Lauren lost track of how many times the video had been replayed since its discovery. At least she had positioned herself in the corner as the important people circulated around the front of the briefing room. Small groups kept forming to take their turn with the phone. Brandon was pacing alone in the opposite corner, near one of the earlier groups that were now engrossed in discussions. As an outsider, he was not allowed the comfort of belonging. The tip of his right thumb was lodged on his upper teeth and his left arm was wrapped around his torso for comfort. His skin had turned almost grey. Each renewed cycle of the screams caused him to reorient himself in relation to the nearest acceptable throw-up receptacle, just in case. As the latest group of people were about to start a new run of the clip, Chief Watkins, with an entourage of the really important people trailing behind her, entered the room. “Mr. Morris” her voice taking on an authoritative tone. “I’m sorry for the circumstances of our meeting.” She extended her hand.
He pulled his hand away from his mouth and quickly wiped it across his pants before extending it to meet the chief’s. “Thanks, I guess. This is just so unreal.” “I was wondering,” her voice lowered in volume but increased in warmth, taking on an almost motherly character. “If it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience,” she paused waiting for a response. In his reply, Brandon’s voice and cadence matched Watkins’. “What can I do to help?” “It’s obvious to us that whoever has this young woman has taken an interest in communicating with the world through you.” His grey face shifted to translucent as his eyes started searching the room without purpose. “It’s OK,” she raised her hands and lowered her voice. “We are wanting to hold onto your phone.” “What?” His voice became focused. “My— my phone? You want to hold onto it?” Each word in the stilted reply seemed to return some vitality to his face. “Yes. We could get a warrant, but given the time constraints we are facing I was hoping you would be willing to—” “Of course. Take it. Is there anything else you need?” Watkins looked back at one of her techs, then back to Brandon. “Could you perhaps disable the lock on the phone as well as the messaging application?” “Sure.” With Brandon’s head still nodding, the tech moved to retrieve the phone from the last group that had formed. Once it was in hand he led Brandon by the elbow back into the depths of the police station. Kinley, who had effectively camouflaged himself within the blur of the various groups of suits, moved from his cover towards Lauren. “Ready to put in some work?” “She’s good,” Lauren nodded towards Chief Watkins. “You seem pleasantly surprised.” “Why would that shock you?” “My hopeless optimism for personal growth on your part, I guess.”
Lauren crinkled her nose and emitted a small grunt. “Do you want me to go back and help them with the phone?” She nodded in the direction the where tech had taken Brandon. “Huh,” Kinley’s eyes started to move in the indicated direction before he stopped and shifted back to focusing on Lauren. “I figured you’d let them take care of that one,” he nodded his head in what he assumed to be the approximate direction of the lab. “I was thinking we should head over to our victim’s dorm. Maybe you can put your skills to better use. Every tech in the station is going to be slobbering over that phone, anyway.” “You don’t think that’s the key to the case?” Lauren smirked. “If either of us were profilers— maybe. Right now, I’ve got to get you back into your element. Maybe then you can potentially be useful.” Lauren smiled. “Hey, I resemble that remark.” Kinley’s upper teeth rested on his lower lip as a small breath escaped from his mouth that sounded like someone hitting the lever on an air duster. “I’ll meet you at the truck.” He looked back at the crowd briefly before returning his focus. “I’m just going to let Tony know where we’re heading. I’ll see if he can get us a copy of the video.” “Can I have the keys?” She extended her hand, forcing the most innocent-looking face she could manage on her limited sleep. “Not even if I were shot and dying.” * * *
Lauren orbited just to the side of the SUV’s passenger door. Fort Collins, being located at the transition between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, was subject to the jarring blast of wind rushing east. With each gust she braced herself and with each pass by the window she cast a longing glance at her hoodie, resting inside on the floorboard.
“How long does it take to tell somebody that you are going?” She muttered to her reflection in the window. From behind, the sound of the station’s rear door opening drew her attention, but instead of Kinley, it was Brandon. Lost in his thought, he seemed to have regained some color in his face, though it could have just been from the shock of the cold air. “It’s not your fault!” she blurted out. “Huh? What?” Brandon looked up, but it took several seconds to recognize her. “Thanks,” he smiled changing his course intercept Lauren’s on her orbital path. “I’m serious. None of this is your fault. You can’t take responsibility for some psycho grabbing up a girl.” “I was just thinking,” he shook his head slightly. “If we just hadn’t done that stupid podcast—” “There are millions of potential what ifs, could’ve beens, and whatevers,” Lauren’s head mirrored his head movements. “In the end, there’s no way you could’ve known. Besides, you’re doing everything you can to help. Aren’t you?” Brandon’s right eyebrow peaked slightly. “I suppose.” He looked back at the station “Do you know if they have any leads yet?” Lauren’s eyes narrowed slightly before shaking her head, “It’s Still too early in the investigation.” Brandon turned back to her, “I’ve seen it on TV and in movies. Even if there were leads, nobody is allowed to share. Right?” He shrugged. “I should get out of here and let you professionals get to work.” Lauren smiled. “I’ll walk you to your car.” Brandon’s brow furrowed briefly. “I thought the guy was supposed to escort the girl to safety?” “Well,” Lauren’s smile transitioned to a smirk, “walking with you will save me from hypothermia. If that makes you feel better.” “That works.” He looked her up and down, “Where is your coat?” “Wouldn’t look professional.”
