[b][center][h2]Paige Kennedy[/h2][/center][/b]

Sol City continued to be as quiet as it had ever been. Traffic flowed peacefully with its steady hum, aircraft entered the pattern in the bright blue overhead descending in a steady parade toward Sol International and people on the street generally seemed at ease.From her platform on the driving range next to Luna Sports Facility, Paige could easily take in all of it. A ball came up on the automatic tee and she briefly squared her shoulders before sending it away with a crisp [i]thwack![/i] and a glint of sunlight off the club. She didn’t need to watch it sail down the range into the far net, she knew by the sound how far it went and that her technique was off, too much power. The ball just shot away like a laser beam. Another one came up and she did the same thing.

The weeks that followed what happened on Catalina Island, were much like the scenery in front of her, [i]perfectly normal[/i], almost surreal. Though she’d had to spend a considerable amount of time in the downtown office, she’d still managed to keep Milo out of it. No one had even known he was there other than Marlin and she had no idea what happened after her helicopter left them there on that rock just off the coast. No, she had lied: Lied on the paperwork. Lied to her fellow Marshals and lied to her superiors. She knew the game and she knew exactly what to say. Even if they could tell she wasn’t giving the whole story. Just as the old maxim went: it wasn’t about what you knew, [i]it was what you could prove[/i]. Lying was easier than telling the truth. They had trained her for it. 

It was the normalcy that followed. Like [i]nothing[/i] had happened. She’d never seen anything like it. Nikki and his clan had gone silent where she had been fulling expecting the next big showdown. Not even Agent Barrett had shown his face back at the office though she still had his Luna Sports keycard tucked in her back pocket and kept it on her at all times. Whatever they were after was inside LSF, but she’d tried it all over the facility and found nothing. Again, the trail was cold. It was the Giancana calling card: [i]play big, then lay low[/i]. The lack of helpful leads was infuriating and everyone around her could feel it in her aura, namely Siobhan and Milo. However, as frustrated as she was, she couldn’t help the strange feeling that they were [i]made for her[/i] and a part of her [i]enjoyed[/i] that she hadn’t put them all in the ground... yet. It was a feeling she couldn’t really describe and didn’t talk about, like a game that she wasn’t sure she was going to win, but there was no way she’d quit.

She sighed and tapped the keypad for another round to start, glancing at her phone with her regularly stoic gaze and rolling the driver through her fingers. There was actually some warmth in the air for a change and it was almost pleasant, though she still missed Florida and thought about it every day. A slight breeze lifted the flags out over the range as it made its way through her loosely braided blonde locks. A ball came up and she cracked it away again, but instead watched it sail, the better shot curving gracefully against the wind. She was loosely holding her form with the club behind her, [i]thinking[/i]. CT had given her the name of some kid he claimed could backtrace Agent Barrett’s keycard and see what doors in LSF it had previously opened, but she hadn’t tried to track him down. [i]Kid stuff[/i] he called it and when she looked into it, the contact was indeed [i]a kid[/i]. She was skeptical, but it was essentially the last lead she had without waiting for them to make another move, which was not an option. She pursed her lips slightly at the thought and blasted another laser shot away.