Tony closed his laptop as Kinley joined him. 
“Catching what you missed the first time?”
Tony shrugged. “Technically, you could say that. I only watched one of the three sessions live. I thought since we have the time, I would review the other two.”
“Wait, they did the interviews simultaneously? Three different teams of investigators?” Kinley asked.
“Yes, to the first, no, to the second. They only sent one uniformed in to take their statements,” Tony explained.
Kinley shook his head. “With all the plainclothes do-nothings orbiting standing around here all night they couldn’t send even one into the room. Any idea why?
“Yeah. Care to guess?” Tony asked.
“Domus mea et praecepta mea,” Kinley replied.
Tony looked confused. “What?”
“My house, my rules” Kinley explained with a smirk. “Witnesses not suspects.” Kinley waited for the nod. “Let the uniforms practice their interview skills by taking statements, while the important people do their important things.” Kinley looked around the empty space that was once bustling with activity.
“Are you sure you weren’t in the pre-interview discussion scrum?” Tony asked with a wry smile.
“I have been a part of it a thousand times.” Kinley replied shaking his head slowly. “Did they at least have a detectives watch the feeds?”
“Yeah.” Tony sighed. “Two of them. Watching all three. At the same time. Although they were more interested in discussing last night’s game than actually paying attention.”
“That’s beautiful,” Kinley said. “At least the locals have taken it upon themselves to preemptively eliminate three people from the potential pool of suspects.”
“Do you think they could be behind it?”
Kinley’s lips formed a straight line hinting at a smile. “At this point, given what little we have, I would place the entire state of Colorado on my list of possible suspects.”
“That wasn’t really an answer.” Tony noted.
“It was.” Kinley replied taking a seat next to Tony. “Just not the one you where hoping for. Did you finish watching them?” Kinley motioned towards Tony’s laptop.
“Twice.” Tony said hefted the device over. “Technically three times for the one, if you count the live show.”
“Did your keen powers of observation reveal any great secrets?”
“To be honest,” Tony let a little smile form. “Mostly what not to do.”
“Oh grasshopper,” said with a smile. “There’s hope for you yet.” Kinley opened the laptop, waking the computer from its hibernation. “Let me review them. We can then compare notes.”
“You don’t want the highlights?”
“No. Then I’d just be seeing it through your lens,” Kinley replied, sweeping his hand in front of the screen. “This way I can bring my own biases to the table. Maybe between the two of us we can find the truth.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Tony said, looking around the space. “Guess I’ll go grab some coffee for us from that little shop over there.”
“Good idea.” Kinley said turning his focus to the computer. He pulled a small thumb drive from his pocket and copied the interviews before ejecting the drive. With a single fluid motion, he returned it to his pocket. With his other hand, he tapped the trackpad, starting the video file labeled interview room one.
* * *
Lauren was surprised by the emptiness as she emerged from her workspace. The room had been soundproof because of its use in audio and video production. She noticed only one uniformed officer near the front door. Apart from that solitary guard, it was just Kinley and what she presumed was his latest partner. They were sitting on soft chairs, staring at what she assumed was a screen based on the flickering light. “Catching up on your binge-watching while you babysit me?” Lauren’s voice startled them, but fortunately not enough that either felt the need to reach for their gun. Kinley tapped the trackpad, pausing the video. “Nothing interesting. Unfortunately. Just the interview of one of our witnesses.” “Maybe I should take a look? Since I came all this way after all.” Lauren’s face and voice were flat. “Tony,” Kinley shifted his attention. “Mind snagging me a refill from the coffee stand?” He nodded his head across the commons area. Tony shifted his glance between the two before a small shiver went up his spine. “No problem boss.” He stood up and stretched a little. “Anything for you, ma’am?” “Tony, is it?” She waited for a nod acknowledging his name. “I’m good. I had plenty of things to eat and drink on my long ride up here tonight.”
Kinley waited for Tony to move safely out of earshot before continuing. “Let me guess. You expected more?” “Generally, I don’t expect a two-hour chauffeured car ride in the middle of the night to examine a smartphone and laptop from people actually cooperating with the investigation.” “Had other plans?” “Cut the crap. Any of the local tech guys could’ve done what I just did. Hours ago. Hell, I could’ve walked you through it on a fifteen-minute video chat. You certainly didn’t need me driving all the way up here to make copies of mostly empty devices.” She nodded her head back in the direction she had walked from. “True. In fact, I could have even done it without calling you.” “What am I doing here?” He motioned for her to sit down near him, but she remained frozen in place. “Obviously, the forensics work was a pretense.” “Yeah. No kidding. What’s your angle?” He took a deep breath. “This case will either be solved or blow up in our face because of the cyber elements.” “OK. I can see that.” She moved to take a seat and lowered her voice. “But why me?” “Number one, your presence ensures that we remain relevant in that realm. If I had let the locals rip the drives—, I would spend most of the rest of that young woman’s short life begging to see the reports.” Lauren leaned back into the chair a little bit, “Fair. You Feds never win many popularity contests with locals.” He nodded his head in agreement. “Yeah, we certainly have our charming ways.” “What are your other reasons?” “Second, there are a lot of moving pieces here, and a lot of it stinks.” “What do you mean?” “Everything from the podcast solving the cold case to a well-timed threat.”
