Sylvie's kiss totally surprised me. My first reaction was to pull away, but the fact that someone wanted to kiss me was good, and she tasted nice. I responded a bit before pulling back.

"Sorry, Tiffany. I don't know what happened,” said Sylvie who was rapidly going red in the face.

I smiled and took hold of her hand.
“Sylvie… Thanks.”

“Eh? Thanks for what?”

“Not running a mile right after the call with Amy.”

"I… Look Tiffany, I'm here with you. If that means quitting the Feds, then so be it. Being with you these weeks and then these last few days has allowed me to see the real you.”

"The real me?" I said, trying to suppress a laugh.
“I have no clue who that is or even if it exists.”

"Oh, believe me, there is one that you show the world from time to time. For example, when you decided how to deal with those two rednecks in the truck. It came naturally to you. There have been others, but I see my job as making that inner woman that you are confident enough to be there all the time rather than in flashes."

“Bullshit!”

Sylvie shook her head.
“In terms of maturity, you are five to ten years ahead of most other eighteen-year-olds who seem to be wrapped in cotton wool their entire lives by their parents until they go off to college. Sadly those who were most protected are the ones most likely to fall off the rails when they are exposed to the big bad world.”

Then she sighed.
“That is for later. In the short term, we have just one task, to get that slimeball of a father of yours behind bars for the rest of his life. I'd like to try to get to know the real you when this is all over. Until then, we have a job to do."

"Don't forget my half-brother… He's up to his 28in quadruple chinned neck in this as well."

“Agreed.”

Then Sylvie squeezed my hand.
“Reading between the lines with what Amy said, I have to wonder if either some people at the FBI or the DOJ or both are going cold on the whole thing.”

“Because they have been got at?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know that my father has his fingers in a lot of pies. I know that several prominent politicians are in his debt if you know what I mean. I have enough evidence to make their lives very uncomfortable."

“Which makes you and me a nice juicy target that could be worth a lot of money.”

“Welcome to the club… The club of those with a price on their head. Membership is usually temporary but of indeterminate duration.”

We both laughed but there was a serious side to it.

“I’m going to get the photos online and send a few tips to MSM.”

“MSM?”

I smiled.
“Mainstream Media.”

---

I settled into a corner table at the coffee shop with a large coffee within easy reach and began to post the photos of the prints that I’d transferred from my phone to the internet. Then I turned my attention to social media. I had some verified users that I had set up over the years. I used them to start threads with titles like 'Why has the DOJ gone to sleep on the RICO’d Governor?’. I then posted the photos of him strangling my mother but with her blanked out with titles like ‘who’s afraid of the Governor now? and ‘who is on the take to make all this go away?’

'Operation Last Post for my Pa' took me a good hour and two cups of something that was a poor apology for real coffee, but I was pleased with the results. I logged off, left the coffee shop, and headed toward the Motel.

“All done?” asked Sylvie when I entered our room.

“All done. Ready to go?”

“Everything is packed and in the Truck.”

“Let’s hit the road then!”

---

“Why have we stopped here?” asked Sylvie when I drew up at a strip mall.

“We need some good maps of Virginia and North Carolina.”

“More backroads sightseeing then?”

“Yes, but there is a bright light at the end of that tunnel, as in the lady who restored this truck.”

“I’d better go get them then,” said Sylvie as she got out of the truck.

I watched her walk across the parking lot, and began to wonder about the future. It was only the arrival of a Police Cruiser with its lights flashing in front of the store that ended my daydreaming. I could hardly breathe until Sylvie appeared clutching a paper bag in her hand.

She was closely followed, by the two cops who had gone into the store. They were frog-marching a woman who was in handcuffs to their cruiser.

"I was starting to worry about you when those cops arrived," I remarked when Sylvie got into the driver’s seat.

She smiled.
“The woman tried to steal a hunting knife. I heard her threaten to kill the cops after she’d seen to her philandering husband. I didn’t need to ID myself to them. One of the cops took her out like a linebacker does to a hesitant quarterback.”

“Welcome to normal life. That is how it is for so many people these days. In many similar cases, she'd be coming out of the store in a body bag...”

“Sad but true,” said Sylvie as she gave me the maps.
“I bought us something from the Deli just to keep us going.”

“Great idea.”

---

I let Sylvie navigate us around the south of DC until we came to a strip mall near La Plata, where we stopped to buy two more burner phones. At a nearby gas station, we dumped my old one, with all the call records erased a few times, into the back of a construction workers' pickup that looked like it was heading for a recycling center.

It was nice to leave Maryland behind and enter Virginia on Highway 301.

“One more state to go,” I said.

“We are certainly seeing the real USA on this trip,” Sylvie replied as we passed a sign saying ‘West Point’.”

"Glad to be of service," I replied, smiling.

