Hidden Secrets (Garrett Investigation Book 1) (10 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Trengrove was idyllic.  A small cosy thatched cottage made of thick stone had stood for 300 years or more.  The cottage had beautiful rose gardens Ana’s aunt planted many years ago.  Behind the cottage, there was a garden centre continually bustling with activity.  Unknown to most the cottage had its secrets.  Only select people knew about the underground training centre and communications hub.

Rose Trengrove discovered a love of thrills long before her stepbrother started the Agency in New York. They’d always been close and with the loss of his wife, his stepsister became his confidante, during this era they created the training centre.

Ana spent all her summers with her aunt, training in martial arts without even realising what was going on.  She’d never known about the centre below the cottage until she turned eighteen when her aunt finally decided she was ready.

Her Aunt Rose’s secrecy stunned Anastasia, amused at how her secret stayed closed.  She continued to train, given easy assignments by her aunt to prove her worth before she joined the Agency.

Now the car drew up the drive; the front door flew open as Abigail flew down the path throwing her arms around Ana, who picked her up spinning her around.

“Oh, Abby I’ve so missed your cooking.”

“Miss Ana, you’re such a sight for old sore eyes, my dear.  It’s wonderful to see you again.  I do so hate it when you go away.”  Pulling her into the house, Abigail fussed, sitting her in the front parlour, bringing her afternoon tea.

“Made your favourite, Ana love,” Ana groaned at the plate of scones placed in front of her.

“I do hope you’re going to sit and help me eat some of them, Abby? It would be great to catch up on local news.

“Oh, if you insist,” she laughed contentedly happy to have a guest at the cottage.

Abigail was a long-time friend of her aunts who’d taken over running the cottage after her death.  Ana inherited half of the estate, including the cottage and garden centre. No one claimed the other half of the Trengrove estate so far; mystery surrounded the other heir. No one knew who it was.

Settling into her room she showered, changed before going for a run.  It was good to settle into a training routine.  In the morning she was looking forward to seeing Matt, who’d be her training partner once more, even better she had direct access from the cottage.

First her long-awaited run, two miles later she turned into the forest pounding her favourite trail.  As she approached the top of the hill, she stopped bending over relaxing her body before taking a sip from her water bottle.  Looking out at the view, she smiled at the cottage in the distance.

Something snapped behind her; she froze.  “Lovely view from up here,” said a male voice she didn’t recognise.

“Yeah, I suppose it is,” she replied continuing to look at the view, “don’t get many up here this time of year.”

The man approached standing beside her, looking sideways at her profile. “Can’t say I’ve seen you up here before,” he enquired.

“Don’t come here as often as I’d like.”

“Pity, you cheer the place up.”

“You’re new around here?  I don’t remember seeing you before either.”

“Been here a couple of years now, live quietly over yonder,” he replied pointing over his shoulder.

“Oh, the old Johnson place.  I remember it being up for sale,” finally she turned to look at him.  She found a rugged man who looked to be in his early 50’s.  He had dark blonde hair with hints of grey, deep blue eyes.  His polo shirt fit snugly over his massive shoulders stretching taut over his chest.  He had an oddly smallish nose, which didn’t fit the rest of him.  His bronzed skin made him look like an Adonis.

“Yeah, that’s the place; seems you know this area rather well.”

“Spent my summers here as a child.  Who’re you?”

“Truit, Kevin Truit.”

“Ana.”

“Nice to meet you Ana,” he smiled, “you’re one beautiful young woman.”

“And I’m not looking to be a playmate either Mr Truit,” she said.

Shaking his head back, he roared with laughter as she raised an eyebrow in question. “No worries there Ana, I’m not interested, you look young enough to be my daughter.”

“Well, I’d better get going Mr Truit, might see you again sometime.”

“If you run this way frequently; then more than likely you’ll see me.  Stop by the house sometime if you wish.  I can offer tea or coffee.”

“Thanks, I’ll think about it.”  Ana set off back down the hill towards the plains, not seeing the admiring look on Kevin Truit’s face, nor did she see the satisfied smile as he turned away, trudging his way back home.

The following morning refreshed from a shower Ana walked to the canteen at the training centre for breakfast. Espying Matt in the corner; surrounded by work mates, she made her way over tapping him on the shoulder.

“Hey Matt,” she grinned.

“Surely it’s not time to slaughter me again? The mighty Ana back!” Matt said, putting his hands up in mock horror.

“Idiot,” she laughs as grins spread across the table.  It seems she still had a reputation to hold on to.

“So what you doing here Ana?” asked Matt.

“Had a few problems at the Agency, needed some downtime.”

“Ah, we heard about your car blowing up, what else has been going on?”

“Oh, just some noise Matt.” She grinned.  “Thought we could have a round in the boxing ring later if you’re free?”

“For you anything,” he grinned.

“Great, cya laters,” her stomach rumbling they all laughed as she walked away to grab some food.

Later that morning she walked into the communications hub, requesting a computer to use.  Her first concern was Mr Truit.  Who was he? Where had he come from? Finally, what was he doing there?  Entering a computer search she waited while it went through the database they held.  Ten minutes later she came out emptied handed.  With a frown, she started an internet search, lo and behold there were hundreds of ‘Kevin Truit’s’  muttering under her breath she began to narrow down her search.  Starting with the property, he said he owned.

He was getting more and more mysterious, apparently a company had bought the house he lived in, or so the sales info stated.  Sighing, she got up; hands in pockets she walked over to Deb, who ran searches on companies.

“Deb can you do me a favour when you have a spare five mins.  Could you run this business and let me know what you come up with.”