“True, but strange things do happen in real life.” “Yeah. They do. However, while everyone is hard-charging and chasing mirages, trying to be heroes, I want you to take a serious look at everything. See what we might be missing.” “Basically, run a parallel investigation?” “More like keeping us honest. While we’re fixated on what we think the evidence says and our inevitable clash of jurisdictional perspectives, I want an outside source to provide an alternative perspective. Which leads me to number three.” She raised her hand to her chin. “Now your real reason.” He nodded towards her. “Just in case this is legit, I may need to skirt certain,” Kinley paused either to think of the term or provide a pretense of being conflicted by it, “processes. Especially given the amount of money and political clout surrounding our cooperators.” “You’re saying you didn’t call me for my forensics skills.” An exaggerated look of shock formed on her face. “As I said,” he nodded towards her. “Our only chance of solving this in time is likely in cyberspace.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “I’m assuming you don’t want to know until or unless you absolutely need to— what exactly I might be getting up to on my own?” “It’s the way it will have to be. Here.” He retrieved the thumb drive from his pocket, tossing it to her in a low ballistic arc. “Copy of the interviews. Just in case you need it.” “Kind of like Olathe.” She shrugged her shoulders. “What about your new buddy?” She gestured slightly in the direction Agent Jackson had wandered towards. “As far as he, or anyone else is concerned, you are a consulting cyber forensics expert for the FBI.” “Seems you have all your bases covered.” She raised the thumb drive slightly before palming it. “Actually, I’m trying to figure out a way to keep you as far away from anything a defense team could request in discovery, while still keeping you in the mix.”
She smiled. “Mind screwing over the locals?” “We didn’t get that helpful FBI reputation we have with them for nothing.” A small smile formed at the corners of his mouth. “What are you thinking?” “We have Mr. uniform over there.” She nodded towards the entrance. “Ask him to take the electronics and return them to their rightful owners. I then accidentally give him the two copies I’ve made to check into the local department’s evidence control.” “Well, that would keep your name off any paperwork. One thing about doing that—” She raised her hand. “Not done.” She lowered her hand back down. “Obviously, once they have control, they’re not going to let you or anyone associated with you near it. I am sure they will hem and haw and say they will get right on it. However,” she smiled, “you normal people have no idea how long any of this stuff takes. Luckily,” she leaned back, placing both hands behind her head while broadening her smile, “I have a couple of extra hard drives with me.”
* * *
Lauren was not concerned about the phone locking up while she was away. One of the first things she did was disable the lock timers and power save functions on both devices. While technically an alteration, it wouldn’t cause any issues with the evidentiary chain of custody. Besides, this third copy was for her own investigation. She allowed the thumb drive to fall from her hand onto the desk before retrieving two more hard drives from her bag. After plugging the these into the little square devices attached into her computers and the target laptop and phone, she returned to the open terminals and pressed the tab and enter keys. This combination reran the last commands causing everything to come to life. She expected the phone would finish in about eight minutes. On the other hand, the laptop would take at least a half-hour.
She let out a sigh as she looked at the thumb drive sitting on the desk. “Each podcast episode is about an hour,” she said softly as her voice was absorbed by the padding on the walls. “I might as well see how long.” She inserted the drive into her smaller laptop that was ripping the phone. Rather than pulling the files onto her computers, she left them on the drive. It wasn’t perfect but it would lessen the forensic tell if anyone got interested. Not that it would matter in this case but was a habit following a hard lesson from her misspent youth. Before opening the files, she checked the metadata attributes. Again, it was a habit, but it would also give her an idea of how long the videos might be. She was a little taken aback that none of them were over a hundred megabytes. “Unless they were using crappy equipment, these interviews couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes long.” Glancing at the larger laptop, she observed the progress bar moving slowly across the screen. She returned her attention to the three files on the thumb drive. “I guess it’s bachelor number one.”
* * *
Kinley watched as his partner finished his third cycle through what could be described as pacing without changing locations. He started the cycle by playing on his phone for about three minutes. This was followed by a not so casual glance at his watch. Next, back to where the equipment was being copied. Then to the officer at the entrance, before restarting with his phone. Kinley decided to break the cycle. “You don’t idle well— do you, Tony?” Tony nodded. “That obvious?” “It’s alright. One of the key lies of Hollywood that police work, military service, and other professions are just one action sequence after another. It’s amazing how much is just waiting.” “Don’t forget the paperwork,” Tony grumbled.