We had an enjoyable ferry ride south of Williamsburg, where we ate the subs that Sylvie had bought at the Deli. For early in September, the heat was on full more due to the lack of wind than anything.
I missed the cooler north of Lake Superior. Even though I'd grown up in the hot, and humid south, I had grown to like the cool of the mountains and lakeshores of the country. I dared not think about where my future might lie. All I could hope for at the moment was that it was not 6ft under the ground.

Sylvie shouted to me.

“Where are you going? You missed the turn back there!”

I’d been miles away.

“Sorry, I was trying not to think about the future.”

“It is hard, isn’t it?”

“What do you know about it?” I retorted.

“How about one and a half tours of Iraq and Afghanistan and a purple heart? That good enough?”

“You were in the Service?”
Sylvie had never mentioned her background much in our time together. To be honest, it hadn't bothered me. She worked for the FBI, which is generally a thing you do for a career.

“Marines. I took some shrapnel from an IED in my upper thigh. It nicked an artery. I didn't know if I was going to get to the field hospital, let alone see the sunrise over Pleasant Bay, Maine, ever again. Thanks to a hell of a lot of people, I made it. I tried hard to get fit again, but I could never manage to meet the standards needed in the corps, because of my injury. That's when I thought my life was over. I left the corps and bummed around for a few months back in Maine before I knew that I had to get out again. That’s when I applied to the Academy. By the time I graduated, I knew that I’d been given a second chance to do something with my life.”

I turned the truck around and took the right road. Then, I asked,

“And?”

"Then it stagnated. Most of the time, the job of a FBI Special Agent is not that special at all. Lots of writing reports and training. It is not all raiding and arresting the bad guys as is shown on TV. When the chance of doing something different came along, I jumped at it."

“And here you are … still?”

“And with every mile we go, I wonder why I am. Then I think again, and have to conclude that this… whatever this is, it sure beats sitting behind a desk any day of the week.”

"I know that you could have jumped ship hundreds of times, but you haven't?"

“That’s because I care about the end result. That’s also why I never made supervisor. If you care, then you don't take risks, and you don't get noticed and…"

“You get bypassed by those with fancy college degrees, frat rings, loud voices and country club membership?”

Sylvie smiled.
“Something like that. No, make that a lot of it. The Brits have a saying for this. They call it 'the Old Boys Network'. The old boys for them are those who have been to the top boarding schools and universities. For us, that is Frats, and Ivy League Colleges, who your father is, and how much they have contributed to the political campaigns of those in power.”

"Welcome to the ranks of the masses. The rich get the promotions, and money while the rest of us struggle to put food on the table…" I replied cynically.

“You have a very odd opinion of this country of ours? Surely the capitalist ideal is that anyone can make it big.”

"Sure, they can, but very few do because of the glass ceiling put in place by the multi-millionaires, and above. Only a lucky few are granted admission to that club. For the rest of us at the bottom of the pile, that is about as achievable as men flying to the moon. The rich get the tax breaks and the rest of us have to pay for it for the rest of our lives. My father is a classic example of that disease.”

Sylvie smiled and nodded her head back at me.

“I’ve come to understand a bit of what you have been through. Many others would have given up and taken the easy way out by now…”

I smiled.
"I'm not going to top myself if that's what you mean, but there have been times and I have done things that I'm not proud of, but you do whatever it takes to survive."

I sighed.
"It is so frustrating to be so near yet so far. Far from getting that bastard put away for the rest of his natural. Every time we seem to make progress, something always gets in the way.”

“One step forward and two back?”

I shook my head.
“More like one step forward and three steps back. We have to hope that at least one bit of the MSM pick up on what I handed to them…”

Sylvie, didn't disagree.

---

Taking the scenic route rather than I-95 takes a lot longer than you might have expected, but we were not exactly hurrying. Sylvie called it 'going with the flow' even if at times that flow was little more than a crawl.

The sun was starting to set when we crossed the state line into North Carolina on route 186.

“Don’t you think that you should tell her that we are coming?”

“Her? I don’t think that I ever said who it is that I saw when I picked up the truck?”

“How many men have the name Queenie?”

“Ok. I goofed.”

“Does it matter?”

“How many women name Queenie are into custom cars in this state? This is not any normal F-100 restoration project, is it? The person who did the work on this truck cared a lot about it, almost a labor of love.”

“Touché.”

“But, yes, you are right. I should give her a call. She can get the cheesy grits in!”

Sylvie laughed.
“You are determined to get me to eat them, aren’t you?”

“I can but try. I can but try.”

We both laughed. I knew that one day… she’d give in. I had to hope that when that day happened, they were at least half as good as Queenie’s delights.

---

A little later, we stopped for gas in Garysburg. While Sylvie dealt with the gas, I made a call to Queenie.

"Hi, Queenie,”

“Yes, I’m still alive and kicking.”

