[Twilight] JoEllen's house is a bright, cheerful little bungalow on a treelined street in the small Kentucky town, shaded by mature oaks and maples that are still bare-limbed. There's a Bradford pear tree in the front yard already in full bloom, and thick rows of daffodils line the sidewalk leading up to the wide front porch.
The fifty-something kinswoman parks her compact pick-up truck underneath the car port and gives the young Garou a quick tour of the house, the bright, clean living and dining rooms, the compact kitchen, a narrow sunroom full of plants, wicker and an easel that runs the length of the house. Then she settles Roman into the narrow guest room upstairs. There's a twin bed covered with a well-worn quilt that smells of fabric softener and sunlight. The wood floors underneath his feet are well-worn but solid. A small three-shelf bookcase beside the bed serves as a nightstand as well, and an antique cabinet doubles as a luggage stand.
Of course, he's come with just the clothes on his back, and before she leaves, JoEllen gives him a brief once-over. Tells him that there are some clothes in the bottom drawer, pajamas that might fit him if he's a mind. He's welcome to anything in the kitchen or the house, and if he needs anything more, he should just make her a list.
Just as the tour is ending, she glances at her watch and flashes him a quick, soft smile by way of apology. "Now," she says, "if you'll excuse me, I need to get to the studio. I don't know if I'll be back in time for dinner, but I've left the number for the gathering house by the phone if you want to go back there for the evening meal. And of course town's just walking distance. With the college and all there are plenty of options."
[Fate] He remarked on her home, telling her is was a really nice place and looked mighty comfortable. He also asked about any pictures hanging on the walls or setting about. Asking who was who. And once she led him to the room he would use, he thanked her again for her kindness. He knew it had to make her uncomfortable having a strange Garou in her home.
"I'll be just fine Miss JoEllen. I can feed myself. Besides, I got to prepare for my challenge, so if I ain't here when ya get home, I'll try not to wake ya when I do turn up."
The smile he offered was polite while his mind went in to gear. First thing he was going to do was watch her leave, then he was going to carefully poke in to every corner of her home like a very rude nosy guest intent on finding out all he could about the woman and her family.
[Twilight] There are a few family pictures sitting out on the mantle. Her children, her grandchild. Mara at seventeen, a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl holding a twisting toddler (Emma Jean) firmly in her arms. Her brother (Jeff) and sister (Penny) beside her, fairer than she - a girl of eight with blonde-brown hair and hazel eyes, the boy - eleven or twelve - blonde and fair, looking right at the camera like it was a challenge to look away.
The walls are not full of family pictures, but of paintings - in a half-dozen different styles. Primitive landscapes, folk-art portraits, framed photographs of dramatic skies or close-ups of the inescapable art of the fronds of a fern. Blocky cubist imitations of Picasso, square eyeballs and stacked geometric forms, or impressionistic suggestions of some mediterranean seaside village or Kentucky vista, a rusting boxcar abandoned on a siding, surrounding by the encroaching woods.
JoEllen smiles faintly when the young garou makes all the appropriate noises about her house. But she doesn't preen, like some women would. Her worth isn't defined by it, and in truth as bright and cheerful as it is, there are cobwebs in some of the corners, piles of magazines in others. Someone needs to take the recycling out, and the tour does not include her office, the file cabinets overflowing with papers, or the craft room. Both those doors and closed up tight.
"Alright then," she finishes, leaving him to the room and turning to head downstairs again. "Good luck on your challenge, Roman."
Minutes later he will hear the engine turn over, see the truck back down the driveway into the treelined street, and away.
[Fate] A closed secured door was like a blinking neon sign to a Ragabash. As polite as he was, as well mannered as he seemed, Roman "Fate" Turner was a through and through Ragabash, despite jokes about how he fancied himself a shrink and everyone's caretaker. Or the jokes how he should of been born under a Full Moon with some of the insane antics he used during combat.
So it was to the office he went first as soon as he was sure that car was not turning around. If the room were locked, he'd try the gift of Open Seal to get inside.
