His heels clicked off the steps as he headed down to the street.He was lucky Bourneville was a dog.If they ever had kids, he was going to be useless.
“Iheardsomeonetrashedyourcar,” Benson commented.His voice sounded louder and somehow posher against the bare, unfinished walls of the dorms they’d repurposed to offices.He offered the coffee he had in one hand as he added, “At Kincaid’s hotel?”
Javi leaned back in his chair.It creaked ominously under him as he did so, a reminder that they’d repurposed the furniture as well.He rubbed his thumb over his left eyelid, trying to smear away the after-image of hours of background data on one Brian Fowler, and reached for the coffee with his free hand.
The cup was heavy and industrial-issue brown.It looked like it was designed to make sure to avoid office conflict over anyone’s personally claimed cup.The coffee was good, though.Hot and with a malty sweetness that lingered.Kincaid knew where not to stint when dealing with overtired, overworked government employees.
As he swallowed and lowered the cup, the weight of it loosely cradled in both hands, he tried to decide whether to take Benson at face value or not.There was a built-in smugness about the junior agent that made it hard to tell.
There were probably people who’d describe Javi the same way.
“I think the correct terminology is motel,” he side-stepped the question instead.“You can tell because of the exterior entrances and the hot and cold running dealers.”
Benson laughed.
And apparently, Javi discreetly slid his chair back as Benson propped a hip on the corner of his desk, now they were friends.Benson, his cowlick more or less tamped down with gel, took a drink of his own coffee.He swung his foot idly, the toe of his shoe brushing Javi’s trouser leg.Javi braced his heel on the ground and inched back a little more.
“What is that even about?”Benson asked.“The guys say he always stays someplace like that.Is it to…you know?”
He gave Javi a knowing look and waggled his eyebrows.Either he was very good at office politics, or he was playing tic-tac-toe while everyone else played chess.It was hard to say.Javi definitely wasn’t going to engage inanysort of speculation around Kincaid that involved Benson’s suggestive eyebrows.
“Just for the mystique, I think,” he said vaguely.“What does he have you doing?”
Benson finished his coffee, set it down on a pile of printouts, and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Fowler’s internet history,” he said.“Mostly I’m just checking in with the techs, and they tell me they’ll let me know when they have something.Rinse and repeat.Apparently, he’s pretty good at hiding his digital footprint.”
“Makes sense,” Javi said.He gestured at the computer screen, currently on Fowler’s high school transcripts.“He was a smart kid.International academic camps instead of summer holidays, AP classes, and enough college credits that he could have graduated in two years, if he’d not dropped out.”
Benson shifted around to look at the screen.
“Sounds like me,” he said.“I mean, in my case, my mom bought my way into a lot of it…but it paid off.Here I am, a federal agent.How did someone who started off at the Model UN stay in a shithole town like Plenty, no offense.”
“I live here, I wasn’t born here.”
“I mean, it’s the ass-end of nowhere, and he’s kidnapping federal agents?”
“Good question,” Javi said.“His internet history would probably help.”
Benson got halfway through a nod of agreement before his brain caught up with him.He nodded his acknowledgement and grabbed the coffee cup as he slid off the desk.
“I’ll go bother the techs again.”
He walked away.Javi swung his chair back around to face the monitor and clicked from Fowler’s transcripts to his disciplinary record.Half of the LA office of the FBI had been tasked with picking apart Fowler’s life.The problem was that they thought they were looking for the right answer to the wrong question.
It wasn’t why he’d kidnapped a federal agent; it washowhe’d found a federal informant in however-informal witness protection.
So far, nothing in Fowler’s background answered that question.He’d been smart, but not to the level of cracking government databases.Even if he was…Kincaid and Saul had played this old-school.It might be impossible to create a new identity these days without a digital trail, but they’d kept everything off-book enough that the trail was nowhere anyone would expect.
Besides, Plenty might have its fair share of crime, but there was zero sign Fowler had ever been a team player.He lived within his means, he was employed, and he didn’t have any significant connections.Or even insignificant ones.Fowlerhadbeen put on a 72-hour hold twice, once as a teenager and once two years ago.He’d also, embarrassingly enough, briefly been on an FBI watchlist after his involvement with the local farmers' protest against mortgage gouging last year.Nothing that really warranted Federal attention, it had only been in reaction to some larger rural workers’ rights groups amplifying the farmers’ complaints.
Javi paused.He toggled between tabs as he checked the details.
According to Gardner’s lie, he’d cut Fowler loose out of sympathy when his sister had explained her brother’s mania was a result of resentment over the bank foreclosing on him.
There was no foreclosure.Fowler’s last recorded address had been one of the fruit farms on the outskirts of town.It was a co-op care farm that helped psychiatric patients transition back into everyday life and earn a living.
Fowler’s sister had signed him in.
