Toeing the Line, Draft 1, CH 23

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#21 of Toeing the Line

draft 1 of Book 2 in the inheriting the Line Series.

Denton has been Kicked off the Force. Turning to a life as a Private Investigator, He finds himself pulled into the Society's politics. A man charged with delivering him a briefcase is found dead, and the case is missing.

Add to that, people from his past resurfacing, the FBI getting pulled into what might be a hunt for an actual monster, and friends getting too close to the magic they shouldn't find out about. Denton's life is getting more complicated, instead of simpler.

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I had five Milton Farmer, two Milton F., and eight M. Farmer. Phone numbers hadn't been linked to address since I'd been a kid, so having the name and the number wasn't helpful in finding the Guy I was looking for.

The one thing I did know was that Milton Farmer was involved with the Society in some fashion. I didn't recall Farmer as one of the names Frank had mentioned when he gave me a run down of all the families, but there had been over a hundred.

I hadn't even tried to remember all of them.

I started by eliminating six of the M. Farmers by looking up their addresses and the records when they'd bought the house. It had been; a Malcolm, two Martin, a Marc, a Michael, and a Mario. Neither of th Milton F. Were Farmer. One was Frederick, the other Franker.

I had seven Milton Farmer, and I needed only one. One with

I had seven Milton Farmer, and I needed only one. One with a connection to the Society. I started with a call to Max, which went to his message center. I asked him to call me back as soon as he could. Martin might know.

"Martin's phone," a woman answered, and it took me a moment to realize it was Tessa.

"It's Denton. Is Martin available."

"He and Colby are in the middle of sex, Is this urgent?" I heard someone gurgle close to the phone. "Hush, Antony," She whispered.

"No, I can wait. Do you know if other Society families have businesses in Denver?" Being married to Martin, Tess knew about the Society, and she was fairly high in the law firm where she worked, she might know too.

"I expect some do, but I wouldn't know who they are. My firm isn't related to he Society. Max would be in a better position to answer that."

"I've left him a message, thanks."

"Do you want Martin to call you when he's done?" "Sure, thanks. Have a good day." I disconnected.

Okay, so I had to start this on my own. I missed the sifting department. I never had to do this myself before.

With name and addresses I could get financial records, if I had the right warrant. Which I didn't. I needed a slicer, too. The only one I knew was in Australia, so I tried him. His message center told me he was busy and didn't let me leave a message. Yanik was out.

What else could I get? Name and addresses also gave me social sites. I wasn't going to find out secrets, but a lot of people tended to give out way too much information on those. I know the sifters at the precincts loved them, more than one crook had been caught because he's talked about his score on social media. I had a site, from back when I was a teen, and over shared, but after one of the trainer at the academy had given us a run down of how easy it was to access that information and what could be done with it, I'd cleaned it out as best as I could.

The first Milton was into fur dyeing, and had pictures after pictures of what he'd done to his. I was impressed by the amount of time he spent bleaching it, and then applying colors. The most astonishing picture was of him on his side, naked except for a thong with a recreation of Mount Rushmore on his chest and closed legs.

He had links to other fur artists, and I caught myself checking some of them out before remembering I working.

Back to it, he a doberman, a teacher as a elementary school. He had a wife and two children, one cat, and two parrots. He loved putting up video of his birds, they talked a lot.

I lost another thirty minutes looking at his family pictures. I'd forgotten how absorbing checking someone else's site was, but again, I had to work.

I stuck to the profile for the others. A garbage collector, just like my father had been, before he died. One was tax adjuster, one a programmer-- Maybe I should see if he could slice? --one owned a coffee shop, another was a fur stylist and the last was a priest.

I rally hoped that was him. It wasn't because he was a Catholic priest what he was church, but if one of them involved with the Society couldn't be good. I'd still have to check him out, if the others didn't get me anything.

I went over them again, The garbage collect worked for he city, I couldn't see the Society working with him, those I'd met all had aristocracy in their blood. Even those like Max and Martin who weren't stuck up at all, wouldn't get close to a city worker if they could avoid it.

The tax adjuster worked for an accounting firm, I had to search for it, since he didn't mention it on his site, Gerome Accounts, They did commercial accounting, what ever that was.

The programmer worked for a security firm, maybe he was a slicer after all, called Santiago Fort. They were world wide and offered net security. They listed some of their larger clients, and Cormoran Financial was one of their clients.

It made me pause, wasn't Santiago the name of one of the Society families? I couldn't quite remember, so I called the expert.

"Err, Hi Denton," Frank answered, on the ring before his message center took over.

"Hey Frank. His Santiago one of the families?"

"Hun? Err, yeah, they are."

"Oh shit, please tell me you're not in the middle of procreating."

The lion laughed. "No, after six woman dad was satisfied.

I'm just busy with someone."

"You didn't have to answer. I'd have survived. I'll let you get back to it."

"Hey, Denton...," he trailed off and I hear someone say something, but couldn't make it out.

"Yes?"

"Never mind, I'll see you at some point."

"Looking forward to it." I disconnected.

I had my guy, I was sure of it. He lived on the other side of the city, but if I headed out now I'd be able to get there under an hour.