[Fate] Or credit card or window. He was pretty curious and determined, even if he felt his best bet was the kin herself. Nosing around on your host was pretty low feeling if he let himself think about it and truth be told, there was a damned good chance he would not share what info he found if it turned out to be what he considered too personal and no threat to the Sept here. Which meant he would fail, but that was life sometimes. After all he did have his own set of morals.
[Twilight] The office isn't locked. The closed door opens easily when he tries the handle, and he finds himself standing in a somewhat more disordered guest room. There's another twin bed covered with an antique quilt, and sunlight cutting through the big, old-fashioned windows. There's a rolltop desk against one wall, beside a big four-drawer wooden filing cabinet. The top drawer is so overstuffed with papers that it bulges open. A flatscreen and a mouse-keyboard sit atop an another flat writing desk set beneath the window, with the tower tucked underneath on the floor.
A stack of bills sit ready to be paid, two March electric bills topmost in the stack, and another stack of documents (complete with crumpled receits and Schedule As and 1099s) beside them looks suspiciously like a half-completed tax return.
There's some clutter on the bed as well - packages that someone's purchased and not yet opened, a tightly wrapped wooden frame, a handful of nicknacks, toiletries, books and the like, still in reuseable bags in which she brought them home. Paintbrushes, paints. Modeling clay.
Above the rolltop desk, a bulletin board displays old post-cards from around the world. There's a snapshot of Penny someplace bright, sunny, desert like. African. Another shows the boy, Jeff, older, his arm wrapped around the shoulders of an African-American girl with modish hipster glasses and head full of glistening black curls. Maps of the United States and the world are framed on the wall. Both have thumbtacks in varying colors.
[Fate] It was the bulletin board he studied first with it's post cards. What he was looking for were ones from Emma Jean, since this seemed the most outstanding hurt in JoEllen. He'd be nosey and read them all of course before he was finished. Two electric bills also got his attention. He compared them to see if they were for the same residence or maybe JoEllen had another place she paid bills for? He'd look at the names on the packages that weren't opened, but he wouldn't break the seals on those.
[Twilight] Roman can match the post-cards to the blue pins in the map of the United States, trace the path the other garou - the full-moon, nameless to him now except with her human name - has taken around the country with her pack, week by week, month by month. Three months in Portland, then a flurry south, down over the California mountains into the southwest. The Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Bryce canyon. And on and on and on. Most of the post-cards are ordinary. Grams, Still raining in Portland, all are fine. Missing you + all. No address yet but will have one next week. So green here! Great coffee. Love, Em.
Grams, Lost my phone, still on the move. Had some problems but am okay. Please tell Mrs. Jenkins that I'm really sorry about Ed. The storms here are spectacular, though. Never seen so much open sky.
- and so on. There are periods of blackouts. Three weeks here, four weeks there, sometimes several months. One post-card from Nashville after six-week silence, sent two and a half-months ago says, Grams, New number (506) xxx-xxxx. CALL ME. URGENT need $$.
The unopened packages are addressed to JoEllen. They are somewhat heavy, like they contain books or something else. As for the electric bills - there are two locations. Two separate addresses. One no more than $40, though the other is well over $100.
[Fate] First thing he checked on the bills were the addresses, figuring out which one was for this home. The other, he fully intended to use a gift to locate if it were in this town. Then he fired up the computer to see if he could find out where the area code 506 was for. And he started looking for recent bank records in all the stuff here.
[Fate] Int+invest
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]
[Twilight] The smaller bill - 413 10th Street, Berea, Kentucky - seems to be for the kinswoman's home. The larger bill is for someplace else, 2765 Paint Lick Road, +7, Berea, Kentucky. He glances between them and sees below a stack of other bills. Gas, water, credit cards. Cable. The usual sort. Oh, look. There's a cable bill for 2765 Paint Lick Road, +7, too. And a gas bill.
Then he fires up the desktop computer to check out the location of the area code. The computer turns on quickly - it's a newer computer, one of those bills in the stack is for her Best Buy credit card, 18 months no-interest financing for a pair of computers, desktop and laptop. The screen glows, declare's itself to be Jo's Baby, and requests a password before it will boot up fully.
