Once Recker and Haley got back to the office, they turned the laptop over to Jones.
“Should be an interesting email on it,” Recker said. “Maybe it’ll give us a lead.”
“I’ll be very thorough,” Jones replied.
“I take it you’ve had a quiet day here without us?”
“As quiet as a mouse.”
“You know, I’ve never really been fond of that saying,” Haley said. “I mean, are mice really that quiet?”
Jones wasn’t getting into any of that. “I take back my metaphor.”
As Jones went to work on Arden’s laptop, Recker and Haley sat next to each other and started looking through camera footage to see if they could pick something up around Coffee Beans.
“Perhaps you should wait until I have a date or time,” Jones said.
“Not necessary,” Recker replied, logging into the system. “Arden told me the date and time.”
“I didn’t hear that,” Haley said.
“It was when you were looking for the laptop.”
“Oh. Getting all the good parts when I left, huh?”
“Something like that.”
As Recker began his search, he narrowed his focus to a camera that was located across the street from the coffee shop. There was no camera on the Coffee Beans store itself. Across the street was the best they could do.
“What time did they meet?” Haley asked.
“Arden said about one,” Recker answered.
Recker quickly rewound the footage to one o’clock. He then slowed it down, still going backwards.
“Wait, there he is,” Haley said, pointing at Arden as he entered the store. “What time is that?”
“12:55. Right when he said.”
Recker let the footage play, going at normal speed. He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. They were just waiting for the man in the oversized coat, hat, and sunglasses to appear. They watched for the next twenty minutes. The man never showed up.
“Maybe he was lying to us,” Haley said.
“Why would he? Why would he lie about the other guy showing up when he was right about him showing up? He would’ve given us a different place altogether, right?”
“Yeah, I guess he would. Where’s this other guy, though?”
“I don’t know.”
Recker sat up and started fast-forwarding through the security footage. There was no person that met the description they were given. They stopped the video once they saw Arden exit the shop.
“There he goes,” Haley said.
Recker looked at the time. “1:30.”
The video played again, hoping to see the other man exit at some point as well. It never happened, though.
“Where is this guy?” Haley asked.
Recker sped up the video, letting it go all the way until later that night before he finally stopped it again. There was still no sign of him.
“Well, he wasn’t being extra precautious and trying to wait a while,” Recker said.
“Either Arden sat at an empty table and talked to himself, or he was lying, or this other person got in there another way.”
“I don’t think he talked to himself. And I don’t think he was lying. If he was, he wouldn’t have even led us here.”
“Which leaves the third option. How did this other guy sneak in?”
Recker hit rewind on the video, letting it play back from when the store initially opened. They watched at an accelerated speed until they saw Arden go into the place at 12:55.
“Still nothing,” Haley said.
Recker leaned back for a moment, stroking his face as he searched for an answer. Then, he found one. It was the only one that made sense.
“A disguise,” Recker said.
“What?”
“The other guy is in disguise. That’s why we don’t see him. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Think about it. A coat, a hat, sunglasses, scarf, they’re the easiest things in the world to conceal.”
Haley nodded, locking in to what his partner was thinking. “Put them in a briefcase, or a small bag, enter the store, head to the bathroom, then bam, you come out a different person.”
“Then take it off before you leave, so if anybody watches this, they wouldn’t see anything.”
“And it makes sense,” Haley said. “If this guy’s on equal footing as David, he’d know we’d be checking this. It’d make sense he didn’t go in clean.”
Recker started playing the video feed again. “Now let’s see if we can see someone carrying anything.”
As they watched the footage, they identified several candidates. They were either holding a briefcase, or a backpack slung over their shoulder, or some kind of bag that they were carrying.
“It’s gotta be one of them,” Haley said. “Let’s start ID’ing them.”
Recker hesitated, still staring at the screen. Haley wasn’t sure if his partner had picked up on something.
“You see something else?”
“I’m not sure,” Recker answered. Recker continued staring at the monitor.
“What is it? You’re seeing something that I’m not.”
Recker shook his head. “No, it’s not that. It’s… something else.”
“What?”
“Maybe just a hunch.”
“Well throw it out there,” Haley said. “Might be onto something.”
“It’s just this guy, or woman, whoever it is… I just get the feeling they wouldn’t… they’d be smarter than this.”
“Going in with a disguise is pretty smart, isn’t it?”
“But if we don’t see what we’re looking for, you’d assume we’d go looking for the alternative, right?”
“Yeah?”
“So then the alternative becomes what’s obvious, doesn’t it?”
“And? Not seeing what you’re suggesting.”
“We’re assuming this person is pretty smart, right?” Recker said. “So putting myself in their shoes, if I want to meet this person, and I want to do it with a disguise so I’m not seen, I go in as someone else. Then change.”
“Right. What’s different than we’ve already thought?”
“But I would assume that going in with a backpack or briefcase would be an obvious move. And I don’t make the obvious move.”
Haley moved his head back, slightly tilting it up, though not quite looking at the ceiling. “I get it. You’d know that’s what we were looking for next.”
“Right. So I’d go in empty-handed.”
“But how do you get the disguise in there?”