“What?” His left eye narrowed as he tilted his head to the side slightly. “Nothing,” she shook her head. “Do you have any future plans for the podcast?” His body relaxed a little and his voice lightened. “We had talked about it, but it’s not nearly as much fun when it’s happening to you.” His face flushed a little bit red, “I mean you’re involved in it. I, I, mean—” “I get it,” she nodded sympathetically. “So, if you’re not going to be the next great podcast, what’s your future look like?” “Unfortunately, probably the family business.” “Ah, do your parents own a grocery store or something?” “Something,” he shook his head slightly. As they arrived at his car the sun’s reflection from the oversized Mercedes logo caught her eye. “Which lottery did you win?” “Long story.” “Fair enough,” she nodded. “I guess I will head back and continue my tiny laps. Don’t forget what I said.” “Hey,” he reached out slightly in her direction. “What about that dinner?” “Huh? Oh yeah. Ah, I don’t know my schedule, and you don’t have a phone anymore.” He smiled. “No, I have a phone. Well, another one.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Part of that long story, I suppose?” “Actually a different story,” he opened the passenger door. “I bought the phone in there,” he motioned towards the station, “specifically for the podcast.” “Why?” Her eyes focused on the phone he had retrieved. “When we first came up with the idea of doing a podcast we were thinking of a travelogue.” “That required another phone?” He smiled a bit as he moved to unlock it. “Well, none of us wanted to risk our actual stuff,” he motioned towards his SUV. “I volunteered my parents to pay for the phone, laptop, and some other equipment. That way if it got busted up, or lost, on our road trip it could just be written off on their taxes.”
She glanced back at the station before returning her focus to Brandon. “That phone and laptop were only used for your podcast?” He shrugged his shoulders. “If we had known we’d primarily be hanging out at the library and our houses, I probably wouldn’t have wasted the money.” “OK,” her eyebrows shifted up. “Why the shift to true crime?” “Can’t remember. I think it might have been Travis’ idea. He did some market research on the most popular genre or something. Around the same time, we weren’t sure how we could work in enough travel for the assignment and still make our other classes. Ready?” “Huh?” Lauren looked confused. “Your number?” He raised the phone into her line of sight. “Oh. How about I just get yours?” She smiled, “Like I said, I don’t know when I will be off, at least not yet. I’m sure I will find out a little bit later today. That way, I can kick you a link to my schedule.” She punctuated the last sentence with a slightly larger smile. “No problem.” He pulled a card out of his pocket that had his name on one side and the phone number on the other. “It’s a—” he started to offer. “Part of that long story I’m guessing.” She smiled, taking the card from him, only then realizing she had no pockets in her particular professional attire. “Yeah.” He looked back at the station. “Is he your ride?” he motioned with his chin. She turned. “Yeah. For now, anyway.” “Well, it looks like we are both heading places.” He closed the passenger door. “By the way, if I don’t hear from you, I at least know where to track you down.” Lauren looked over her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she smiled, “you’ll hear from me.” There was a rumble of the SUV coming to life as Agent Kinley started the engine.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Brandon shouted. Lauren just did a backward wave as she crossed in front of the black SUV with its US Government plates. Climbing into the passenger side, she pulled the hoodie onto her lap, before placing her hands on the vents. “It’s not warm yet.” Lauren looked over at Kinley. “No kidding. Better than out there.” “What was that about?” He avoided the instinct to move his head in the direction of Brandon. “I don’t know.” “Not exactly an answer.” “Yeah— more like a couple of questions.” “Do I at least get to hear one?” “I’m just wondering if the reason they were so willing to give us that equipment is that it’s not their personal stuff.” “What do you mean?” “Brandon whatever his name.” Kinley cut her off, “You mean Morris. As in Morris Homes, Morris Commercial Real Estate Holdings, or Morris owns about a third of downtown Denver.” “You mean the developer?” She let her focus move past Kinley to the Mercedes leaving the parking lot. “Well, some things now make a little more sense.” “Like what?” Kinley put the truck into gear. “Apparently Brandon paid for clean equipment for the podcast. The stuff they handed over to us— not their personal devices.” “What does that mean?” “I don’t know.” She shifted her focus out the passenger window. “But maybe I can find out.” * * *

