Chapter 2

After 6 hours of driving, they finally arrived at the JLW station, – where one of the forensic teams are waiting for them in the basement – Cole and Carole park their car, get out of it while only bringing two notebooks and pens, as they head up the stairs into the building. "DING! DING!" the door makes a sound as they walk in and to the receptionist desk. Carole catches the attention of the receptionist and asks; "Excuse me, ma'am, can you tell us where to meet with Carter Folks?" Cole checks his pockets to grab his phone, as he has a photo of the letter on it and making sure that that note was still there. The receptionist looks at both of them sighing and says; "He is in the basement right now; you should be able to catch him in time if you take the elevator. He planned on meeting the two of you on the third floor but since you guys are early, I'll send you down there." Margo, the receptionist, points to the elevator that is furthest away; "That one only goes to the basement, and he hasn't come up since he went down..." she looks back at her desk and continues to do whatever she as doing before.

"Thank you, Margo," Cole says as he starts making his way over to the elevator while Carole looks at Margo suspiciously. "Carole, let's go, we have no time to spare." Cole states as he hits the button for the elevator, the doors open, and he steps in. Carole rushes over and slides into the elevator before it closes, sighing. "really Cole, that stupid line again, no time to spare, I swear you say it as much as possible just to piss me off." Cole shakes his head chuckling; "Carole what am I going to do with you, I have no clue what you are talking about and you didn't have to look at her like that, I already know what you are thinking and we haven't even been in this building for 5 minutes, just because she wasn't talkative doesn't mean she is scamming us, she could have been busy." Carole glances at Cole and sighs; "I know that, just my gut says there is something off about this," she puts her hand up to stop him from interrupting; "and I know your gut feeling is always right and mines not, just I don't know it feels different than how it normally is, you know?" Cole looks at her with a sympathetic look; "Carole, it is just your imagination, there isn't going to be anything unusual about this one," the elevator stops, and they step out. "I guess so, if that's what you feel then I'll believe you till I am able to figure out otherwise." Carole walks out an ahead of Cole down the hallway in a fast pace as Cole in tow.

Both coming to double doors, Carole looks at Cole expectantly as he gently pushes the door open and walks in chuckling as Carole follows behind him. As they both walk into the room, they notice a table set up with folders, boxes and tablets. Standing at the head of the semi-round table is a man; "Welcome," he says in a deep voice while walking around to greet them, "You must be Carole O'Bowe and Cole Jackson. My name is Carter Folks. This is what I call my headquarters, as it is soundproof, so we are able to discuss anything that goes on during a crime scene or about old abandoned places that people pay us to find and see the story behind it, whether it is a good story or a tragic one." "How much are you supposed to be getting paid for this job and why are you giving it to us, you seem capable enough to me to handle this all on your own??" Carole asks determinedly, as she shakes his hand right after Cole did. "Well, I wasn't the one who wanted to give it you guys, I wanted my team to do this on our own, but we had no other choice on the matter... Our director said we should, because of this," he hands Cole an envelope. As Cole opens it, he glances at Carter and pulls out the letter that says; "The first two archaeologists who can discover my five items that I have hidden somewhere on the property where I died or was killed will be rewarded half a billion dollars. Also, if the first two can't figure it out please pass it on to the next two who can or are greater at this than you." Carter ran a hand over his face and sighed; "See why the director wanted me to contact you, my team would never be able to figure out a mystery like this one, we've already been to the site and couldn't figure out where to start... Plus you guys are better than we are as riddles and such are your thing while we deal with real crime scenes..."

Carole looks between Cole and Carter; "Could we all take a trip their tomorrow and let us review the files, photos and anything else that we can use?" Carter nods and gestures the table; "Be my guest I'll be on the third floor, six doors away from the elevators on the left." Carter left to leave Carole and Cole to figure out how they are going to go about this. They walk over to the table and sit down; Cole opens one folder while Carole looks through the photos that was taken of the scene. As Cole was going through one of the folders that has the history of who owned the property before and currently as a note falls out. Carole notices that it fell out and takes it reading it out loud; "I grow tall and WIDE, what is thin or THICK but is always LONG?" Coles snatches the note out of Carole's hand and reads over the note several times then looks at the folder it fell out of, pointing to a tree; "Hey, Carole look, certain words are bolded... which means that they are important, but look at this photo of the tree.. the roots aren't wide or thick... but that one," he points to the specific one he is talking about, "looks long..." He looks over to her and she sighs; "I agree, but we've been here for 2 hours, we should head out and get some rest. We can come back here tomorrow and talk to Carter about going to the house as well as investigate and actually look at the tree to see what it is we are missing, because the note describes 3 things not one or two." Cole nods, closing the folder and putting everything in a neat pile, while Carole does the same with the photos. They head to a hotel to get ready for bed and to get stuff together for tomorrow. Once they got to the hotel, they head inside and straight to their room.

Once they got to their room Carole heads to thebathroom to take off her makeup and hoping in the shower while Cole startspacking a bag for tomorrow then he gathers clothes for myself just as Carolefinishes in the shower and comes out in a bathrobe with a towel on her head tohelp dry her hair. Cole goes into the bathroom to take his shower as Caroleheads to her bag and picks out pajamas to wear, then she starts to pack theother bag for tomorrow. She plops down on her bed just as Cole comes out of thebathroom fully dressed, shutting the bathroom door a but leaving the light onhe goes over to the balcony n shuts the blinds, and shutting off the main lightin the room. He makes his way to his bed and lays down facing Carole, noticinghow she already fell asleep. He chuckles slightly turning the other way going to sleep.