Kinley glanced back to where Lauren was working. “I suspect she’ll be done soon.” “I’m kind of surprised she’s not done already. I don’t remember it taking this long during the Academy.” “Thus, the lesson. Field is always different from the classroom.” “Thanks!” Tony’s voice had a little more bite to it than he intended. Kinley ignoring the snippy reply continued. “I’m sure she’ll be done any time now. Why don’t you head out to the truck? Get it warmed up. That way we can roll out to the hotel as quickly as possible.” “At least I’ll be doing something useful,” Tony muttered as he moved towards the door. Kinley asked. “What time is the first meeting in the morning?” Glancing at his watch Tony answered, “Four and a half hours.” “Tell you what. I’ll grab a ride over with our new CBI counterpart and catch that one. You can get some extra sleep and bring our forensics expert over later. Tony looked surprised. “Don’t you think they’re going to want a brief from her?” “First meetings with nothing to go on will be about laying out strategies, schedules, and resources. With around sixty hours until the deadline and no bidirectional coms with whoever is behind this— we’re looking at a marathon investigation, not the usual twenty-four hours kidnapping sprint.” “Dare I ask which would be easier?” Kinley considered his words for a moment. “Both have their own virtues and vices. In this case, we have more time for the offender to screw up. That also means that we are going to be stressing our resources over a longer period. Hence more of a chance for us to screw things up. The real kicker is not being able to talk to whoever is behind this. If we could at least get them on coms we could maybe get them negotiating. From that develop some leads.”
Tony nodded. “Well, this resource is heading out to the truck. I’ll just pull up by the door.” As Tony disappeared from view, Kinley couldn’t help but recall his first kidnapping with the Bureau and a slight smile formed. Just then, he heard a door close behind him and saw Lauren walking towards him. Her bag slung over her shoulder and the laptop, with the phone and two hard drives resting on top of it, balanced on her arms. “Smart girl,” he whispered approvingly. As she approached, he nodded towards the equipment in Lauren’s arms. “Damsel in distress?” Lauren smiled back. “I was thinking more— ‘oh no I overpacked for the trip.’” “Nice.” Kinley nodded approvingly. “Key tool in my kit is social engineering. Frankly with most men, the challenge isn’t figuring out what to do— it’s choosing which of the many options would work best,” Lauren said, as they began walking together. “Care to share your assessment?” he asked. “If I made it about helping me,” she motioned with a slight tilt of her towards the uniformed officer, “he might feel obligated to make sure I didn’t forget anything.” “OK. So, what’s the plan?” “Originally, I was going to have you go get the car with your partner now that you’re here—” “You know what, I might just need to hit the restroom on my way out.” “That would be helpful,” Lauren smiled before continuing. “I’ll just have one of those forgetful moments. Hand over everything to him. You know it’s late, after all.” “Then when he shows up at the station with all the equipment, they’ll be the ones to check it in.” “Exactly,” Lauren agreed. “If they know what they’ve got, they’ll call in their own techs to do the examination. You and I will never lay eyes upon any of it again.”
“Solid plan. I suppose I’ll hear about it at the morning standup.” A slight gasp escaped through Lauren’s lips. “What time do I have to be there?” “Don’t worry. Already taken care of it. Tony is going to sleep in. You can catch a ride with him,” Kinley reassured her. “Wow, how thoughtful. Is that because you know I love my sleep so much, or because you know I’m probably going to be up all night going over these drives and anything else I can dig up?” Kinley smiled. “Why do you think I wanted you up here?” “You’re covering the cost of the minibar for the vast amount of salt, sugar, and caffeine I’m about to consume.” “Done,” he said in a lowered tone. “I’m going to hit the restroom.” His voice raised enough that the officer at the door heard, drawing his attention to the pair. “I’ll meet you at the truck.” As Kinley walked away, Lauren approached the officer, she forced the most tired smile she could manage across her face. “Apparently,” she lifted her arms with the equipment. “I’m supposed to hand these over to you.” The young officer looked confused at first, but his expression quickly turned into a slightly goofy smile. “Thanks. Any idea what I’m supposed to do with them?” “I don’t know.” She forced an exaggerated smile form on here face. “Probably take them to your station,” she gave him a little nod. “Will do.” He nodded. “Thank you.” “No, thank you.” She nodded at his handful, “I’m sure they are eagerly awaiting it.” With that, she passed by him and through the door. Blasted by the cold air, she pulled her hoodie tight and headed towards the truck as a legitimate albeit exhausted smile form. For her, the real fun was about to begin.

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