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A man also listed as Captain Dennis McCauley’s next of kin. His father.
Which meant, as far as Gage could tell, the captain was his older half-brother.
“What’s going on?”
Gage shook his head. “When there’s something to share, you know you’ll be the first to know.”
“I better.” Liam studied him the way he did when he had to figure out a puzzle. Too bad he had no pieces on this one.
Gage stood. “What did you come in to tell me?”
“That guy from Vanguard is here.”
“Peter Olson.”
“Is he really Freya’s brother?” Liam asked.
Gage nodded. They’d all heard about her father, a local do-gooder who ran a halfway house and turned out to be behind a trafficking operation in Benson and stretching all the way to Malaysia.
“He said they have something.”
Gage headed out into the main room, where Peter had already plugged his laptop into the port under the table. He tapped keys faster than Gage had ever typed, and the monitor screens on the wall all went black. “Make yourself at home.”
Peter grinned, his attention on his laptop screen. “Don’t mind if I do.” He hit Enter and the monitor screens flashed up with photos. All except the end one, which appeared to be the PD facial recognition system they used. He was running each of the images he had showing on the screens through the DMV—after which he’d probably run the search nationwide.
Blake and Jasper came out of the kitchen, each carrying two mugs. They handed one each to Gage and Liam.
Blake said, “Who are these guys?”
“Did you ask our guest if he wants coffee?” Gage also wanted to know where Dakota was.
Blake reached into the side pocket of his cargos and pulled out a can of sugar free soda—but with all the caffeine. “Couldn’t carry all three.”
“Thanks.” Peter set the can beside his laptop. “Each of these nine men—given Clare said none of them is female, or even possibly female—are possible matches for the suspects. Until Alex wakes up and he can ID them for sure…”
He trailed off for half a second, long enough for Gage to say, “Let’s try and eliminate at least some of them as possible suspects.”
“Since Alex was one, and there are five, that means four of these nine men are potentially on the crew.” Peter glanced over at the screens, to the side and behind him. “If we can ID them, we can gather background information. They’re all pros at social media and apparently that involves being nearly completely anonymous.”
“They can hide their real names?”
Peter nodded. “It might take some time to figure out who they are if they’re not in the local DMV database.”
Gage figured it wasn’t that Vanguard couldn’t run a photo and get a name. They likely had ways to do that. More it was probably the fact they were working with the police on this one, so everything had to be above board.
Liam wandered over to look closer at the screens. “Where’d you get these images?”
“Social media. Selena gave us Alex’s phone so we could access all his accounts, his DMs and the messaging apps he uses.” Peter’s computer chimed, and he started typing. “We compiled these images through accounts he interacts with, people he talks to in messages using algorithms for particular words or groupings of expressions. We filtered that with a few different things, including how comfortable he is with them. Like if the language he uses is polite or familiar.”
“Huh.” Jasper came around the desk to look over Peter’s shoulder. “That’s cool.”
The door to the bathroom swished open and Dakota emerged, sniffing and running his fingers through his hair. “What’s going on?”
Gage bit back what he wanted to say. “IDs on the suspects.”
“Got any?” Dakota glanced around. “I’m gonna pour a cup of coffee.”
“Sure.” Gage asked Peter, “Any indication from social media if any of them are locals? I know Alex lives just outside Benson, in the hills.”