As Lauren and Kinley approached the dorm room they passed a small group of police officers milling about. As they moved out of earshot, Lauren whispered, “Doughnuts have never been safer in this town.” Kinley nodded slowly. Agent Sam Dane was standing outside the door as a forensic tech was finishing up inside. “Sam, any fun toys for me to play with?” Lauren asked. He cocked his head back slightly, “Looks like there’s a spot for a laptop. Tech is speculating she likely had it with her. There’s also a charging cord for a phone but no luck there. I think they did find a bunch of thumb drives if you want to take a look. They called about ten minutes ago to say they have the warrant. It covers any electronics or storage media.” “Left the drives for you,” the tech said as he exited the room. “Good hunting,” he continued heading towards the elevators.“ Well, we came all this way,” Lauren shot an exaggerated look of exhaustion at Kinley. “Worth a look, I suppose.” Kinley nodded. “Hey did I hear right,” Sam said, shifting his focus to Kinley. “There was a second video?” “Yeah,” Kinley offered. “Apparently the perp wanted to drive home the seriousness of the circumstances.” “Beyond kidnapping her?” Sam squinted slightly. “What was in the video?” Lauren moved into the dorm room. “I’ll let you tell him, while I take a look at those drives.” She paused at the threshold to take in a sense of the space. If forced to define the style of the missing occupant of the room it would be one word. ‘Basic.’ Hanging on the walls was a mix of the standard five posters that you see in almost every freshman dorm. There also seemed to be an explosion of coordinated pink throughout the space. On the shelf, there appeared to be a month’s supply of some hipster concoction involving coconut water and various flavors of seaweed snacks.
Shaking her head, she moved to the desk. Pulling out her smaller laptop, she placed it next to an external screen. She was tempted to use the screen, but she knew better. There was always somebody that had no idea how technology worked and who would lose their mind over her plugging into the monitor. Most often, those individuals were referred to as “your honor” in the criminal justice system. As her computer booted to life, she pulled out a USB hub from her pack. In addition to allowing her to examine multiple drives at once, it also had a surge protector to prevent a USB kill drive from frying her computer. This had only happened once, but that was more than enough. Even with this precaution, she still carefully examined the first thumb drive to make sure it wasn’t going to offer up a nasty surprise. Satisfied it was just a thumb drive, she slid it into the first slot. She had no intention of doing a thorough examination of the 1s and 0s level, at least not here. Instead, she would do a quick once over to see if she could identify any names of individuals or locations that might help direct the mass of people, including the ones outside the door who were reenacting the latest Fort Collins viral phenomenon of standing around and looking busy. “Huh,” she muttered as she took a moment longer to mount the drive. “What’s going on with you?” Her voice echoed off the screen as she typed ‘df -h’ into the terminal. Glancing down at the thumb drive’s outer casing, which indicated a capacity of sixty-four gigabytes, she noticed that her terminal indicated it had less than half that size. Without examining the second drive, she picked it up and slid it into slot three. After hitting tab and enter, she reran the previous command on the new drive. “Two,” she breathed out softly. “Let me,” she bumping the desk and knocking one of the other thumb drives onto the floor. It bounced back and out of sight. “Crap!” Lauren lowered herself to her hands and knees to retrieve it. “What are you doing here?” Her voice echoed from under the table. “I’m your ride.” Kinley’s voice boomed behind her.
“Son of a—” her voice bellowed immediately after the sound of her head hitting the underside of the desk reverberated in the room. “What are you doing on the floor?” “Hey,” the increasingly familiar voice of Sam injected itself into the space, “ah, you know they searched this place, right? They didn’t find anything under there.” “Well, I did. Or, I guess more to the point, I found what I dropped, but also found something else.” She held up a small gold-looking chip. “SIM card?” Sam moved closer. “Yeah,” Lauren twisted it in her fingers. “Looks to be a prepaid one.” “Like for a burner phone?” Kinley extended his hand to help her up. “Could be, but in this case, it’s only for a data plan.” “Data plan? Most likely not for a phone then?” “You could use it in a phone, but it would be rather unusual. If you needed to make a call it could be done with a VoIP service.” She handed it over to Kinley. “If it’s not for a phone, what’s it for?” “Well, I know how I use them.” She looked back at the thumb drives before returning her attention to the confused faces. “Did we ever find out what Kimberly is majoring in?” “Anthropology. I think,” Sam piped up. Lauren rolled her eyes, “Never mind then. Although—” “What?” Kinley raised his eyebrows. “Anthropology— that’s the one where you study people, right?” “One of them, yeah. You study people and culture. Why?” Sam’s face had crinkled slightly. “Well, it could be for a tablet.” “You lost me.” Kinley said, looked down at the small plastic and metal chip in his hand. “How does this, when added to anthropology, equal a tablet?”