“Yeah sure, just leave the info with me.  What’s the company name?

“Truit & Haier Engineering,” from what I can make out.  I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them.

“Ok, will let you know later Ana.”

“Thanks, Deb, I owe you.”

The rest of the day went quickly, another boxing match with Matt, who’d nearly beaten her.  It seemed she was a bit out of shape after all.  Checking her accuracy skills with her Browning gave her ten out of ten.  Next, her favourite bow and arrow, thudding into the target and were a bit off kilter.  Her knife skills were satisfactory.  Tomorrow she promised herself, her body skills practice which she enjoyed more than anything.

The information she wanted came through just after dinner, it was a boisterous affair, she’d let slip the boss was coming down. 

“Hey Ana, I got the info you wanted,” Deb passed her a sealed envelope with a curious glance, “can’t say I found much of interest.”

“Thanks, Deb,” Ana said, shoving the envelope in her pocket.

Later, back in her room at the cottage she settled in
bed to read the information Deb had gleaned.

Truit & Haier Engineering, founded in 1977 by three young friends to study human genetics and how they worked.  Truit and a hidden partner were scientists with top marks from Harvard.  Haier was a wealthy friend with interests in genetics. He supported the company through funding for their research.  Their idea was to improve on human genetics by stopping abnormalities at the time of conception.

Ana shuddered at the thought of someone messing with her DNA. She liked herself just as she was, though thinking about it, she could understand some people wanting perfection.

The hidden partner left the company six years later, reasons unknown.  Truit continued his research where today they were cloning sheep in the hope that one-day ethics would allow them to clone DNA for human improvement.  They helped to promote survivor siblings genetics for those with cancer. Though it was a case by case rather than a given.  Haier stayed on as a business partner, handing it on to his son when he retired. Truit retired having passed the primary part of the company on to his nephew.  He kept overall control of the still private company.

“Well, blah to that,” she muttered.  Ana started a list of what would need researching tomorrow.  She idly wondered who this hidden scientist was.  Tiredness claimed her, with a small smile on her face she settled down for the night looking forward to Malachy’s arrival, not that she’d forgiven him yet.

In New York Malachy sorted through the documents, he’d found.  Reading them through four times now, and he still couldn’t bear the thought of some of the information.  Dragging his hands through his hair, he wished his father had told him.  He knew he needed to speak with someone soon, unfortunately that someone was deeper involved than he was.  He couldn’t imagine how Ana was going to cope with this information; to say she’d be angry was the least of his worries.

The phone rang.  “Boss, we need you at the office.  Conrad found something you should see.”

“Thanks Yuri, I’ll get Quin to drop me off this afternoon.”

“Quin is with Ana at Trengrove boss; I’ll come and pick you up.”

“Fine,” he snapped distractedly slamming the phone down, “Tallon,” he roared.

“Yes boss?”

“Ah, sod it, never mind,” he muttered. Tallon looked on puzzled.

“You ok sir, you seem…” he trailed off.

“A lot on my mind Tallon,” he sighed.  “Let me know when Yuri gets here. I’ll be going to the office.”

“Yes sir, anything else?  All is quiet here for now.  The others are just doing their rounds.  Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Yeah thanks,” he smiled.

Later at the office Conrad sat in front of him relaying what he’d found.

“Someone created Fletcher for this job.”

“What do you mean created?”

“We’re not sure yet Mal.  We’re still digging.”

“Go on, what else did you find?”

“After digging deeper we found his educational background.  It looks like he’s an only child, orphaned as a baby.  Someone organised his upbringing; which was clinical.”

“Clinical?” Mal asked carefully.

“He’d little human contact until he went to his first private school.  He’d no social skills at all.  They expected him to be top of the class all the time.”

“Poor bastard,” he muttered, “anything else?”

“He has first degrees in genetics; his thesis is spectacular to say the least.”

“Why didn’t we find this before he went through training?”

“Someone with exceptional computer skills hid it under layers of …”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“Fletcher doesn’t know any different Malachy; it’s like they brainwashed him from birth to be what he is today.”

“Fuck, this complicates matters,” he sighed as if he didn’t already know.  “If you find anything over the weekend contact me.  Get yourself home; send Yuri in if you see him.”

“He’s just outside your office boss.”

“Well, send him in.”

“You ready to go, boss?”

“Yuri; you need to stop fussing.  I need updates from you first.” Yuri grinned in anticipation. “So how’s Abe doing?”

“Great, he released himself from hospital this morning setting off home to his parents.”

“What about Fletcher and your little surprise?”

“Well, circumstances change, now I need to know.  In fact before anyone approaches anything to do with Fletcher I’ll need to know.”

Yuri raised his eyebrow in question it went unanswered. “Need to know at the moment, Yuri.”

“Ok.  Fletcher has created a lab where he’s making a virus which we believe is substantially similar to the one from Haven Pharmaceutical where he’s going undercover.”

“So he took the bait, that’s good.”

“You should see the place, how the hell he got it up and running so quickly we’ve no idea.  He also has a labatory assistant.  Not sure what he knows.”

“So what’s going to happen?”

“Thought we’d blow up his lab and make it look like an accident,” he grinned.

“Don’t hurt anyone, we don’t need any backlash.”

“Yeah, if you look out of your office window tomorrow night you’ll see all the fun, we’ve made sure it won’t affect any other buildings or people.”

“Fine, go ahead and keep your ears peeled for the results.  It’ll be on the news later if we’re lucky.”

“Oh and Moran is still coming up empty-handed.  The guy in the tree we shot, he can’t link to anyone.  No name, nothing you could say he’s rather irritated.”