Curtis hit the wall of his father’s office in frustration, after searching the whole area, to the best of his knowledge, and finding nothing.
There was nothing. No cameras or memory cards. Nothing to prove his uncle’s innocence, or stop the blackmail. He sank to his father’s chair, and lowered his head to the table, his thoughts seeking a solution. Where else could he go to search for this?
Twenty minutes earlier, after searching to no avail, he had walked to his parents’ room and had ransacked the place upside down, then rearranged it in case he missed anything and also to douse suspicions but there had been nothing. He had returned here, and still there was nothing.
What was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t fail on his first mission.
That wasn’t nice. He must retrieve that disk, but how? How could he find it? Should he meet his father’s beta? Because thinking of this right now, there was no way his father would have pulled off the blackmailing act alone. There must have been two or three people in this, including the one that had washed the pictures.
Yet, Curtis knew that he couldn’t involve the next crafty man to his father. That would be throwing himself into fire, into the enemy’s mouth. It was because of the latter that he didn’t trust Louise, his son.
Yes, he was being hypocritical now, judging a son by his father’s actions, but Louise hasn’t yet given him a reason not to, not that he was particularly interested in the latter, or knew of his behaviors. Maya would be the best judge of that. The two had worked closely for the longest of times.
There was a sudden knock on the door which cut off Curtis’ thoughts and had him raising his head to look at the intruder. When he saw that it was his mother, he let out a sigh of relief. For a moment there, he had allowed himself condemn his existence by believing that his father had returned from Leonarya’s place, not minding that it wasn’t possible.
“What are you doing, Curtis? Why are you ransacking your father’s office?” Jan took in the disorganized space, the books strewn around, the disorganized large table, the documents lying abandoned on the floor, and knew that something was up, that her son was looking for something, that this might be the real reason why her son was back.
She beat down the ugly feeling that arose from the wanton thought that her son hadn’t come back for her, that he had come back for something else, something that Arnold wasn’t aware of, something that Peter had sent him to get. It dawned on Jan then that Arnold
might have lost his son, just as he had lost Maya. She almost wept at the thought. When had things gotten like this?
Curtis saw the varying emotions on his mother’s face and got stumped. Should he tell her what was going on? Or should he keep mute? Was she really out to stop his father, or was she just feeling so attention sapped, that she was moving away to get back his father’s attention?
During the time they had spoken, he had just sat and listened, offering the necessary ohhs and ahhh, the necessary consolations and all that. He had never told her of the mission, or what had been expected of him in the pack. He had only told her that Arnold had been behind the evil in Blue Moon’s pack. But then, she already knew it.
“Aren’t you going to say something, Curtis? Or are you roping your father and I together? What are you searching for? I might be of help.”
Of course she might be of help. She might even know where the evidence was, but Curtis wasn’t sure of his mother’s intentions yet. He loved her so much, but he couldn’t allow emotions to cloud his judgment. The bond was still active between his parents even though they were sleeping in different rooms.
As a matter of fact, he didn’t think his mother would want to break the bond-he wasn’t sure he wanted that either. That would be painful. He just wanted to stop his father and his crazy talks about paths.
“Curtis??? Why the silence? You don’t trust me? You trust your uncle and his family, but not me?”
Curtis sighed and got up from the chair at his mother’s words. He moved to the wall, and reclined on it, wondering if there was a way out of the situation. There was none in sight, so he took a gamble.
“I’m looking for a particular video, including the incriminating pictures that Father took of Uncle Peter. The one he usually uses to blackmail his brother.”
Jan sighed, and stepped into the office proper. She gave her son a sidelong glance, and walked to the wall opposite the large oak table. Aware that her son was watching her with all attention, she inhaled deeply and with her right hand, drew a certain pattern on the wall, so fast that Curtis couldn’t memorize past the first three movements.
He was glad though, more shocked than glad, when the wall caved in, and a cubic center popped out. A cubic safe. It was locked too.
Curtis stepped closer to his mother, shock even seen in his footsteps.
Jan inputted a combination and the safe beeped, and then opened. There in the safe was the memory card, and some printed pictures. Jan stepped away from the safe.
“You knew about this too?”
Jan looked away from the emotion she saw in her son’s eyes. She wasn’t proud of herself either.
“Just take it. We need to arrange here before your father comes back, or his beta pays a visit. You know he is quite unpredictable.”
Curtis wanted to talk more on the subject of the memory card, but his mother was making more sense, so he took the files in the safe with the memory card and stepped away, watching intently, yet failing to get the exact combinations or pattern to open or lock the safe.
Well, hopefully, he wouldn’t be needing them again.