While waiting for Rafe and Sean to get there, he’d called Uncle Dan and given him the rundown. Once they figured out where Tess was being held, they would drop Andy off at Dan’s before launching a rescue. Although the teen would undoubtedly argue about it, he’d be safe there.
Rafe paced, something he did all the time while getting the run-down on a new case. Sean listened without interrupting, his eyes flickering between Andy and the data already populating his screen.
When Brian finished, Rafe went still, hands on his hips, staring up at the ceiling as he mentally sorted through the information. At the table, Sean typed away, entering the pertinent details into the document. Brian didn’t interrupt either of them—they would speak when ready.
Finally, Sean lifted his head. “Okay, I pulled the call history from Andy’s phone.”
Brian leaned in to study the topographic roadmap on the screen. Two markers appeared almost on top of each other.
“The last two incoming calls came from the same cell tower—in Kingsby.” Sean tapped the screen.
Despite its regal name, Kingsby was a low-income stretch set just far enough off the main roads to Elizabeth City to be easily overlooked.
“Both phones pinged there?” Rafe asked from across the room.
Sean nodded. “Yup, and both are off now, so there’s no way to tell if they’re still in the same place. My guess is they are. We’re dealing with gang-bangers, not rocket scientists. They think they’re smart, but they always eventually make mistakes.”
Brian’s mind immediately started breaking it down—distance, access routes, places someone could hole up without drawing attention.
He pulled Andy’s laptop closer and glanced at him. “I can log into my work database without you capturing my user name and password?”
A nervous look crossed the kid’s face. “Uh, hang on.” He rushed over and nudged Brian out of the way. After a few quick clicks and tapping of keys, he stepped back again. “You’re all good. I swear, it won’t record anything.”
Brian stared at him, ninety-nine percent sure he was telling the truth, but that one percent still made him wary. Andy bit his bottom lip and glanced around the room before meeting Brian’s gaze. “I swear!”
“Stop saying that,” he snapped. “It’s annoying.”
“Sorry. But if you don’t trust me, you can change your password later. Just—just save Tess. Please.”
With a single nod, Brian moved the laptop across the table and sat in the chair beside his brother. He logged into the NCSP website, making sure the“Remember Me on This Computer” box was unchecked. “Let’s overlay Devil’s Crew known locations in that area.”
He went into the database and entered the necessary parameters, pulling up prior case notes, arrests, and known associations—anything related to the gang and its members. He even had access to ECPD’s intel through the task force. “Here we go—residences, hangouts, and anywhere else that’s in the system for whatever reason.”
“Email the CSV file to my work address,” Sean said.
Once that was done, the FBI agent imported the file, and soon, blue pins bloomed across the map on the screen. Dozens of them. Far too many.
“After you’ve narrowed it to the tower range, drop anything that isn’t an actual building.”
The number of pins shrank with a few keystrokes, then narrowed again until only three remained.
Sean zoomed the map in. “Those are all the known properties inside the tower’s range.”
From over his shoulder, Rafe pointed to one of the pins at the crossroads of Kings Highway and Hawthorne Drive. “That’s got to be the old seafood processing plant that’s been abandoned for years.”
“We can cross that off the list,” Brian said. “They started demolishing it last week for a new strip mall. Saw it on the local news.”
“Okay. The second one looks like it’s Turner’s Campground off Maple Road.” The large parcel of land was split into two—a trailer park with year-round residents and short-term sites for tents and RVs.
Sean shook his head. “Too risky. High foot traffic this time of year, and not a lot of cover. It only takes one bored neighbor with nothing better to do to notice what you’re up to.”
Brian’s attention shifted to the third pin. “Switch to satellite and zoom in on that one.”
The screen shifted from the roadmap to Google Street View, showing a run-down apartment building on Fleetwood Drive, in the seedier side of town. The kind of place with multiple units, high turnover rates, complaints that went nowhere, and residents who kept their mouths shut out of fear of retribution. Easy to overlook. Easier to ignore.
“That’s it,” Brian said quietly.
Rafe studied it, then nodded. “Agreed.”
