Welcome to Gaia! ::

Bertram pushed the door open and peered into the small, tidy apartment. Even with a cursory glance, he could see that Aaron had thought he’d been returning pretty quickly. Not only had he left a few windows open, the radio was on.

His companion stepped into the apartment behind him. He dropped several cardboard boxes in the front hall and sighed loudly. “This sucks -”

“Keenan!” he gasped, stopping the other before he could swear. “Honestly!”

“What?” Keenan replied, as though he didn’t know that Bertram didn’t want to him to use such language. “It does! It’s all because of that -”

“Keenan!”

“He betrayed them,” Keenan grumbled. “He betrayed Aaron – sold him out and got him killed and then… then he murdered Isaac! That son of a-”

“Keenan! I know!” Betram snapped. He sighed and shook his head. “Swearing about it won’t bring them back and the person responsible is… beyond caring what you think.”

“Sorry,” he said.

His voice was soft and tears were standing in his eyes. It would have been clear to a stranger that he was hurting. Bertram had known him for nearly ten years. He could see that Keenan felt guilty for the turn of events that followed Aaron’s death. If he’d put the pieces together sooner…

Hearing a soft coo, he looked up and stepped across the room. A small carrier pigeon was perched just outside the open window. “Did Aaron have a bird?” he called.

Keenan looked up from the box he was packing and nodded. “He used it to carry messages,” he said. “It went between Aaron and… Isaac, so they could communicate without anyone tracing it.”

Bertram nodded and lifted the bird off the windowsill. Aaron didn’t have any family, which was why Keenan and he were there to clean out his apartment. That meant there was no one to look after the bird now. “Can you take it?” he asked.

“Sure,” Keenan laughed. “Timmy loves birds.” He looked up and shook his head. “That dog chases anything with feathers, Bertram. It wouldn’t last an hour at my place.”

“I… I guess I’ll take him, then,” Bertram said. He glanced around until he found the little hutch the bird lived in when it wasn’t carrying messages. “Worley,” he whispered, reading the name written above the door.

Once the bird was settled in its coop, he gathered up Aaron’s supplies – the feed and water dishes, as well as the small pieces of paper to write messages on – and deposited them in a box. Finally, he began helping Keenan pack up the fallen agent’s other belongings.

He paused as he put the lid on one box and said, “You know you’ll catch the person responsible, Keenan. You’ll follow the trail that Aaron and Isaac found all the way to the last mole.”

“Yeah,” Keenan answered, giving him a weak smile. “Thanks, Bertram.” His eyes went to the coop and said, “At least Worley has a new home.”

Bertram nodded. The little pigeon would be a nice addition to his family. “Then some good came out of this miserable chore,” he whispered. Then he went back to work. The sooner they finished, the sooner he could take Worley to his house and get the bird settled.

This is a very lovely story. I like your style.

You are welcome. heart