Bank records, gods. They aren't in the stack of bills that he filters through, and when he touches the other pile - well, he finds a W-2 and several 1099s from local banks. JoEllen works for Berea College, earns enough that she's likely to be an instructor or administrator of some sort rather than a clerical employee or cook. The rest of it, though - it's Greek to him. There are odd receipts and schedules, weird print-outs showing taxable and non-taxable, deductable and -
- well, he does not find bank records on the desk, and when he opens the top drawer of the filing cabinet to start looking for bank records, the first thing he pulls out is a twenty-page quarterly retirement account report, showing the % change in twenty different mutual funds, index funds and the like. Most ordinary humans cannot make hide nor hair of such things, and Roman is not an ordinary human, who needs to file taxes and save for retirement, pay health insurance co-payments and figure out when his deductable has been satisfied, whether he should put money into his non-taxable flexible spending account this year - more? less?
The bank records, he does not find.
[Fate] He frowned when the computer came up wanting a password and he let out one of them swear words he never used around polite company which included Miss Kora.
"Well horse shit!"
Jo's baby. About all he could do was try the names of her children. If that didn't work, he would try the grand daughter's name. If that didn't work, he was screwed. But he sure as heck was comparing the address on the Best Buy bill with those on the gas bills. After that, it was to the phone to call a cab company and play stupid. He'd flat out ask them where Paint Lick Road was and if need be, ask for a cab to get him there.
[Fate] Int+com
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Twilight] Aaaand, it's the daughter's name. Penelope, actually - Penny, he remembers her explaining - was just a nickname. So he types Penelope into the little window followed by a 1 and lo, the computer boots up quickly. He pulls up google and finds that the area code is somewhere in Tennessee. South of here, but not too far.
Most of the bills have the same address, 413 10th Street. Just the extra gas, electric and cable bills have the Paint Lick Road address.
And Roman's left standing in the study, bright spring sunshine gleaming in through the windows, dust motes dancing in the light. He phones the cab company, the local yellow cab, and the phone rings and rings and rings. When the dispatcher finally answers, he tells Roman in a gruff voice that he ain't the local tour guide. Does he want a cab or not?
[Fate] "Naw, not yet. Thanks."
He hangs up. Since he got the computer up and going, he turned to Google Earth to pin point the location of the Paint Lick Road address. Hoping it would also tell him if it was a business or what.
[Twilight] I-75 runs just outside Berea. The address on Paint Lick Road appears to be on the other side of the interstate. The area looks like its a complex of small businesses - maybe a shopping plaza, or near one - just off the interstate exit. There are a handful of business there, a few hotels, a grocery store, but the site is not specific enough for Roman to figure out what exactly is at the address from google earth.
[Fate] He started to think maybe it was the studio that JoEllen said she was headed off for. And really, if she were paying the bills for this place, he thought it was no big secret to keep from the Sept. Her goddaughter had urgently needed a call and funds. That could happen with any of them. She was with a Pack, Packs ran in to difficulties. He had three days to figure out what the Grandmother was hiding from the Sept and in his head, it had to be something big to worry over, not something like sending money to her Granddaughter.
"Roman, you're about as sharp as a cotton ball."
Before turning off the computer, he did one last check. He checked the browsing history, because he fully intended on deleting his own usage from there.
[Fate] int +comp
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Twilight] The browsing history includes google, g-mail, the Berea College intranet and exchange server, Amazon.com, wikipedia, clay-king kilns, the New York Times, youtube, I Can Haz Cheezeburger, ESPN.com, flickr, Expedia and Travelocity, several blogs, the Huffington Post, Comedy Central, hulu.com, the local paper and the college paper, google maps, Superpages.com, and on and on. While Roman's checking the browsing history, he realizes that a brief use of google and googlemaps is likely not going to stand out in the browsing history, while attempting to delete them would erase all her recently visited sites and make it clear that someone had been on the computer in her absence.
[Fate] He decided to try two things. First was go to the previous usage of google maps to see if it showed him where she looked before. Second was to follow the email link in the hopes she left her password in that part or he might take a peek. What a terrible guest he was turning out to be.
