover in marker. I went through the file and audibly gasped. Vivian was a mole?!
The laptop dinged letting me know the USB was ready for use. In the storage I found a single audio file. I played it. I heard two voices at first, both of grunting and groaning, then I heard Jack Bloom's voice yell 'Pearce! Mole! In team', more grunting, which I chalked it up was struggling. The audio ended with Jack yelling 'May God be with you!' and then a crash. I knew one of the struggling voices were Jack but I couldn't figure out if the other one was male or female.
In the 'MOLE&MURDERER' file Pearce had put together evidence against Vivian, for being the mole and murderer. A lot of which made sense. But I didn't know what to do with the information without Pearce.
I called Jones again. "Hey the car is still in garage. What should I do?"
"Did you find any file or anything they were working on?"
I stared at the 'MOLE&MURDERER' file in my hands. "No. I didn't." An accusation like that could kill Vivian's career. With her debt she needed the job. So without solid solid proof I'd keep my mouth shut.
"Come back to the office we'll decide then."
In the file I also found a phone number which belong to Detective Esposito and under that was scribbled 'Can vouch for'. I gathered up files and Pearce's laptop. I shouldered the backpack, put a leash on Max and left the apartment. If we needed help finding Pearce, Max could potentially help. I punched in Esposito's number as I slid into my car.
"Detective Tony Esposito who is this?"
"This is Jake Newman. I'm a...I work with Pearce Hudson."
"Oh. Where's Agent Hudson?"
"That's a question I was hoping you could answer."
"Excuse me?"
"I think she's gone missing or something. Her gun, badge and car keys are gone but her car is still in it's parking spot. There are some skid marks in the parking space next to her car. I also found a backpack with evidence that points to one our agents being a mole."
Esposito was silent.
"Look man I was just wanna know that she's not missing so I don't alarm my team. There's a file in the backpack with your phone number and underneath was written can vouch for. What can you vouch for?"
"There's some evidence that someone was attacked in Pearce's apartment last night. We found some blood stains, a ketamine stain, signs of struggle etc. Anyways, Pearce thinks Jack was the victim of the attack. She also thinks that Jack's attacker also killed James Gomez."
"When did you last speak to her?"
"Maybe around 1 ish."
"When you spoke to her did she talk about anyone possible leads? Or anything?"
"I don't know. She was with the other agent though, Ross."
"Thanks so much."
"Listen if she is missing or something, keep me informed."
"Sure thing."
Everyone in the office seemed a little on edge when I walked in. Probably because they couldn't get a hold of Pearce or Ross. Vivian approached me and I jumped, not because I was surprised but because of what I read in the file.
"Did you get a hold of them? Are they fine?" Vivian asked. Her eyes full of concern. She looked nothing like a killer but deep inside she snap my neck.
"No I didn't."
"I'm sure they'll check back in a couple hours," Jones said to everyone. "Let's all concentrate on what we're doing. If they don't check in within the hour, we'll go looking for them."
"The only reason they would go missing is Dante," Jessica spoke up. That woman really needed to look up optimism in the dictionary. No one commented.
I took a seat on the desk far away from the group with Max at my feet. I had the sweep team that cleaned Pearce's apartment of bugs, install a camera in the garage. I was uploading the footage on my laptop.
"Did you find anything at Pearce's place?" Green hovered over my desk.
"No." I paused then added. "Does Ross stay over at Pearce's a lot."
"I wouldn't be surprised. They're close. Why?"
"The sofa was set up like someone had slept there. I'm just trying to figure out if Ross was with Pearce."
"Well Ross and Pearce are the king and queen of unnecessary risks. But they are the best agents I know. So if anything did happen to them, they'll pull through."
With the video still uploading, I worked on figuring out the voices from the voicemail audio by running them through filters. The video uploading completed, I isolated it so I could just see what happened after 1. There were a lot of footage so I fast forwarded until I got to Ross and Pearce going up to the car.
Ross tossed the backpack in the backseat while Pearce stuck something in her purse. Then a Lexus pulled up next to them and three men go out. One of them attacked Pearce the other two went after Ross. Then another man came from behind and hit Pearce. She managed to subdue them both. Ross however fell to the ground, he mouthed something to Pearce. She launched herself on of the men that attacked Ross. Ross took the other one. Pearce and Ross tried to limp out of there but what they didn't see coming was, one of the fallen men pull out a plunger from his coat and stab Pearce in the neck. He pressed down on the plunger, Pearce went down and then the man did the same to Ross. The other three shoved the limp bodies in the car and the driver sped out there.
"Guys!" I shouted. "Ross and Pearce were abducted!"
They crowded me as I replayed the video.
"When did you have a camera installed?" Jones asked.
"After the first time Dante came to her apartment."
"Well it was smart," Crawford commented.
"Shit," Jessica whispered.
"What?" Green craned his neck.
"She had her badge on look. Right before she shot her gun. Go back a few seconds in slow motion," Jessica instructed. I did so. "See right there."
Crawford drew his breath sharply.
"We're pulling the plug. NOW!" Jones announced.
"We can't leave them," I protested.
"I'll be staying back," Jones said. "The rest of you are leaving Boston. Tonight!"
"A city full of dirty cops," Green pointed. "You will never find them without us."
