Chapter 6

Allen Parks has the narrative for a time.

After we got out of bed, I went to take care of my morning preparations and shave before dressing for the day. Ms. O’Farrell, I guess that I should call her Maureen now, had volunteered to make breakfast for us while I was busy. She had donned a robe before getting out of bed.

Arriving in the kitchen twenty minutes or so later following dressing, I found she had made ham and eggs plus there were hot biscuits and orange juice. The coffee maker was just finishing brewing a batch of coffee, as I entered the kitchen. I just stared at everything in amazement.

“How did you manage all of this in the short time I was getting ready?” I asked, still amazed.

“It’s only breakfast for two,” she replied, as if it was nothing. “I grew up on a lot of farms, where meals were prepared for as many as a dozen or more. All of the Wives and the older girls worked on the meals. Breakfast was usually the easiest meal to prepare. Aunt Grace has a kitchen with two stoves, a huge refrigerator, and two sinks. There were often as many as two dozen people there for meals,” she finished before remembering something.

“If you intend to continue having breakfast like today, you will need eggs, ham or bacon, and biscuits or bread. Your bread was stale and a bit green. You also don’t have any apple butter, and that margarine that you have isn’t as good as real butter,” she informed me.

“Hum ... yes, we can go shopping after I get off from work,” I told her.

“When we finish eating, you do the dishes, while I get ready,” she told me as we ate. The meal was very good, and there was more than enough for the two of us.

“Dishes?” I asked.

“Yes, you know those things that our food is on, also the frying pan,” she told me. “I’ve already made the dish washing water. Also what day is your trash collected? Your garbage can is full,” she reminded me. I would need to empty the garbage can and put out the trash tonight in the complex’s container.

Maureen went to get ready to leave once we finished eating, and I drew a cup of coffee before starting on the dishes. There was a pan of hot soapy water already in the sink. She seemed to have thought of everything and to be very organized. There were more of the biscuits sitting on the counter near the small electric oven, and a container was sitting next to them.

“Put the biscuits in the container, and then the container in the refrigerator,” she called to me just then, before adding, “don’t forget to wash the baking pan also.”

“How can she do that?” I wondered before remembering that my Aunts could do the same thing. I put it down as a woman thing, at the time.

I had only just finished the dishes and my coffee, when Maureen appeared again dressed in comfortable slacks and a blouse with a pair of athletic shoes on her feet. They appeared to be very comfortable, but was she going to wear them to register at the Residence Inn Chelsea, I wondered?

“Are you going to wear those to the hotel?” I asked.

“Certainly, but this isn’t what they are going to see,” she told me, and a second later she presented the appearance of a well-placed business woman out of a major corporation, complete with a handbag and luggage.

“How ... how did you do that?” I asked in surprise.

“It’s just a simple glamour and very easy to do, once you have picked out who you want to look like for a given occasion. I noticed this woman at the airport before leaving for Ireland and thought her appearance would impress anyone that I needed to meet,” she told me.

“Can all... ?” I started.

“Yes, all most all Magic users can create a glamour. Those with less powerful Talents wouldn’t be able to create as detailed a glamour as you or I can,” she told me.

“I can do that?”

“Yes, once you learn the spell and have practiced a bit to get the details correct,” she assured me.

“What time do we need to leave for you to arrive at work on time?” she asked next, and I looked at my watch.

“About ten minutes ago,” I told her, surprised by how late it was.

“Let’s go, I’ll use some Magic to ensure that we catch the lights green,” she told me, as I grabbed my coat and made sure that I had my ID, badge, and weapon. The next thing that I knew, we were standing in the parking lot next to my car. I didn’t know what to say, but Maureen was already opening the passenger’s door, and I found my door open also, though I remembered her locking the doors last night.

The drive to the office went very swiftly, as we didn’t need to stop for any red lights. As we drove up Everett Ave, Maureen had instructions for me.

“Drop me off at the large parking lot before we get to the railroad overpass. I’ll transfer from there to the trees at the end of the Double Tree Chelsea’s property along Maple Street and walk down to the Resident Inn using my glamour. I’ll be able to pick up your Talent easily from there and will know if you need to go anywhere. You can pick me up in the same parking lot if you need to go out for any reason. If not, I’ll meet you where we agreed on for the evening meal after work,” she told me, just before indicating the parking lot she was talking about. It was the parking lot of a large club.

Following dropping her off and watching her vanish, I pulled back onto Everett for the short drive to our headquarters. There were no messages for me from the security guards at the gate this morning, and I parked in my usual spot before heading up to my cubicle.

I was still in my cubicle several hours later when two agents that I had seen here came to question me.

“Have you seen Agent Cook today?” the one asked me.