“Baggy clothes,” Recker answered. “Or tape them underneath my regular clothes somehow. Something like that.”
Haley snapped his fingers. “Or someone who looks overweight, that isn’t, really.”
Recker started playing the video again, stopping when they came across someone that fit the description of who they were looking for. It was 12:52.
“Three minutes before Arden shows up,” Haley said.
Recker studied the man on the screen. Something was very off. He zoomed in on the man in question. They had the person they were looking for. Recker knew it. He pointed to the screen.
“Look at him. Overweight stomach, but his face is thin.”
“Like maybe his stomach isn’t as big as it appears,” Haley said. “Not naturally, anyway.”
“Now let’s see if we can pick this guy up when he’s leaving.”
Recker fast-forwarded the video to around the time when Arden left. They hadn’t seen the other guy leave yet. They watched for about twenty minutes before Recker rewound it again.
“Wait, isn’t that him?” Haley asked.
There was a man walking out of the coffee shop, about five minutes after Arden did.
“Same clothes,” Recker said. “A little thinner, though.”
“Looks like he was on an extreme weight-loss program in that place.”
“Probably ditched the clothes in the trash can.”
“That’s gotta be our guy. Too much of a coincidence for it to be anything else.”
“You know how I feel about coincidences.”
“Let’s run him through the facial scan,” Haley said.
As Recker put the man’s picture into the software program, they turned their attention to Jones.
“How are you making out there?” Recker asked.
Jones had been quietly doing his thing, moving right along. “I’ve made significant progress.”
“Already?”
“Well, Mr. Arden isn’t exactly what I would call computer proficient, judging by the state of his computer.”
“Which means he’s not the guy?”
Jones shook his head. “If you mean the guy who hacked into my system, I would say not. I would actually put better odds on an asteroid coming down and hitting Earth in the next five minutes, and not only that, also landing at our exact location.”
“That good, huh?”
“There’s no security to speak of that I can tell, and it looks as though the most that he’s done on this thing in the last month is look at porn sites.”
“So what you’re telling me is that he’s not a computer genius capable of hacking your system? That’s what you’re saying?”
Jones smirked. “I believe that would be it, yes.”
“Fair enough.”
“How are you making out on that email he was sent?” Haley asked.
“I’ve already tracked down the IP location. I’m still doing some digging, but this is what I have so far on it.”
Jones slid a small piece of paper along the desk over to Recker, who picked it up and read it.
“Why does this look familiar?” Recker asked, holding the paper up.
Haley grabbed the paper from Recker’s hand. “That’s because it’s the same place that Arden told us about. The man in black.”
Recker then looked to the side of the desk where he had placed the paper that Arden gave them. He found it. “You’re right. Same place.”
“So if the email came from the same location that he picked up this guy, wouldn’t that mean…?”
Haley never got to finish his thought, as the computer started beeping from the facial scan. They got a hit.
“Josh Isengard. I hate him already.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like people named Josh.”
Haley looked perplexed, though Jones let out a small laugh. He knew exactly what his friend was referring to. It took Haley a minute, but he finally figured it out as well.
“Oh. Isn’t that, um, you know… the other guy? The lawyer who briefly dated, um…”
Recker gave his friend a glance that he shouldn’t proceed with his thought, though the look was more playful in nature.
“Understandable,” Haley said.
“Anyway, this guy…”
Recker wasn’t able to finish his sentence either, as Jones had some news to share, too.
“I’ve got it,” Jones said. “The email came from a location that’s registered to a Josh Isengard.” Recker and Haley both gave him a look. “Oh. That’s the name you just said, isn’t it?”
Recker smiled and nodded. “Thanks for playing along.”
“So what are we thinking here?” Haley asked. “That Isengard sent the email, then met Arden at the coffee shop, in disguise, no less, then had Arden pick him back up and tried to bust his way in here?”
“It would appear so,” Jones replied.
“But what for? What’s the purpose? What’s the role that Arden plays in this?”
“The patsy,” Recker said.
“But why’s a patsy needed?” Haley asked.
“Maybe Isengard was hoping the search would end with Arden and that we wouldn’t get to him?”
“Seems kind of foolhardy, don’t you think?”
“I would, yes,” Jones answered.
“This whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Not yet,” Recker said. “You able to run Isengard yet?”
Jones nodded. “Coming back now.”
“Anything familiar to you?”
Jones started reading the information that was coming back. “If you’re asking whether he once worked at the NSA, or any other government agency, the answer would be no. It doesn’t appear so.”
“Does he have any type of connection to you?”
Jones shook his head. “Not that I can find so far. Seems as though he’s lived in the area his whole life. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, that’s it.”
“What’s he do for a living?”
“Does thieving count?”
Recker nodded. “I suppose so.”
“Then I would say that’s what he does. Been arrested multiple times. In and out of jail for a long time.”
“You got a picture of him?”
Jones pointed to the screen, where there was a mugshot of Isengard. Recker leaned over to compare it to the man they had coming out of the coffee shop. It was a match. It was the same man.
“Seems as though the farther we get into this thing, the more questions we come up with,” Haley said.
Recker agreed with the sentiment. “There’s something rotten in Denmark here. We just have to find out what it is.”