Book: The First - Part: Two - Chapter: 20 - Installment: i

        Edmond was standing over the toilet, shortly after dawn when he heard the knock at the door.  He did what he could to will the flow to stop as quickly as possible, which was successful in the middle of the second, more insistent knock.
        Buckling his pants as he exited the bathroom, he nearly tripped over Carly who was coming out of the guest bedroom rubbing her eyes.

        “Who is it?” she croaked at him.

        “Shhhh, Carly.  We have to be quiet.”

        He picked her up and tip-toed to the door and peered through the eye-hole.

        A woman in a dark coat and shades stood on the porch.  Two well dressed men in shades stood by a black sedan.  Edmond didn’t know what bureau or agency they came from, but they couldn’t possibly be more obvious or typical.

        As stealthily as possible, Edmond turned on his toe and took the twelve long strides it took to cover the distance between the front door and the French doors as the back of the small bungalow. 
        He wasn’t surprised to find when he pulled back the curtain that another agent was standing blocking his way.  He was surprised that she was the spitting image of the woman at the front door.

        That’s beyond cookie-cutter-agent syndrome. He thought.  Twins.  Hot, twin agents.  Sexy.

        There was no other exit.  He didn’t have his service firearm, even if he would have pulled it on a fellow officer. 
        It had been days.  He and Carly were clean.  He knew it, the authorities ought to know it.  It was time to face the music.

        He calmly unlocked and opened the sliding door.

        “Good morning Lieutenant Edmond.” The woman’s tone matched the November morning air.

        Carly sensed the disruption in the calm she’d had hiding at Bev William’s home.  She hugged Edmond’s neck tight and began to whimper.  It was the most emotive he had seen her since her mother’s death.

        “Good morning.”

        “You’re both going to be coming with us.”

        “Yeah, I assumed as much.”

        “Good. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to be forceful.”

        “Show us the way.”

        The two men sat in the front of the car.  The woman joined Edmond and Carly in the back.

        As they drew away from the curb the woman produced two black blindfold bags.

        “Please don’t let this alarm you.  You are in no danger.  But the location of our destination, is I’m afraid, prohibitively secret.”

        Despite her assurance he was a little alarmed.
        “Who the hell are you people?”

        “That information is also more than I can currently tell you.”

        The sedan circled the block for several minutes, clearly avoiding giving away the least bit of information about the direction they were to be travelling, while Edmond convinced the anxious Carly to put the bag over her head. He only managed to convince her by putting his on first with false reassurance. 
        His intention had been to try to keep oriented, so as to have some notion of where they were going, but by the time he had calmed Carly down and got her blindfold in place he had been too distracted and had no sense of where they were heading.  One thing was for certain, it was not a short drive.

        It wasn’t until nearly twenty minutes had passed before a thought occurred to him.

        “Hey, where’s your other partner?”

        “Excuse me?” responded the woman.

        “The other lady.  Your twin.  I didn’t see another car.  You didn't just leave her behind?”
        “Hmmmm.” She half-laughed with a bemused velvet voice.