“Are you out of your damn mind!?” yelled Grace, “You want me to go to an island in the middle of nowhere during hurricane season, which is also at the exact same time 2 years ago several people went missing and were never found!?”

“You haven’t even let me explain the purpose of sending it,” responded Charles. He walked inside, turned on a light in the kitchen, and sat down.

“The team is composed of guns for hire, guides, and mercenaries to help search for those missing people. Or at least what happened to them.

“The only people evacuated successfully were you and Dr. Scranton. Currently, she is not available to go on the Initiative. However, you are.”

Grace was sitting with him at this point, while Ginger walked back to her when she had finished licking Charles.

“Listen, just pay attention to me, I cannot go. I’ve moved on from it, I’m reconnecting with family, and I’m enjoying it all. I’m not giving that up to never be heard from again somewhere in the Bahamas!”

He looked at her, gave a sigh out, and got up.

“I understand. If you ever change your mind, call me and I’ll get you on the team.”

He hands her a card with his name, a phone number, and an email.

“Highly doubt it, but thanks.”

He walks out of the kitchen and leaves, as Grace closes the door behind him.

“I should put this in the junk drawer, I don’t think I’ll ever need this.”

She walks back into her kitchen and opens a drawer with various items. Scissors, pens, Zip-Lock bags, and other random things. She puts the card on top of a pair of oven-mitts and closes it.

“Hopefully no other strange men want something to do with me, so I might as well go to bed.”

She calls for Ginger to follow her, and the two head back upstairs into Grace’s small bedroom. Ginger spins around in her dog bed, and Grace settles into her twin bed.

* * *

The sunshine leaked through the blinds into the bedroom, and the mockingbirds called. Grace’s alarm starts ringing, waking her up. Pushing dark brown hair out of her face, she slowly leaned over to press the snooze button.

“Shut up, stupid alarm,” she muttered. Before she could get an extra five minutes, her phone buzzed.

“Ugh, fine, what?” she said a bit more clearly, but still slurred sleepily.

She pulled up her phone to see a text from Chris from a few minutes ago.

“Morning sis! You probably won’t read this for an hour or two, but call me when you do.”

“Why would he want to call me?” she thought as she went to her contacts.

“Morning Grace!” he says excitedly to her.

“Why the hell did you wake me up at 9:00?” she responds.

“I just wanted to chat, like about how my date last night was awful.”

She chuckled to herself, helping her grogginess a bit, “How bad was she?”

“When I picked her up, she said that she wanted to have a drink at Shenanigans first. That was 2 and a half hours, which made us late to Ember’s, which she complained about. The whole time we were there she was annoyed that they didn't have anything good in the buffet.

“When we left for Jolly Rogers, she was already drunk off of beer and tequila. She got so wasted that I had to help her walk, on which she was screaming at me, ‘I’m fine, leave me alone I can walk great!’ or constantly laughing and giggling at nothing. All the while she’s nearly passed out and talking in cursive.”

“That was an awfully long explanation to say she was a bitch.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t call her that, but I will say she would make a great ex-wife one day. Hopefully not mine.”

Grace chuckled a bit more, to the point where it was soft laughter.

“Congrats, Chris, you were able to get me out of my irritable mood.”

“Thanks, I know you hate waking up at a sensible time.”

“Right, and what happened last night certainly didn’t help.”

“What happened last night?”

“Well, last night some guy who looked like he was going to either a funeral, a court hearing, or a business meeting showed up at my door.”

“That already is concerning. Was there anything he did that was suspicious?”

“No, he might’ve looked the part for stock discussions, but he didn’t talk like it. He spoke casually and let Ginger lick the crap out of him.”

“Crap? Weird you're in a good mood- wait, I’m off-topic, what did he come for? Did he want something from you?”

“Yeah, he wanted me to go to god damn Avetoro!”

Just saying the word made Grace mad, but she kept herself from getting too angry.

“What?! Why?”

“He said he was going there to ‘find out what happened to the missing people’ and ‘you're the only one who can go’ since Scranton is in Myanmar.”

“Well, the decision is obvious. You should not go.”

“I agree, and that is exactly what I told him. He said he understood, he gave me his card, and he left.”

“Did you take the time to read the card?”

“Yes, maybe? I saw his name, an email, and a phone number.”

“What are they?"

Grace sighs, knowing she had to get out of bed.

She pulls herself off out of the covers and onto her feet. Ginger was awake and at the front door, ready for her walk and wagging her tail with the power of a baseball bat. Grace walked into the kitchen, opened the junk drawer, and the card was still sitting almost perfectly on top of the oven mitts.

“The email is ‘[email protected]’ and the number is 410-639-5928. Why do you want to know?” Grace says, curious what Chris would want with the information.

“Ok, I’m going to try and email him, and I’ll see if he responds.”

“Why the hell would you do that? What are the chances of him being positive about it, let alone responding!?”

Grace listened for his response, but she heard silence.

“You're typing it right now aren’t you?”

