Dead Presidents (An Aria Raymond Thriller Book 3) by Thomas Ransom (that summer book txt) 📕

“Yeah…” Sanjay was distracted. “I don’t… I feel I should call Jake. He needs to look at this and we can take a team there. Nicole, it might not be safe for you…”

“Are you kidding me?! Just stop okay?! Stop with this nonsense again. I am not telling Jake about this … at least not for now. We … I need to figure this out. I must know what is going on and who is behind this. The minute you tell him, he is going to take all this away and leave me out of the entire investigation. We still have no clue what is happening. I want to keep this between us for now. At least until we know a little more.”

“Nicole… it could be dangerous. I know this will be dangerous.”

“I am not saying we should barge in and confront whoever we find,” Diaz glared at him. “All I am saying is that we can just drive up there and get a sense of things. We won’t go inside. Just observe for a few minutes and then come back and deal with all of this.” She nodded at all the papers in front of them. “Who knows? We might even find something to connect this all. It has taken us too long to get our hands on something concrete. I don’t want to mess this up. I highly doubt those people know we have this. For the first time, we are a step ahead of them. We need to use it to our advantage.”

Sanjay sighed. Diaz did make sense. He also wanted to figure this out sooner than later. He knew if he told Jake, it would take them time to plan and implement their next steps. It could make them lose their edge. The fewer people knew about this, the less chance there would be of them finding out and preventing them from getting closer. However, he was worried about Diaz. She was, after all, a civilian and so much could go wrong. Then again, they were not planning to do an investigation. They would just drive by to see what this place was and come back here to decide what to do.

“Okay. Fine, we can go.” Sanjay sighed, hoping against hope that he wasn’t going to regret this later, “But! You won’t leave the car. Understood? We will just drive around and see the place. Maybe wait for a few minutes and that’s it. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah. Great! I won’t leave the car. Thank you! And don’t tell Jake yet. Okay? Until we know a little more.”

“Okay. But I will have to tell him soon. I can’t keep something this big from my partner. And we will have to start an official investigation on this in the next few days and then you will follow my orders and cannot do anything without informing me.”

“Uggh! Fine! Fine! Can we go now?”

“Let me look up these coordinates. See where we are headed.” Sanjay opened his laptop and entered the coordinates in the location map. “That’s weird. It looks like an empty spot.”

“Show me.”

The map was showing an empty space for the coordinates. Diaz zoomed out and noticed there was an old railway station nearby, along with some old apartment buildings at a distance. The place seemed to be a little out of the city. “Maybe it’s a new building or something. Or they are planning to build something there?”

“God knows.”

“Let’s just check it out.”

It took over an hour to find the place. The whole area seemed to be abandoned. They hardly saw anyone on the streets. There were a few buildings that seemed like they might fall down at any moment. They could see dim lights in two to three rooms on different floors of multiple buildings, indicating that some people were living there, and it wasn’t exactly a ghost town.

“What is this place?” Diaz asked, looking around.

“Honestly? I had no idea a place like this existed.” Sanjay checked his phone to make sure they were at the right place. “There. Straight ahead.”

“All I can see is a bunch of trees. There doesn’t seem to be anything… wait, was that a light?”

Sanjay took out his binoculars from the dashboard storage box and surveyed the area. “I think there is a building behind those dense trees. I can see a light.”

“We have to check it out.”

“What?! No! Nicole you promised yo…” Diaz was already out of the car and heading toward the hidden building, looking around to make sure no one was watching her. “Uggh!!” Sanjay grabbed his gun from the storage box and got out of the car, placing his gun in the holster on his belt. He raced after Diaz.

“What do you think you are doing? I asked you to stay in the car.” He stopped next to her and noticed her staring at the building. It looked like a storage building and appeared to be massive. He walked closer to inspect it. It looked well-preserved, unlike the condition of the other buildings in the area. In fact, Sanjay realized it must have been constructed in the past couple of years. The building had merely two to three horizontal windows at the top, and they could see the dim light inside. There was no way to sneak a peek inside. The lack of windows seemed deliberate.

“Let’s walk around. Be careful and stay close to me,” he whispered to Diaz. There was no point trying to convince her to wait in the car; it was better she stayed close to him. They couldn’t hear any noise and didn’t see any cars around. The building could be empty, Sanjay thought, unless the mode of transportation was marked inside. He noticed similar windows on the side of the building as well.

“Look!” Diaz said in an urgent whisper, pointing at something.