[Twilight] She's searched for addresses outside Nashville, and in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. She's looked up the specific address of the Union Station museum in Cincinnati, and the Underground Railroad museum as well. She's looked up the quickest routes to Columbus, Ohio and a restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky over the past six months.
And did not leave the password to her gmail in the browser.
All he finds is her work e-mail. Students offering excuses for failing to show up for/turn in assignments for art history, colleagues forwarding links to NY Times articles. Department wide notices about leaving the coffee pot on, or assignments for the graduation party. There's an e-mail reporting that the studio opening will be delayed at least six months. Funding issues with the grant and permits, and another discussing advocacy against state funding cuts. A college-wide e-mail announces both hiring and salary freezes. Another announces the next meeting of the women's book club at Taylor Books next Thursday. JoEllen replied, Unfortunately, have to decline. Have a grant deadline! It's clear, though, that this isn't her personal e-mail.
[Fate] Well he was no closer to figuring out a big secret with JoEllen other than maybe something to do with the granddaughter or that girl's mother who up and left. So he poked around to see if he could find anything from the mother. While figuring he was going to have to take a trip to that Paint Lick road address just so he could settle his mind on what was there.
[Fate] int+invest.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Twilight] Searching around for something from the daughter, he finds a post-card from Las Vegas, post-stamped August 10, 2010, mostly covered over by subsequent post-cards from the Emma Jean. There's a picture of the Bellagio on the cover, and the note simply says - Found a job! Working as a black-jack dealer. Still living with John, bank's holding off. Got the car fixed. I love the desert air. - Mara.
[Fate] Kin were hard, he was learning not all shared as they should and it almost seemed like this was the case with the daughter. He wondered who John was, that one wasn't mentioned so must be some lover or something. He went through the stacks of post cards from Emma Jean to make sure he didn't miss anything. Then the computer was turned off and he made sure everything seemed in the same place as before. Next the other closed room was checked.
[Twilight] It's late in the afternoon by now, sun slanting through the windows in long striations. The computer hums off and Roman puts the bills back, smooths the postcards back against the bulletin board. His boots echo on the wood floor as he walks back into the upstairs hall to the other closed door. The other front room. This one is messier, a bed in the corner covered by another quilt, though this one is half-way through the process of being repaired. He can see the patches on the fabric. There's a sewing machine in one corner, a wide work table underneath the window, fabrics, stones, paints, an easel, a dress-form, and all manner of craft and art supplies stored through the area. Wrapping paper in the closet, several bins full of clean, worn clothes that require repair, and framed photographs of places far and near on the soft yellow walls.
[Fate] This room didn't get much of a look. There was just too much stuff in there that seemed way too ordinary. So he started poking around, looking for JoEllen's room for a look. Then like all teens, he was going to poke his nose in the fridge.
[Twilight] JoEllen's room seems ordinary. The furniture is antique, the bedframe a swirl of old brass - somewhat tarnished, but that seems to be part of the charm. There's another quilt here, hand-done. The walls are a soft, mossy green, the dark wood furniture with art deco accents floats against the wall. A piece of hand-tatted lace serves as a scarf on the dressing table, and a small marble bowl holds a handful of pieces of jewelry. Yesterday's earrings, maybe, a long chain. There's a cat sleeping in the middle of the bed, and it looks up as Roman eases open the door and glances inside. Late afternoon sunlight comes in through the windows. The bed's made, maybe hastily, a pair of tennis shoes tossed on the floor, dried mud in the grooves.
Downstairs, he checks the fridge and finds: food. Orange juice, milk. A whole chicken still in its package, and a great big roast. Greens for salad and baby carrots, salad dressing and mustard, ketchup and half-and-half. A wedge of manchego cheese and a package of soy-based hotdogs. Iced tea in a pitcher, leftovers from a restaurant in a styrofoam container.
[Fate] He'd forgotten there was a cat in the place. So busy nosing around he'd completely forgotten about it. Quietly he closed that door and went down to check out the fridge. He'd not be invited to help himself to the food in the house, so after a look that made him hungry. he made another call to that taxi company. This time he asked to be picked up and taken to Paint Lick road. Asking to be let out a half a block before the address he sought.
