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Plus Trey Suber. He nodded to Kendra and Lynch as they parked on the street alongside the park.
“He really has no idea,” Lynch said.
“It’s better this way.”
They climbed out of the car and walked toward him. Even though Kendra knew he had his razor and several changes of clothes, he was unshaven and slightly unkempt. He wore sunglasses and a blue flat cap in an obvious attempt to mask his appearance. The stress of the past few days was clearly showing on his face and posture.
Kendra smiled as she and Lynch approached. “This is a good look for you, Trey. You might consider permanently adding it into your fashion rotation.”
“You’re too kind. It’s a little too hipsterish for my taste.”
Lynch shook his hand. “You pull it off.”
“I don’t know about that. But it’ll work for now.” He turned to Kendra. “Let me look at that photo.”
Before Kendra could reply, two black SUVs squealed to a stop on the street beside them. Griffin and three other dark-suited FBI agents jumped from the vehicles and converged on them.
Trey backed away in panic. “What the hell?”
“Just relax,” Kendra said. “It’s okay.”
Trey glared at her. “Youdid this?”
Griffin held up his hands in a way that was meant to be reassuring. “Suber, it’s fine. We know you were being set up.”
Trey froze. “You do?”
“Yes,” Kendra said. “Everyone knows it.”
Trey waved his arms at the approaching agents. “Then whatthe hell is all this about?”
Griffin and the agents stopped on the sidewalk in front of him. “We weren’t sure you would believe us,” Griffin said. “We were afraid you’d think you were walking into a trap. We couldn’t be sure that you wouldn’t resist and get yourself killed. Now don’t be an idiot. We have proof that someone was trying to frame you.”
Trey looked at Kendra, who nodded.
“Griffin told me this morning,” she said. “They’ve been working overtime to clear you, Trey. You were just a little too obvious a candidate to be true.”
Trey let out a long breath, as if finally letting the tension escape from his body. “I know I’m not the most popular agent in the Bureau. So how in the hell did they do it?”
“We’ll show you everything back at the office,” Griffin said. “But someone obviously created a fake license plate with a graphics program on their computer. It could have been printed on a large glossy label and stuck over the plates on a vehicle that’s an exact match for yours.”
“That I’d already figured,” Trey said.
“Well, as we studied the video footage, it became apparent under some lighting conditions that the phony license plate wasn’t backed by the same reflective film that real plates are.”
“Did you check out my locations I provided Kendra?”
“We did. We have a Home Depot security camera that puts you and your car on the other side of town at the exact same time as some of these other camera sightings. We’ve always been impressed with you, Suber, but even you would have trouble being in two places at once.”
Trey smiled. “Hey, don’t underestimate me. But what about my phone?”
“Spoofed. That’s a bit more sophisticated, but we run across hackers every day who’d be willing to do it for a thousand bucks. Someone spoofed your service account and the MAC address of your phone. Again, your phone account was hitting towers at the same time in two different parts of town.”
Trey nodded. “And I guess someone cracked my home Wi-Fi and made those bomb-making Internet searches in the days before the explosion.”
“Yes,” Griffin said. “You should button that down. They probably parked in front of your place and did it on a laptop. Lucky for you, you like to work ridiculous hours. Our building security cameras show that you were in your office while most of those searches were being done, mostly between tenP.M.and midnight. You’re in the clear, Suber.”
Trey nodded. “Great.” He was looking a little lost. “I guess I get to go home again?”