“Yes I am,” he replied.

“Damn it.”

After a minute of nothing, she could just barely hear the sound of a sending email.

“He definitely won’t respond, but I at least made the point of ‘stay the hell away from my family.’”

“He didn’t say anything about my family. Just wanted me to come because I was the only one who got out safely. I pretty much know the terrain.”

“That’s the only reason they wanted you to tag along. They can just get a map, you probably only went to a creek and looked at birds the entire time.”

“Pretty much.”

“So, I guess we don’t have anything else, so see- wait, he responded.”

“Really? I thought he’d just ignore it.”

A moment of silence passed, which Grace assumed was him reading the email.

“Oh, Oh shit.”

When he spoke, he sounded like he just barely missed getting hit by a car, but it had a concerned tone.

“What, what’s wrong?”

“He overheard us.”

“What?”

“He knew what we were saying. I’m sending you the email right now, you’ll see for yourself.”

A text message popped up, and Grace saw the copy-pasted email.

To Mr. Bennet,

I apologize if you do not like the Initiative getting involved with your sister, and that’s understandable after what happened. Why don’t we settle this and you can continue with that bad date of yours. A “great future ex-wife” you called her?

Sincerely,

Charles Furgen

A sinking feeling came to Grace’s stomach. She went back upstairs and looked around for hidden cameras or speakers. Nothing.

“Oh shit, Chris. How did he know?” Grace said, in the same shaky voice Chris had just a few minutes earlier.

“I don’t know,” he responded.

“Yeah, I know you don’t know, it was rhetorical; But, if he has some hidden camera or microphone, what else could he have access to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly, I think I should accept the offer.”

“Wait, what!? Why in God’s name would you work with the guy with possible Inspector Gadget machines to listen to us!?”

“Because I want to know what he’s up to. He probably doesn’t have anything on you because you weren’t on the island. I was. The ‘Charlie Initiative’ probably needs a navigator, and who knows what they’ll do to get one!”

“Do not do this. That island is in your past, you've moved on, so just leave it alone!”

“And do what? Call the cops? The only thing we have is an email of what we’re talking about, if we had more I would call them, but we don’t! I’m going, and I’m going to record what they’re up to.”

Grace hangs up on Chris and heads back to the kitchen, and picks the card back up from the counter. She dials Charles’ number, and puts the phone back up.

“Good to know you’ve changed your mind; I’ll be expecting you to be at Baltimore Airport at 12:00 PM tomorrow. Don’t oversleep, Grace.”

* * *

Grace got out of the Uber driver’s ride and heard the distant roar of airplanes taking-off past the main building.

“Thanks for the ride,” said Grace as she pulled out her suitcase.

“No problem,” he responded before driving off.

Grace heads inside the large lobby, crowded with people, before struggling to the service desk.

“Hello miss, how can I assist you?” said the weirdly-excited and giddy woman behind the desk.

“That’s weird, I’d think this job would be boring as hell!” thought Grace before asking, “Hi, I’m here to meet up with a, uh, friend. Can you check to see if Charles Furgen has checked in yet?”

“Hmm, let me check that.”

She looked away and checked on the computer before looking back to Grace to say, “Yes, he’s at gate 13, flight to Grand Bahama. He said he is expecting Grace Bennet, is that you, miss?”

“Yes. One more thing, do I need to get a ticket? I did not get one from him.”

“No, he has a digital ticket already bought for you. Just go to the front desk, tell them your name, and they’ll let you go through.”

“Alright, thank you for the service.”

“It’s my job, miss.”

Grace walks away, looking back to see the lady at the desk go from a large grin to an idle face as she gets on her phone.

“I knew it!”

* * *

In front of Gate 13 stood Charles Furgen, still in a very formal outfit, but with an added wireless earpiece.

“Hello, Ms. Bennet, good to see you,” he said with a slight smile to Grace.

“I can’t say the same,” Grace responds.

“Anyway, we’re boarding now. We're first-class, so head through the gold curtain when you’ve gone through the public area.”

Grace somewhat disregards him, and heads through the board to the plane. Inside, it was very crowded and loud, with the rows upon rows of people varying from screaming children to their exhausted parents to aggravated seniors. She walks past all of them to the golden curtain, and inside is more relaxing. Far fewer seats, a bar in the back, and a lot less people. The people that were there were silent, either dressed in business attire or a kind of military-esque outfit, and all with the same wireless earpiece.

“Excuse me, Miss, are you supposed to be back here?” asked one of the military people. He had brown hair spiked up in the front, and was the only person willing to talk to someone.

“Just show me where Grace Bennet sits, and I won’t bother you for the rest of the flight,” Grace answers.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you decided to come, Mr. Furgen said you weren’t.”

“Yeah, well a certain circumstance made it imperative I come.”

“Ok, well I hope you enjoy the trip. My name’s Adam by the way, Adam Butch,” he holds out his hand to shake hers.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” she responds. She walks to an empty seat near the bar, certainly going to get a shot after take-off.