[Twilight] (pause!)
The fifty-something kinswoman parks her compact pick-up truck underneath the car port and gives the young Garou a quick tour of the house, the bright, clean living and dining rooms, the compact kitchen, a narrow sunroom full of plants, wicker and an easel that runs the length of the house. Then she settles Roman into the narrow guest room upstairs. There's a twin bed covered with a well-worn quilt that smells of fabric softener and sunlight. The wood floors underneath his feet are well-worn but solid. A small three-shelf bookcase beside the bed serves as a nightstand as well, and an antique cabinet doubles as a luggage stand.
Of course, he's come with just the clothes on his back, and before she leaves, JoEllen gives him a brief once-over. Tells him that there are some clothes in the bottom drawer, pajamas that might fit him if he's a mind. He's welcome to anything in the kitchen or the house, and if he needs anything more, he should just make her a list.
Just as the tour is ending, she glances at her watch and flashes him a quick, soft smile by way of apology. "Now," she says, "if you'll excuse me, I need to get to the studio. I don't know if I'll be back in time for dinner, but I've left the number for the gathering house by the phone if you want to go back there for the evening meal. And of course town's just walking distance. With the college and all there are plenty of options."
[Fate] He remarked on her home, telling her is was a really nice place and looked mighty comfortable. He also asked about any pictures hanging on the walls or setting about. Asking who was who. And once she led him to the room he would use, he thanked her again for her kindness. He knew it had to make her uncomfortable having a strange Garou in her home.
"I'll be just fine Miss JoEllen. I can feed myself. Besides, I got to prepare for my challenge, so if I ain't here when ya get home, I'll try not to wake ya when I do turn up."
The smile he offered was polite while his mind went in to gear. First thing he was going to do was watch her leave, then he was going to carefully poke in to every corner of her home like a very rude nosy guest intent on finding out all he could about the woman and her family.
[Twilight] There are a few family pictures sitting out on the mantle. Her children, her grandchild. Mara at seventeen, a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl holding a twisting toddler (Emma Jean) firmly in her arms. Her brother (Jeff) and sister (Penny) beside her, fairer than she - a girl of eight with blonde-brown hair and hazel eyes, the boy - eleven or twelve - blonde and fair, looking right at the camera like it was a challenge to look away.
The walls are not full of family pictures, but of paintings - in a half-dozen different styles. Primitive landscapes, folk-art portraits, framed photographs of dramatic skies or close-ups of the inescapable art of the fronds of a fern. Blocky cubist imitations of Picasso, square eyeballs and stacked geometric forms, or impressionistic suggestions of some mediterranean seaside village or Kentucky vista, a rusting boxcar abandoned on a siding, surrounding by the encroaching woods.
JoEllen smiles faintly when the young garou makes all the appropriate noises about her house. But she doesn't preen, like some women would. Her worth isn't defined by it, and in truth as bright and cheerful as it is, there are cobwebs in some of the corners, piles of magazines in others. Someone needs to take the recycling out, and the tour does not include her office, the file cabinets overflowing with papers, or the craft room. Both those doors and closed up tight.
"Alright then," she finishes, leaving him to the room and turning to head downstairs again. "Good luck on your challenge, Roman."
Minutes later he will hear the engine turn over, see the truck back down the driveway into the treelined street, and away.
[Fate] A closed secured door was like a blinking neon sign to a Ragabash. As polite as he was, as well mannered as he seemed, Roman "Fate" Turner was a through and through Ragabash, despite jokes about how he fancied himself a shrink and everyone's caretaker. Or the jokes how he should of been born under a Full Moon with some of the insane antics he used during combat.
So it was to the office he went first as soon as he was sure that car was not turning around. If the room were locked, he'd try the gift of Open Seal to get inside.
[Fate] Or credit card or window. He was pretty curious and determined, even if he felt his best bet was the kin herself. Nosing around on your host was pretty low feeling if he let himself think about it and truth be told, there was a damned good chance he would not share what info he found if it turned out to be what he considered too personal and no threat to the Sept here. Which meant he would fail, but that was life sometimes. After all he did have his own set of morals.