"I was wondering, if you had space in your cabin for a few nights?"

“No, I haven’t seen the news? It is important?”

“Ok, I’d better see it for myself. Thanks for the heads up.”

“Speak soon. Bye”.

I sat staring into space. It was what Sylvie hadn’t said that was troubling me. She’d not answered me when I asked about her cabin in the woods. I’d stayed there many a time when Mom visited her. It was where I'd learned to trap and skin a Rabbit, much to the laughter of Mom and Queenie. Then Queenie showed me how to do it properly. Mom hugged me and said that if you stopped learning, then you stopped living.

Sylvie returned from paying for the gas and got into the truck.

“What did she say? Isn’t there room at the inn, for a pair of weary travellers?”

I shook my head.
“It is what she didn’t say that is important.”

I looked Sylvie in the eye.
“This isn’t the place to talk. Drive on and find us somewhere quiet. Then we can talk.”

Thankfully, Sylvie didn’t argue. She started the engine and drove on.

---

A few minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot of a big box store. She parked well away from the entrance and switched off the engine.

“Ok, what didn’t she say?”

"I asked her about her cabin. It is about a mile and a half from her home. I used it all the time when Mom and I came to visit."

“And?”

"She changed the subject. She said that I should look at the news. She didn't say what it was about, but I got the impression that she wanted me off the phone.”

"There could be all manner of reasons, why she didn't want to speak? Perhaps she had a gentleman caller?"

I tried hard but could not stop myself from laughing.

“Queenie is not that way inclined.”

“Ok. Then what?”

“I think you might be right about there being someone there but I think it is not the sort of person she would normally entertain.”

“Oh. I think I understand but…?”

“But you are confused?”

Sylvie nodded.
"If the plates of this truck have been connected to us, and those plates run, the registration will come back to Queenie. Wouldn't it be natural for that person to visit the owner of the vehicle just to find out what they know or don’t know?”

“Do you think that someone from the law was with her?”

I nodded.
“The problem is that I… we don’t know if that person is on the side of the good guys or the bad ones.”

Sylvie thought for well over a minute. I saw in the twilight that she was gripping the wheel very tightly.

Without a word, she started the engine and pointed the truck at the exit.

When we were on the main road south, she said,

“You know where Queenie lives so point me in the right direction and while you are at it, you could try to find a news station on the radio that covers DC.”

Her logical, and more trained mine than was right.

I fiddled with the radio and eventually found a DC News station. At the top of the hour, the first story told us a lot.

My father had been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on sixteen charges of Felony Homicide. The list of victims was impressive and included my mom and three other women that had been his arm candy over the years. A few dozen conspiracy charges relating to bribery of public officials in four states were also mentioned. The report went on to say that a close relative might have provided a lot of useful information that led to the arrest. That was idenifiably a lie, but I wondered if those pictures I’d uploaded had forced the Feds to act a bit sooner than they might have wanted. Either way, I didn’t care. They as in the Feds must have had a Grand Jury in place so that my evidence could have been enough for them to issue an indictment. From my understanding of the process, I might have to testify as to the authenticity of my evidence.

To say that I was stunned would be an understatement. Sylvie noticed this.

“Do you want me to pull over?

I shook my head.

“Well… it wasn't me, as you well know.”

“Is there some other relative that could have testified?”

I shook my head briefly. Then it came to me.

“There is only his other son. He must have done a deal with the Feds.”

“Didn’t you say that he was more than likely on the hook for the murder of that judge?”

“Yeah, but that was only my opinion and that’s months out of date.”

“Put his name into Google and see what comes up?”

I did just that, and after almost five minutes of pacing back and forth I said,
"I can't find anything, but it must be him that talked to the Grand Jury.”

"Ok, so that lead is a bust. Let's get back to the here and now."

I couldn’t argue with that. I had to put the question about the Grand Jury out of my mind for the time being.

A few minutes went by, but I could tell from her expressions that she was deep in thought so I didn't press her.

With a decisive move, Sylvie pulled the truck over and stopped.

“Now, this is how it is going to go down at Queenie's."

Sylvie's FBI and Marine Corps training had taken over. This, was very much her show, and the expression of determination on her face told me clearly who was boss.

She explained what was going to happen when we got close to Queenie’s home. I bowed to her expertise.

"Ok, I get the plan. I get the hell out of town after dropping you off and wait for a call or a text. If you call, then I keep on going. If you text with the right emoji, then it is all clear, and I can return."

“Can you keep to it? The last thing I want is for you to come back and get in the line of fire.”

“I will keep to the plan. I promise.”

“Good.”

Sylvie drove the truck to the edge of the small town where Queenie lived. Then we swapped over.

As we passed by the front of the truck, I held her and kissed her. This time it was for real, and I hoped that it would not be our last one.

[to be continued]