[MD2, 8:20PM, the playground]
Kate did little more than glance at the documents in the envelope the informant had given her before she tucked the envelope under her jacket and started back toward the cabins. She would give it more attention when she wasn’t standing out in the open. Two things struck her as strange - that he had repeatedly mentioned Josh, which caused her to wonder if perhaps it was this man she had spotted in the shadows that night in the park - and the dogs. She could understand why a family on vacation would have a dog with them. In the case of the local couple, the Houghs, it was easily explained. But Cohen and his partner were transporting a prisoner. Why would they have a dog with them? And for what reason could the dogs be so important?
Unless they weren’t. Unless the informant was trying to throw them off the track. But it wasn’t something she could just ignore. And there was the fact of Hank’s three missing hunting dogs to take into consideration.
When she got back to the cabins, she found September, Sharlyn and Dinah standing outside the guys’ cabin. "What’s going on?"
"We came over to see the shard Newt picked up," September explained.
Kate nodded. "I’d like to see that, too. Maybe get it analyzed."
"If they ever let us in," Sharlyn said.
Just then, Newt opened the door, looking perplexed and disturbed. "It’s gone," he said as he stepped aside to let everyone in.
"The shard?"
"The shard, my clothes. All gone."
Everyone was silent for a few moments, letting the fact sink in and seeing what conclusions could be drawn from it, until Flynn came into the room.
"Did they get your things, too?"
"No, just Newt’s. Someone must have seen him pick up that piece of the building."
*****
[MD3, 8:15AM, café]
If what Agent Jones had said about Docker was true, the team was running out of time. That Docker had been willing to destroy that building in order to get the team out of the way seemed to confirm that. And they were no where near coming up with an answer.
The documents the informant had given Kate at first glance seemed to contain a great deal of information about Cross Industries, but on closer examination, most of it was repetitive and vague. Maybe there was something valuable in it, but if there was, Kate hadn’t found it yet.
Team Delta was gathered for breakfast at the café in Forksville. Everyone was holding up well considering everything the team had been through so far on this case. But Kate was hoping that today would be somewhat less eventful than the two days previous. Everyone needed a break from life threatening events.
"As long as we’re all together," Kate said, "this seems as good a time as any to go over what we’ve got so far."
Flynn was the first to speak up. "I’ve been thinking about that control room we saw inside the building. It seemed like a .. security office or something. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be too far from the lab it was monitoring. It has to be near here somewhere."
"Probably, but how do we find it," Sharlyn asked.
"Go back out to the building site and see if there’s anything left that might qualify as a clue," Flynn suggested.
"Maybe see if there’s another shard laying around that could be checked out," Newt said. "In the meantime, I need to do something about getting something to wear." He shook his head. "I can’t believe that Richardson might have had something to do with his son’s disappearance."
Kate nodded and frowned and contemplated her cup of coffee. "I think we ought to talk to him again," she said.
Sharlyn had been staring at something outside the café. After a moment, Dinah joined her in staring. Kate was about to ask them what they were looking at when a honking horn from outside drew her attention, and everyone else’s, and they all turned to look out the front window. A smallish golden lab was walking down the middle of main street, oblivious to the car that was following it and honking at it to get out of the way. The dog’s tail was wagging in a slow arc and something about it’s movements reminded the team of the actions of Agent Cohen.
Back to mission logs.