Chapter 544: Who?

At nine in the morning, Damien was in the walk-in closet changing when his personal phone rang. Walking across the room with only his pants on, he grabbed a fresh white shirt from the rack and quickly put it on before checking who was calling. When he saw that it was Styles requesting a video conference, he walked over to the window and answered the call.

"Styles," Damien said after answering the call, extending his phone in front of him to show a better angle on the video.

The screen showed two videos—one was Damien's and the other was Styles, at his back were Amelia, Gus, Felix, and Chris. They all waved to greet as Styles quickly typed something on his keyboard and muttered, "Hey—Oh… Um..." Styles swallowed.

Confused at Styles's reaction, Damien's brows knitted. He was waiting for the other to continue when he saw Katherine behind him at the corner of the screen. She was caught by the camera as she got out of the bathroom with only her towel wrapped around her chest—oblivious that a video conference had commenced. Even though it was only a small image, he was aware that the others were using a computer—the video was clearer and bigger on their end and they were seeing her barely covered.

Damien abruptly shifted the position of the phone in his hand and pulled it closer to his face, his brows angrily crossed as he glared at the four men from the other line.

"Uh…" Styles coughed while the other three casually looked away from the screen, not wanting to look at Damien in the eye.

"What do you need?" asked Damien, his voice cold and sharp.

"Right. The news is about to go live. They have updates regarding the senator's autopsy report."

"What channel?"

Damien swiftly got the remote and turned on the TV, switching to the channel that Styles directed him to. Then they all started watching the news report that had just begun.

Katherine joined them soon after, already dressed in her casual clothes.

On TV, a reporter was interviewing a male doctor of the hospital.According to the reporter, the autopsy results had already been out since a couple of days ago. But because of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability or HIPAA, which provides security provisions and data privacy to keep patient's medical information safe, the result was kept private by the family.

However, today, they decided to announce the result to the public who had been adamant to know what exactly happened to the senator while she was in the hospital.

Then the doctor began, "The patient was brought to the emergency room unconscious and in serious condition. Traces of high dosage of alcohol and sedative components were found in the system. The medical team did their best to provide health care. However, the patient suffered from the side effects of the intoxication and the presence of sedatives in her system, and passed away due to cardiac arrest."

The reporter asked a few more questions to the doctor, explicitly asking if there was foul play on the senator's death. The doctor was careful not to release statements that were compromising and directed the reporter to ask the police that question instead. So the interview ended fast.

Before the news ended, the reporter added some points regarding the senator's death, stating that the hospital was saying that they ruled out the possibility of a foul play—then assuring that they would get a police's statement at the end of the day. "The family requests everyone to respect their privacy at this time of bereavement. They would like to mourn in peace."

The news ended, and all of them let out a sigh. Although they still had to wait for an official statement from the police, the light got brighter for Felix. And if things would go well as they hoped, that would mean he didn't have to hide anymore.

However, even though the news report was somewhat positive that morning, their little sense of relief was crushed when Styles informed the others that he received an alert from Shadow's base—Parker had assigned one of his agents to investigate the matter. This meant that the hospital would be checked in the hopes to find and trace Felix.

The senator had many enemies because of her position in the Congress—Parker knew this much. And although he believed that Senator Jones was the one who harmed herself and met her demise, he didn't want to rule out the possibility that it could be a deliberate attack. And if those enemies were after the senator because of Shadow, then for sure, he wouldn't let it slide.

With this, Katherine, Damien, and the team understood that they weren't in the clear yet especially when the women saw Parker in Harbor City the day before.

…

Crown Resort was outside the city proper of Harbor, which was why Damien and Katherine's trip to the safe house took a while as they had to travel to the opposite side. And by the time that they arrived in the location, it was already noontime.

The two entered through the front door and were greeted by Amelia. She and Damien exchanged brief hugs while she smiled at Katherine.

Looking at Styles across the room, Katherine couldn't help but comment, "You look terrible. Did you even sleep?"

"Nah, I stayed up all night working. This is my… gazillionth coffee." He raised a mug in the air with a crooked grin before turning his back on them and faced his computer again. He had dark circles around his eyes, looking like a zombie. He clearly needed some sleep.

While the two friends were chatting, Chris watched Amelia and Damien's interaction from a distance. It caught his attention, and he definitely found it odd. Why was it that Amelia looked closer to Damien than Katherine? First, Damien was Katherine's partner—if anything, it was more understandable if it was Amelia and Katherine who would appear more bonded due to their similarities—aka both former female Shadow agents and both of them had gone rogue. So seeing Damien and Amelia like this didn't make sense to him at all. Just who was Damien to her?

Wanting to voice out the questions in his head Chris stepped forward. "You—"

"Holy—Guys! You have got to see this! Come quick!" Styles burst, calling everyone's attention to his monitor. He was sitting in the middle of the room with a panoramic view of his monitors with several windows opened and programs running.

The group snapped their heads to his direction, their expressions full of anticipation and concern, wondering what he had discovered in that intelligent device of his.

They walked towards his work station, their eyes already glued to the screens as he turned around and scanned their faces. Then he declared, "You are not going to believe what I just found!"

"What is it?" Katherine asked.

On the screen with many windows opened, one of which was a CCTV footage of Central Harbor Restaurant's front entrance. Simultaneously tapping the keyboard, Styles explained, "Okay, so you gave me the list of the guests who were in the restaurant, right?"

Damien and Katherine nodded.

"So, I ran a program to check on all of their profiles to gather as much information as I could." Styles waved his hands at the monitors as he spoke, pointing out important factors that were found on the screen. "All the details of who they are, what they do—yada yada yada—you know the drill. And then, obviously, I looked through the footage to see what time that NIA—Director Hughes arrived at the restaurant. But of course, just like the previous times when we were looking through Chris's 'shenanigans', I didn't see the director coming in and out of the building—"

"Hmmm…" Chris hummed. "I never saw her enter and leave either. Whenever I arrived at the place, she would already be there waiting. You think it's really her? She had been playing all along?"

Styles raised his pointer finger in the air before tapping a few keys on the keyboard. And in the next second, the CCTV footage jumped into a specific frame where it showed a white luxury car that was parked in front of the restaurant. "I exhausted everything just to find out who this is."

"Who?!" The rest of the group who was standing behind Styles asked in unison. Not one of them recognized the car and the man who just came out of the backseat.

"You see…" Styles began, "Parker couldn't be meeting Director Hughes. Because at that time you guys saw him in the restaurant, she was in a conference meeting in washington." He pressed the enter button and a pop-up window appeared showing a recording of a 'live' footage of when Hughes was interviewed on national TV.

With his face laced with confusion, Chris crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Then if Parker wasn't meeting Hughes, who—"

Before Chris could even finish his question, Styles had already shown a facial recognition search result on the screen, saying, "Meet Josiah Connor—Director Hughes's wealthy husband. I don't know about you guys but after filtering the list, he's the only one that I could think of whom Parker would definitely meet face to face."

The looks on their faces were unreadable. But despite their silence, it was apparent that they all agreed to Styles's theory.