[Twilight] The office isn't locked. The closed door opens easily when he tries the handle, and he finds himself standing in a somewhat more disordered guest room. There's another twin bed covered with an antique quilt, and sunlight cutting through the big, old-fashioned windows. There's a rolltop desk against one wall, beside a big four-drawer wooden filing cabinet. The top drawer is so overstuffed with papers that it bulges open. A flatscreen and a mouse-keyboard sit atop an another flat writing desk set beneath the window, with the tower tucked underneath on the floor.
A stack of bills sit ready to be paid, two March electric bills topmost in the stack, and another stack of documents (complete with crumpled receits and Schedule As and 1099s) beside them looks suspiciously like a half-completed tax return.
There's some clutter on the bed as well - packages that someone's purchased and not yet opened, a tightly wrapped wooden frame, a handful of nicknacks, toiletries, books and the like, still in reuseable bags in which she brought them home. Paintbrushes, paints. Modeling clay.
Above the rolltop desk, a bulletin board displays old post-cards from around the world. There's a snapshot of Penny someplace bright, sunny, desert like. African. Another shows the boy, Jeff, older, his arm wrapped around the shoulders of an African-American girl with modish hipster glasses and head full of glistening black curls. Maps of the United States and the world are framed on the wall. Both have thumbtacks in varying colors.
[Fate] It was the bulletin board he studied first with it's post cards. What he was looking for were ones from Emma Jean, since this seemed the most outstanding hurt in JoEllen. He'd be nosey and read them all of course before he was finished. Two electric bills also got his attention. He compared them to see if they were for the same residence or maybe JoEllen had another place she paid bills for? He'd look at the names on the packages that weren't opened, but he wouldn't break the seals on those.
[Twilight] Roman can match the post-cards to the blue pins in the map of the United States, trace the path the other garou - the full-moon, nameless to him now except with her human name - has taken around the country with her pack, week by week, month by month. Three months in Portland, then a flurry south, down over the California mountains into the southwest. The Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Bryce canyon. And on and on and on. Most of the post-cards are ordinary. Grams, Still raining in Portland, all are fine. Missing you + all. No address yet but will have one next week. So green here! Great coffee. Love, Em.
Grams, Lost my phone, still on the move. Had some problems but am okay. Please tell Mrs. Jenkins that I'm really sorry about Ed. The storms here are spectacular, though. Never seen so much open sky.
- and so on. There are periods of blackouts. Three weeks here, four weeks there, sometimes several months. One post-card from Nashville after six-week silence, sent two and a half-months ago says, Grams, New number (506) xxx-xxxx. CALL ME. URGENT need $$.
The unopened packages are addressed to JoEllen. They are somewhat heavy, like they contain books or something else. As for the electric bills - there are two locations. Two separate addresses. One no more than $40, though the other is well over $100.
[Fate] First thing he checked on the bills were the addresses, figuring out which one was for this home. The other, he fully intended to use a gift to locate if it were in this town. Then he fired up the computer to see if he could find out where the area code 506 was for. And he started looking for recent bank records in all the stuff here.
[Fate] Int+invest
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]
[Twilight] The smaller bill - 413 10th Street, Berea, Kentucky - seems to be for the kinswoman's home. The larger bill is for someplace else, 2765 Paint Lick Road, +7, Berea, Kentucky. He glances between them and sees below a stack of other bills. Gas, water, credit cards. Cable. The usual sort. Oh, look. There's a cable bill for 2765 Paint Lick Road, +7, too. And a gas bill.
Then he fires up the desktop computer to check out the location of the area code. The computer turns on quickly - it's a newer computer, one of those bills in the stack is for her Best Buy credit card, 18 months no-interest financing for a pair of computers, desktop and laptop. The screen glows, declare's itself to be Jo's Baby, and requests a password before it will boot up fully.
