“You ever see our guy in here before?”
“Not that I recall.” Guy pushed away from the bar. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Jack flicked his fingers, dismissing the guy.
“Rude much?” Reid asked as they headed for the parking lot.
Jack clicked the key fob, the sounds rising into the night blanketed with snowfall. “I guess he falls into the camp of people who don’t have a lot of respect for law enforcement.”
“That’s the part of the job that I’ve chosen to forget.” Reid’s phone rang, and he quickly answered the call from Russ as he carefully stepped through the inch of snow covering the parking lot to the SUV.
“Got the storage unit company for you,” Russ said.
“Which one?” Reid asked.
“U-Stor-It-All.” He rattled off the address. “It could contain useful information, but I would caution you to leave it alone for now. Give me a chance to get a proper warrant for the motel room and then the storage unit.”
Reid understood the value long-term of handling this right, but it didn’t matter long-term if they did this the right way if Fowler got to Megan. “I’ll give you until morning.”
“That’s not reasonable, and you know it. With the holiday, more pressing warrant requests will likely keep ours on the back burner. Plus, it’s after hours. Gleason won’t likely pressure the clerk tonight.”
“Do what you can and keep me in the loop,” Reid said. “But if you don’t come through on a timely basis, I don’t promise I won’t go get that key and check out the unit.”
“You want the guy to go away for maximum years, right? Not be free to do this to Megan again?” Russ let the call fall silent.
“Yeah,” Reid said.
“Then do what I say.”
“Fine.”
“Besides, I’ve got something else for you. Some good news I heard on the grapevine.” Russ took a dramatic pause. “One of the local officers on Fowler’s investigation located a woman who saw Fowler at the gas station and heard the whole conversation he had with the attendant.”
Reid’s pulse kicked up as he slid into the vehicle. “She might’ve heard something Megan missed.”
“Exactly or…”
What was with his brother’s cryptic behavior? “Oh, I get it. You think her story might be different than Megan’s.”
“Could be, and you wouldn’t have gotten far at the FBI if you wouldn’t have reached the same conclusion in one of your investigations. At least one that didn’t involve someone you cared about.”
He was right, but Reid wouldn’t admit it. “You have a name and address for this witness?”
“I’ll text it to you, but you didn’t get it from me. Don’t want to get on Gleason’s bad side.”
“From who?” Reid laughed.
Russ chuckled. “I’ll get back to you when I have something new to report.”
Reid ended the call and shared the conversation with Jack.
“We could head over to talk to the woman now,” Jack suggested.
“I was thinking the same thing.” Reid stared at his phone screen, waiting for Russ’s text with the woman’s name and address.
“What’s that old saying about a watched pot never boils?” Jack chuckled.
Reid’s phone chimed. He read the details and quickly plugged the address into GPS.
