Chapter 4
“Fy Arglwyddess Fach?” Scott’s mother said as she came in, having been called over to take care of the two. “Beth wyt ti’n Gweneud yma?”
“MOM” Scott hissed…
She rolled her eyes at him to which he responded “Mae fyn nhy, fy rheolau, yn siarad Saesneg!”
She crossed her arms and glared at him.
“Cousin Gwen DOESN’T UNDERSTAND A WORD YOU ARE SAYING!” he hissed again. “My house, my rules… ENGLISH”
“Not my fault that brother of mine didn’t teach him…” She said with a small tone.
“MOM!” Scott yelled “It’s bad enough you’re in one of your moods, but please stop misgendering her. You called her your ‘little lady’ two seconds ago…”
“you had me frustrated and I forgot, I’m sorry.”
“Mum… Look… I know you’re still upset about Maria. I know she was your friend… but I need your help. Please, don’t make this harder by forgetting. She came out when she was ten, this isn’t rocket science.” He told her “And she purposely chose YOUR name to honor YOU… Could you be bothered to show a little respect?”
“My name is Gwendolyn. She is Gwyneth.”
“When is the last time ANYONE has called you Gwendolyn?” He asked her “Hell, I though your name was just Gwen till I was 12.”
“Will you two stop yelling? You’re going to wake Toni.” Daisy said as she came down the stairs from checking on baby Toni.
“I’m sorry…” the older woman said, “I just wasn’t expecting this.”
“What’s all the noise?” A Barry asked with a yawn as she sat up. “What I miss? Ugh… One thing I didn’t miss was hangovers…”
“Family business, Agent Allen.” Mrs. Riley said “Nothing to worry about.”
“No… No she should be in on this because we might need her.” Scott said “This isn’t the first time Nana has been this stupid… But something in Gwen’s eyes… This is serious, why else would she be here?”
“Barry, we need to head into the office. Come on.” Daisy said, grabbing the other woman by the arm and pulled her off the couch.
“If Skye wakes up, tell her to meet us there unless I call.” Scott told his mother as he followed Daisy and the frog marched Barry out the door.
“Where are you going?” Scott’s mother asked.
“To find just what is they ran away from.”
A little less than an hour later, the three agents were sitting at their stations in the main room of the Field office.
“I’m in your grandparents security system.” Barry said, holding her head with one hand a typing with the other. “Please tell him ‘SwanseCityis#1’ is not a great password.”
“Don’t think I haven’t tried” Scott said as the feed came on the big screen.
“What time are we looking for?”
“probably somewhere in the last 12 to 24 hours.” Scott said. He turned to one of the support staff members, Agent Millwood “Hey, Roger, could you do us a favor and get Barry something for her headache from the breakroom?”
The man nodded and left as Barry began to play back the recording.
“It’s roughly a four-hour drive from Swansea to London. Check in times, flight times, all the waiting around… we should be looking sometime mid-day, yesterday, their time.
“Okay. Here’s a lot of people leaving.”
“Jesus…” Daisy said as the facial recognition software immediately spat out who else was in the room. “What the hell is half of Roxxon’s board of directors doing at your grandparent’s house?”
“Putting that on the ‘to yell about’ list” Scott said.
Then the screen flashed up with a particular name.
“Make that the top of the list.” Scott said in shock.
“Get Deputy Directors Coulson and May on the line…” Daisy said to Agent Millwood as he returned. “NOW.”
Agent Millwood took one look at the screen, put down Barry’s aspirin and water and ran out the door.
“We need to play it back further…” Scott said, “I want to see if this has anything to do with Gwen. God, I hope not.”
Barry only needed to rewind a few more minutes of footage before she found the two young women running out of the house, jumping into a car and driving away. They played it back further, watching the fight inside, watching Gwen and Laura arrive and then watching the Roxxon contingent arrive. They then played everything back in the correct order.
“You guys don’t think she knew who he was, do you?” Barry asked the pair.
“It’s possible…” Scott said before turning to Daisy “We need to get to Kennedy. I’ll call ahead and have them get started on pre-flight.”
“Why?”
“Mom can keep an eye on everything with Skye. We have the who, we have the Where, we have the when, we just need the why… And we both know exactly who to ask, and I don’t think she’s going to be that cooperative over the phone.”