Bank records, gods. They aren't in the stack of bills that he filters through, and when he touches the other pile - well, he finds a W-2 and several 1099s from local banks. JoEllen works for Berea College, earns enough that she's likely to be an instructor or administrator of some sort rather than a clerical employee or cook. The rest of it, though - it's Greek to him. There are odd receipts and schedules, weird print-outs showing taxable and non-taxable, deductable and -
- well, he does not find bank records on the desk, and when he opens the top drawer of the filing cabinet to start looking for bank records, the first thing he pulls out is a twenty-page quarterly retirement account report, showing the % change in twenty different mutual funds, index funds and the like. Most ordinary humans cannot make hide nor hair of such things, and Roman is not an ordinary human, who needs to file taxes and save for retirement, pay health insurance co-payments and figure out when his deductable has been satisfied, whether he should put money into his non-taxable flexible spending account this year - more? less?
The bank records, he does not find.
[Fate] He frowned when the computer came up wanting a password and he let out one of them swear words he never used around polite company which included Miss Kora.
"Well horse shit!"
Jo's baby. About all he could do was try the names of her children. If that didn't work, he would try the grand daughter's name. If that didn't work, he was screwed. But he sure as heck was comparing the address on the Best Buy bill with those on the gas bills. After that, it was to the phone to call a cab company and play stupid. He'd flat out ask them where Paint Lick Road was and if need be, ask for a cab to get him there.
[Fate] Int+com
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Twilight] Aaaand, it's the daughter's name. Penelope, actually - Penny, he remembers her explaining - was just a nickname. So he types Penelope into the little window followed by a 1 and lo, the computer boots up quickly. He pulls up google and finds that the area code is somewhere in Tennessee. South of here, but not too far.
Most of the bills have the same address, 413 10th Street. Just the extra gas, electric and cable bills have the Paint Lick Road address.
And Roman's left standing in the study, bright spring sunshine gleaming in through the windows, dust motes dancing in the light. He phones the cab company, the local yellow cab, and the phone rings and rings and rings. When the dispatcher finally answers, he tells Roman in a gruff voice that he ain't the local tour guide. Does he want a cab or not?
[Fate] "Naw, not yet. Thanks."
He hangs up. Since he got the computer up and going, he turned to Google Earth to pin point the location of the Paint Lick Road address. Hoping it would also tell him if it was a business or what.
[Twilight] I-75 runs just outside Berea. The address on Paint Lick Road appears to be on the other side of the interstate. The area looks like its a complex of small businesses - maybe a shopping plaza, or near one - just off the interstate exit. There are a handful of business there, a few hotels, a grocery store, but the site is not specific enough for Roman to figure out what exactly is at the address from google earth.
[Fate] He started to think maybe it was the studio that JoEllen said she was headed off for. And really, if she were paying the bills for this place, he thought it was no big secret to keep from the Sept. Her goddaughter had urgently needed a call and funds. That could happen with any of them. She was with a Pack, Packs ran in to difficulties. He had three days to figure out what the Grandmother was hiding from the Sept and in his head, it had to be something big to worry over, not something like sending money to her Granddaughter.
"Roman, you're about as sharp as a cotton ball."
Before turning off the computer, he did one last check. He checked the browsing history, because he fully intended on deleting his own usage from there.
[Fate] int +comp
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Twilight] The browsing history includes google, g-mail, the Berea College intranet and exchange server, Amazon.com, wikipedia, clay-king kilns, the New York Times, youtube, I Can Haz Cheezeburger, ESPN.com, flickr, Expedia and Travelocity, several blogs, the Huffington Post, Comedy Central, hulu.com, the local paper and the college paper, google maps, Superpages.com, and on and on. While Roman's checking the browsing history, he realizes that a brief use of google and googlemaps is likely not going to stand out in the browsing history, while attempting to delete them would erase all her recently visited sites and make it clear that someone had been on the computer in her absence.
[Fate] He decided to try two things. First was go to the previous usage of google maps to see if it showed him where she looked before. Second was to follow the email link in the hopes she left her password in that part or he might take a peek. What a terrible guest he was turning out to be.
[Twilight] She's searched for addresses outside Nashville, and in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. She's looked up the specific address of the Union Station museum in Cincinnati, and the Underground Railroad museum as well. She's looked up the quickest routes to Columbus, Ohio and a restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky over the past six months.