"Us is the problem right now," Jones insisted. "They've had Pearce and Ross for nearly four hours now. And I think we can all tell that this was Dante's doing. We saw the autopsy pictures of his tortured victims. I'm not sure how long Ross and Pearce will able to hold out before they break. You have 20 minutes to gather your belongings. Anything you leave behind, I'll make sure you get back. You all are catching a flight to DC tonight."
Everyone scrambled with those words. I stayed back I had every I needed in my bag. Jones called up Gibson. While Vivian, the only one who didn't say a word during the decision making, called a sweep team to clean our places. I stayed on my laptop. In the file, Pearce guesstimated that Jack was abducted after midnight, so I put the video surveillance on rewind.
My audio filter's were still working on the voicemail, so I decided to call Esposito and update him. I rummaged through my backpack and pulled out the Bible. An idea struck me, if Viv was the mole, she would've communicated with him, her number would be on the phone. I opened the book up and was immediately confused, the inside was completely hollow, with a iPad mini resting inside the book. Definitely not the Bible I defaced.
I turned the tablet on and it brought me to the password protected screen. I plugged it into the computer just as the filters finished. I played the filtered version. It was clear the two voices were male. I ran a software recognition to match if one of the struggling voices belonged to Jack.
With the iPad plugged in, figuring out the password didn't take long. I downloaded all the files on the iPad and turned my attention to the surveillance footage. I started the footage at 2 and let it play out. Around 2:05, Jack entered the parking area and walked to the doors that led to the lobby. Twenty minutes later, a figure walked into the parking area, definitely not Vivian Morgan, it was Derek Jones. After another twenty minutes, the same Nexus that was involved in Pearce and Ross's abduction pulled into the parking lot, two men in, what appeared to be white hazmat suits, got out. Jones and the three came out through the lobby doors, carrying a large black body bag between them. They dumped the body bag in the trunk and rode off.
My eyes couldn't believe what I had seen. The voice recognition revealed that one of the two voices belonged to Jack the other one was still unknown. The laptop screen exploded with documents and pictures and videos I had downloaded from the iPad. I ran a search on the documents, which showed me half of the names, belonged to a dead person and each person was an alleged victim of Dante's. Along with the list of names, there were a list of numbers and letters, bank accounts. I ran a search on them, as the team started trickling back in.
Everyone had packed in a hurry, Jessica with her purse, Green and Crawford with their small suitcases. Jones and Vivian had started shredding documents. "There's a private jet at Massport. It's not the FBI's but its the best we managed to do in a short time span," Jones reported.
"That was the sweep team at Ross's place," Vivian put down her phone. "His place has been ransacked."
"You think he'd given up a location?" Crawford asked.
"At thing point I'll believe anything. Dante Capaldi isn't a man we should take lightly should take lightly," Jones replied.
The laptop dinged and opened up a window of the bank accountants, they were all Cayman accounts. All the account information had been listed below the account numbers, one name stood out like a black sheep among white sheep, Derek Jones. I found 5 million dollars in the account. I switched back to the surveillance footage of Jones and the two hazmat suited with the body bag.
"What are you still working on?" Jones took a glance at the screen.
I slammed down the screen. "N-n-nothing." I knew it in his eyes he'd already seen it.
He took the laptop and broke it in half using his hands. "Hey!" I shouted.
"We're getting rid of everything," Jones glared at me. "Everyone break all laptops and phones. There should be no evidence that we were here."
I shoved the files in my backpack but held onto the Bible. There were information in here that no way Pearce knew about. Cayman bank accounts? 5 million dollars? Pearce didn't have that money. The only person who's name came to mind was Dante...I clutched the Bible tightly. Red Bible. Red ledger. I was holding the Holy Grail for our mission. With that thought a new realization formed in my head, Vivian Morgan was never the mole, Derek Jones was. All the proof that I had of him being the mole was in the laptop he'd broken.
"Leave the rest!" Jones shouted bringing me back to reality. "Let's go people. You're leaving now."
Jones pulled my arm, "Come on Jake you're leaving."
"But Pearce-"
"Don't worry about Pearce. I'll find her."
"No you won't."
Jessica grabbed me by shoulders, "He will find her. Now please come."
I let myself be pulled along. Without proof accusing Jones was going to fall on deaf ears. I climbed into the car and drove into the night. I clutched the backpack close to my chest. I watched out the window as buildings disappeared. I couldn't leave her. I couldn't let her go.
The airfield was empty and eerie. Our jet was waiting for us on the runway. I boarded the plane with the others and took a seat, making up my mind about what to do. I pulled a Hail Mary. "We can't leave."
"Not with this bullshit again," Jessica sighed.
"No we can't go."
"Jake none of us want to leave-" Crawford started.
"No you have to listen to me. I know you may not know me well enough to trust me but you have to listen to what I say. There's a mole on this team. Pearce and Ross were looking into it-"
"There's a what?!" Green jumped to his feet.
"It's Jones," I said.
"You take that back!" Vivian shrieked. "He's was my partner he'd never."
I turned to Jessica. "I know you don't know me well but from I could tell you liked Pearce and this could save her life."
Her eyes turned soft, "Jones is there. He will. He stayed backed."
My head swam with vivid images. "Jones didn't stay back to save Pearce."