“Not today, but she stopped to chat yesterday, but that was the last I saw of her,” I told them, but had a question.

“Is something wrong?”

“She missed an important meeting this morning, and we were sent to check on her whereabouts,” the second agent told me.

“Have you tried calling her?”

“Yes, we didn’t get an answer.”

“Is her car here in the parking lot?”

“No.”

“Has anyone tried her apartment or house? I never knew where she lived, as we didn’t socialize away from work.”

“Someone was sent to her residence, but no one was there.”

“Hmm ... this may sound indelicate or crass, but has anyone tried the area hospitals? She could have had an accident, perhaps an automobile accident since her car isn’t here,” I suggested. Both of them looked at me like I was stupid.

“All of those things and others have been checked,” I was told.

“I can’t think of anything else,” I told them before they departed to talk to others on this floor, many of whom had heard our discussion, and I had to wonder who she was to have had this meeting with. Nothing else concerning Cook happened to disturb me that day until it was nearly quitting time, when there was an announcement on the building’s PA system.

“All Agents are to report to the main conference room at 4:30 for a mandatory briefing,” it was announced. I, like several others in cubicles around mine, groaned.

“What now?” several asked in upset voices. We all closed down our computer terminals early and proceeded down to the main briefing room on the second floor. It was going to be crowded with everyone in there. It was also going to make me late for picking up Maureen, and I hoped she was aware that I would be late, as I had no way to contact her.

Arriving at the conference room, I found it as packed, as I had feared it would be. It was so crowded, those arriving late had to stand in the back of the room. I had chosen to stand at the back of the room rather than take one of the seats, as it would be faster to leave that way. The meeting started a bit late as people were still arriving at 4:30. The AIC eventually started the meeting by stepping up to the podium.

“Settle down,” he said into the mike and quiet slowly settled over the room.

“We have a missing Agent. All of the normal procedures have been followed with no results. Those of you who were interviewed earlier today had a number of interesting and some unusual suggestions on where to look for her, but we have been unable to find any trace of Agent Cook.

“I’m fairly sure that not all of you know her, but you may have seen her around the building. What we are requesting is that all of you keep an eye open for her during your normal pursuits. The police are also looking for her. To assist you in identifying her, we have prepared an information packet,” he told us, and a large picture of Cook appeared on a screen behind him. There was also a picture of a document listing her name and vital information as well as a partial listing of her assignments as an agent.

The most interesting part of the document for me was the name of the man who had recruited her. It was the name of the man who I had met just a week or so ago, and who was now the FBI’s Assistant Director of the Paranormal Branch, but I needed to pay attention, as the AIC was still speaking.

“This information is being downloaded to all of your phones and other electronic devices, so you will have it available for easy reference if needed. If any of you find any clues to her or her whereabouts, please contact me or my deputy immediately. Thank you, that’s all I have,” he finished. I was glad then that I had stayed in the back of the room, as the rush to leave was instantaneous and rapid.

Fortunately, there is more than one exit from the building, and I chose the one that appeared to be the least busy, even though it was further from my vehicle than the others were.

Once outside in the cool evening air, I felt better. All of those people in the room at the same time had overloaded the air conditioning in just the short time we had been in there. At my car, I was looking at the front of the Residence Inn when there was a quick flash of light from one of the windows, which I presumed was where Maureen had spent the day.

We had agreed, on the way here this morning, to meet following work at a restaurant near my apartment that she had been to previously. While she would be there in a second, I needed to drive there. The trip this afternoon was much slower than the one this morning had been, as I hit many of the lights on the way there red, since traffic was rather heavy and slow moving.

I was correct about Maureen being able to arrive here in a second, as she appeared beside my vehicle just as I was getting out of it. It appeared that she had been able to trace my progress on the way here.

“Don’t be so upset about the traffic,” she told me first thing, as I joined her. “It’s not worth the emotion and it only raises your blood pressure,” she added with a smile.

“You could tell all of that from the hotel?” I asked.

“Oh yes, but it’s much more difficult to affect the timing of the lights from that far away,” she told me.

“Shall we go in and have dinner?” I asked.

“Yes, but your terminology is one that always confuses me,” she told me, as we moved toward the restaurant.

“What dinner?”

“Yes, on the farms, dinner is the mid-day meal. Supper is the term for the evening meal,” she told me.

“By all means then, let us have our evening meal,” I said to avoid confusion.

“Did you have an interesting day?” I asked after we had ordered, as mine had been very boring.

“Yes, a very interesting day. The Council left a couple of very interesting books on Magic for me to read.”

“You didn’t leave them in the hotel room, did you?” I asked, interrupting her, as she had no books with her.