And did not leave the password to her gmail in the browser.
All he finds is her work e-mail. Students offering excuses for failing to show up for/turn in assignments for art history, colleagues forwarding links to NY Times articles. Department wide notices about leaving the coffee pot on, or assignments for the graduation party. There's an e-mail reporting that the studio opening will be delayed at least six months. Funding issues with the grant and permits, and another discussing advocacy against state funding cuts. A college-wide e-mail announces both hiring and salary freezes. Another announces the next meeting of the women's book club at Taylor Books next Thursday. JoEllen replied, Unfortunately, have to decline. Have a grant deadline! It's clear, though, that this isn't her personal e-mail.
[Fate] Well he was no closer to figuring out a big secret with JoEllen other than maybe something to do with the granddaughter or that girl's mother who up and left. So he poked around to see if he could find anything from the mother. While figuring he was going to have to take a trip to that Paint Lick road address just so he could settle his mind on what was there.
[Fate] int+invest.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Twilight] Searching around for something from the daughter, he finds a post-card from Las Vegas, post-stamped August 10, 2010, mostly covered over by subsequent post-cards from the Emma Jean. There's a picture of the Bellagio on the cover, and the note simply says - Found a job! Working as a black-jack dealer. Still living with John, bank's holding off. Got the car fixed. I love the desert air. - Mara.
[Fate] Kin were hard, he was learning not all shared as they should and it almost seemed like this was the case with the daughter. He wondered who John was, that one wasn't mentioned so must be some lover or something. He went through the stacks of post cards from Emma Jean to make sure he didn't miss anything. Then the computer was turned off and he made sure everything seemed in the same place as before. Next the other closed room was checked.
[Twilight] It's late in the afternoon by now, sun slanting through the windows in long striations. The computer hums off and Roman puts the bills back, smooths the postcards back against the bulletin board. His boots echo on the wood floor as he walks back into the upstairs hall to the other closed door. The other front room. This one is messier, a bed in the corner covered by another quilt, though this one is half-way through the process of being repaired. He can see the patches on the fabric. There's a sewing machine in one corner, a wide work table underneath the window, fabrics, stones, paints, an easel, a dress-form, and all manner of craft and art supplies stored through the area. Wrapping paper in the closet, several bins full of clean, worn clothes that require repair, and framed photographs of places far and near on the soft yellow walls.
[Fate] This room didn't get much of a look. There was just too much stuff in there that seemed way too ordinary. So he started poking around, looking for JoEllen's room for a look. Then like all teens, he was going to poke his nose in the fridge.
[Twilight] JoEllen's room seems ordinary. The furniture is antique, the bedframe a swirl of old brass - somewhat tarnished, but that seems to be part of the charm. There's another quilt here, hand-done. The walls are a soft, mossy green, the dark wood furniture with art deco accents floats against the wall. A piece of hand-tatted lace serves as a scarf on the dressing table, and a small marble bowl holds a handful of pieces of jewelry. Yesterday's earrings, maybe, a long chain. There's a cat sleeping in the middle of the bed, and it looks up as Roman eases open the door and glances inside. Late afternoon sunlight comes in through the windows. The bed's made, maybe hastily, a pair of tennis shoes tossed on the floor, dried mud in the grooves.
Downstairs, he checks the fridge and finds: food. Orange juice, milk. A whole chicken still in its package, and a great big roast. Greens for salad and baby carrots, salad dressing and mustard, ketchup and half-and-half. A wedge of manchego cheese and a package of soy-based hotdogs. Iced tea in a pitcher, leftovers from a restaurant in a styrofoam container.
[Fate] He'd forgotten there was a cat in the place. So busy nosing around he'd completely forgotten about it. Quietly he closed that door and went down to check out the fridge. He'd not be invited to help himself to the food in the house, so after a look that made him hungry. he made another call to that taxi company. This time he asked to be picked up and taken to Paint Lick road. Asking to be let out a half a block before the address he sought.
[Twilight] (pause!)
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