“I suppose it could also be for a wireless puck. If that’s the case, we will just be completely out of luck,” Lauren said, rolling her eyes at herself. “Sorry.” She held up her hands as the two agents matched her eye roll. “Even though she’s a freshman, she may be an ambitious freshman. If she is wandering around studying cultures, she may still want to have access to the internet and not have to try and type things out on a phone. She could be using a prepaid data plan to access the internet when she doesn’t have WiFi.” “A wireless puck,” Sam paused to raise his eyebrows, “or a tablet?” “If it is a tablet with cellular connectivity, yeah.” “Why does the tablet help us?” Kinley moved the chip to eye level between two of his fingers. “If it’s a wireless puck, they draw power from either your computer or a power cord. If that’s the case then it would be in her bag with her computer, so no chance.” Both agents nodded their heads. Sam motioned toward the chip “He would have to be one of the dumbest people in the world to keep her phone or computer anywhere near where he is holding her because he has to assume that once we find out who she is we could use them to track him down. So how does a tablet help?” “Most people aren’t going to pay much attention to a tablet. Assuming she has one and it is with her. If it happens to have power and is in range of a cell tower with one of those,” she nodded towards the SIM card. “You might be able to locate her.” “Good find.” Kinley moved to pass the chip to Sam, “How about you get one of those folks in uniform out there,” he nodded in the direction where the group of police had gathered. “Have them run this over to the station and maybe someone there can trace where she got it, and if there are others. Maybe see if they have pulled her financials. Find a record of the purchase.” “I’ll go with them.” Sam said, extending his hand to accept it. “Do you want me to pass along when to expect you guys back?” Lauren scraped her lower lip across her teeth.
Kinley noticed this movement as he stifled his eyebrow rising. Kinley gave a small nod before continuing, “I’ll be back in about thirty to forty minutes. We’ve got some agents coming in from Denver. I’ll need to get them integrated into the investigation. I think Ms. Oliver here could use a chance to recharge her batteries a little since apparently she was up all night getting the investigation actually started.” “Fair enough,” Sam said. He shifted to Lauren. “Good catch on the SIM. I’ll see you both when I see you.” “No problem,” Lauren waited until she saw him turn down the hallway towards where the gaggle of officers had been. “You don’t want me to come to the station?” “I figure you’re about to tell me something. It’s also better if you have greater freedom of action. Besides, you just got twenty-plus officers gainfully employed for the next couple of hours. If you don’t have something, I think you earned a nap.” “It’s only like ten o’clock in the morning.” “Yeah, but what’s your milligrams of caffeine to hours of sleep ratio?” “OK, you got me there.” “Also, that look you made, when he mentioned going back to the station. I got the sense you have something else to share.” She turned back towards the desk and dropped the thumb drive she had retrieved from the ground next to the pile. “There’s something weird with these drives.” “Like what?” He looked at the relatively empty screen on her laptop, as if it was going to reveal something to him, before shifting his focus back to her. “They’re the wrong size.” “Like they don’t fit in your computer or something?” Lauren rolled her eyes, “No. As in, there’s a whole lot of storage space that seems to be missing when I plug them in.” “OK, what do you think is causing that?”
“If I had to guess,” she glanced back at the collection of colorful rectangles before returning her focus to Kinley. “Hidden partitions.” A look that could be a distant cousin of physical pain moved across his face. “Remember I don’t speak your language. How about a translation?” “A partition is like if you take a piece of tape and put it down the middle of a whiteboard. You can treat each half as if they’re separate whiteboards.” “I’m following you. What does that mean?” “In and of itself— nothing.” “You lost me again.” “In this case, she didn’t just put a piece of tape down the middle of the whiteboard. She covered up half of it and did it in a way that anyone walking into the room wouldn’t even know the covered part existed unless they looked really closely.” “She’s hiding something?” “Looks that way. But doing it in a way that is more sophisticated than most people would. Especially anthropology majors.” “Sophisticated how?” He cautiously picked up one of the thumb drives. He moved it slowly, as if examining it for some unseen danger. “Nothing that you couldn’t figure out from reading a couple of websites or watching a few YouTube videos. That is just it. This is something you would have to want to do, to pull it off correctly.” “Any idea what’s behind the cover?” “No. Not yet. I guess I’m going to have to figure that out.”

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