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“Hmm. That might give us something to support a warrant for his phone and financials.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, well, let’s do it.”
This was where she hesitated to speak, to point out that Lowell Mooney wasn’t her only focus. “Thank you, sir. But, of course, we are still considering other possibilities.”
“You’re now referring to the burner phone and the mystery key that led to that storage unit.”
“Mainly the last aspect,” she said.
“I heard about all of that.” Buchanan gestured toward Malone. “But that avenue could quickly become a time-sucking rabbit hole.”
“Can we risk being choosey?” Trent spoke up, earning everyone’s attention. “We should push Mooney more, but I also don’t think we can dismiss Graves’s storage unit and her obsession with the Julie Gilbert case either. It’s easy to see how she could have gotten herself into trouble if she pushed the wrong person.”
Buchanan squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest, his body language challenging. “Fine. I’ll assign officers to speak with the employees of the Sunny Motel. You try the Gilbert angle. But if I get the sense it’s a waste of time, I’ll shut it down. Am I understood?”
“Yes. Thank you, Chief.” She dipped her head, and Buchanan reciprocated before leaving the room, his cell phone pressed to an ear.
As Amanda and Trent headed to the storage unit, she wished for just one thing that would break the case wide open.
FIFTY-ONE
Officer Brandt was the one charged with keeping an eye on Katherine’s storage unit, and he let Amanda and Trent in with no more than a greeting.
She headed for the marker board with the suspects on them and photographed them. “We start here. See if we can place any of these five men in Prince William County recently.”
“Simple but efficient.”
“I’m not about to waste time, Trent.” She wasn’t sure why his comment had her so riled up, but it was her instant reaction to his words. It could have been residual emotion from her standoff with Buchanan or the pressure bearing down on her shoulders. While they debated their next course of action, Katherine remained in captivity. That is, if she wasn’t already dead.
“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.” He walked over to the laptop that was still on the desk. They hadn’t touched it last night. “We should crack into this and see if there’s anything useful on here.”
“I bet there is. The laptop at her house served her personal needs and having one here, well, it speaks for itself.”
He nodded. “Her research notes.”
She hit the power button, and the computer turned on. “It has battery life, so it hasn’t been sitting unused for long.” The password screen came up. “You don’t happen to know the password that unlocked her other one, do you? It could be the same.”
“Yep. Just a second.” Trent pulled out his notebook.
“How do you keep track of what you note where?” He switched from old-school to his tablet so often it was dizzying.
“I’m just that good.” He smiled at her and continued flipping pages. “Ah, here we go. Badass.”
“Thanks. I like to think I am.”
Trent was smiling. “It’s the password.”
She grinned. “Of course it is. It kind of goes with ninja.” She typed in the password and got nowhere.
“Speaking of ninja, let’s not knock it till we’ve tried it.”
She gave that a go and was granted access. It was a good thing for them that Katherine reused her passwords, even if she didn’t keep them consistent across her laptops. “What do you know.”
Trent tucked his notepad away again.
She sat at the desk and opened the file directory. There were a lot of Word files, and they were organized under folders named Julie Gilbert, The Gilberts, Extended Family, and then there were ones labeled with the four named suspects from the board and one as Suspect Five—Unidentified.
