Collateral

“Are you okay, Sophia?”

Sophia slowly shakes her head. Her face looks green and she retches.

“You can wait outside if you want.”

Sophia retches again and slowly exits the room.

The corpse looks and smells like it had been there for quite a while. Rose inspects the man’s face. There are already maggots in the eyes, so he must have been here for a while. Yellow foam lines his mouth.

She has seen that yellow foam before. She opens the man’s button-down shirt. As she expected, he has synthetic lungs, Rose would recognise these scars out of thousands. She looks around and finds a pill bottle for immunosuppressants. She takes a pill out and inspects it. Placebos. As expected. Someone murdered this man by messing with his meds.

Rose shakes her head. She isn’t here to investigate this man’s murder, she is here to steal the phone. She checks the man’s pocket and finds not only one but two phones. In addition, she finds an id stick and two cell phones. One looks cheap, like a burner phone, while the other has an expensive chrome case. In addition, she also finds an ID card.

Rose walks out, and Sophia is leaning against the wall, now slightly less green.

“Let’s go back to the car.”

Back at the car, Sophia looks less like she is about to vomit and more like she is about to cry. She is shivering in the car seat. Rose hands her a bottle of water.

“Was this your first time seeing a dead body?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t worry. You will get used to it.”

“I am not sure. Did you ever get over seeing your first dead body?”

Rose thinks back to the first time she saw a dead body. Seeing the charred and burned remains of her boyfriend, after his car exploded, still haunted her, even tho it was fifteen years ago. She shakes her head. Compared to how she handled seeing her first dead body, Sophia was handling it pretty well.

“At least we know we have the right person.” Rose shows Sophia the name of the screen of the id stick.

Sophia forces a smile. “That is great. Did you find the phone?”

Rose shows her the burner phone. “Yes, I did.”

“That means we finished the mission. Let’s go back to Dad.”

Rose and Sophia walk back into the diner. Mr Johnson is sitting in a booth in the back, but he is not the person that attracts her attention. Rose walks to a teenage girl sitting behind the bar eating a plate of eggs and bacon.

“Hi, little angel.”

Ellie turns around “Hi Mom, didn’t expect you to be here. Have you finished the job yet?”

Rose laughs. “I have. What are you doing here?”

Ellie sighs “Sophia told me she couldn’t make it cause her dad made her do a job. I thought going out with friends isn’t the same without Sophia, so I decided to wait here for her.”

Ellie looks over at Sophia, who is talking with her dad. “Is she ok?”

Rose shakes her head. “She is pretty upset. We found a dead body.”

“Rose, can you come over please?” Mr Johnson yells.

“I am right back, little angel,” Rose whispers at Ellie, then she walks over to Mr Johnson.

Sophia is quietly sobbing in the seat, while her dad is scrolling through the phone, looking uninterested.

“Are you sure this is the only phone you found on the body?” he asks Rose.

“Yes.”

He turns to Sophia. “Is she speaking the truth?”

Sophia nods, slowly.

“Well, this is not the phone I needed. This is a burner phone.”

Rose tries her best to look confused. “What kind of phone were you looking for?”

“Well.” Mr Johnson explains. “I, as a fixer, like to keep information on many different people. John Sterling is a hacker, and he stole many files I was keeping. He stored all of them on his phone.”

Mr Johnson shows the burner phone to Rose.

This phone was used to send a single message to one number. ‘Meet me a the Wayward Motel, room 315.’ Find out who this message was sent to. I want you two to track him down and recover the phone.”

“I have a phone tracking device in my van. I call the number, track the phone call, and we go meet the owner. Easy as pie.”

Rose walks back to Ellie.

“Sweetheart, it seems like I and Sophia will have to work this night.”

Rose hugs her daughter, and while she does that, sneaks the chrome phone into Ellie’s purse.

She whispers into her daughter’s ear. “I just snuck a metal phone into your purse. Decrypt it, and text me the files that are on it. And tell nobody.”

Ellie looks confused but she nods. “Okay, see you at home, Mom. Will you miss me?”

“Of course, I will miss you. I love you!”

“I love you too, Mom.”