+18 - eps 28-32 - On the sixth installment of the Blackbird series, Cassidy sends Gillian and her team with Brock and Russel to Tampa, Florida, to look into the death of a girl while winter storm Jonas beats the East Coast. But this seemingly ordina...
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"We should start asking for rentals, Reg. These SUVs scream fed from a mile away," said Ron, climbing in one.
"Yeah, not a clever choice to visit this hood," said Fred, gearing in.
"So?" asked Gillian over the radio, from the house.
"The address doesn't exist," Ron replied. "And our badges seem to spread amnesia all around."
She frowned, arms folded, eyes on the map. So the mechanic was listed as Mark Reed on the gas station payroll, and his home address was a fake.
"Can you lads drive around for a while, see if you can find the truck?"
"You think he actually lives here?" asked Fred. "This is a black hood. Not a good place for a blonde whitey to go unnoticed."
"There's gotta be a reason why he chose it. Just take a look."
"Got it."
Gillian sighed.
A while earlier, when they tried to follow the tow truck on the Interstate traffic feeds, they found more missing files. Those from the intersection of the I-75 with Fowler Avenue, the first out since the gas station, just outside Temple Terrace—where Irene's hotel was. They'd followed the truck towing Irene's car up to there, but it didn't show on any other feed in the area. So it'd taken that onramp out of the Interstate, but they had no way to see which way it'd turned.
Tanya hacked all the traffic control servers and the missing files were nowhere to be found. So Aldana and her decided to pay a visit to the monitoring center, to get a list of employees with access to those files and run a diagnose on the servers.
Hank was back to the field office lab to complete the tests on Irene's samples. Brock went with him to check if Barnes had any update on Irene's car and luggage.
Russell kept searching for victims that could match Bennett's MO, and trying to get in touch with the detectives who had investigated Bennett's murders in Tallahassee.
Cassidy hadn't sent any evidence of the adoption. He wasn't taking Gillian's calls either, and she knew there was no point in calling his assistant, because the storm kept everybody at home.
Bottom line, they had a lot of assumptions and nothing concrete to back them up.
"Awesome!" she snarled, alone in the 101.
Fred's voice rescued her from her broody thoughts. "We found the truck, Reg. Ron's knocking on the door."
"Good. Keep me up."
Fred rested his arms on the wheel and leaned in to look out through the rain cascading down the windshield. He'd stopped at the corner, and Ron got out into the rain, pulling up the hood of his rain jacket—they'd refused to wear the FBI's to keep from stirring so much attention.
Ron pressed on to the next corner, hood on, shoulders up, trying to steal his face from the icy rain. He stopped at a small, shabby house with a tiny front yard where the grass brushed his knees. The tow truck was parked on the driveway, by the house. Ron tried the vehicle, but it was locked, so he went to the front door. No bell. He knocked on the screen frame. A narrow strip of roof covered the doorstep. Narrow enough so all the water fell on whoever stood on the porch. Ron pulled his hood further over his face and congratulated himself for his all-Bostonian jacket.
A creaky voice answered his second knock. "Coming..."
A moment later, an old man opened the door. Only a crack to show his face behind the screen.
Ron flashed a friendly smile. "Morning, sir. Sorry to bother you. I'm looking for Mark."
The old man frowned, and the way he turned his face, to bring his ear closer to the screen, told Ron to speak louder.
"Who's Mark?" the old man asked when he finally understood Ron's words.
"Mark, the tow truck guy?" Ron tried. "Sorry, dunno his last name. Blonde, beard, forty-something... That's his truck on your driveway."
The old man looked down and moved his lips. Ron stepped closer and heard him mutter, "Mark... Mark... Blonde? We don't know no blonde..."
Even from the porch, Ron smelled the liquor in the old man's breath. So he mustered his patience and managed a smile.
* * *
Fred was about to go looking for Ron when he came back to the SUV.
"About damn time, man," Fred grunted. "Anything?"
Ron nodded as he took off his soaking jacket and hung it from the hook over the backseat window. He turned on his radio to say, "Hey, Reg, grab a pen. I didn't find Mark but I got his number from the side of the truck."
Fred started the engine and drove away as Ron dictated the number to Gillian.
"He pays two-hundred bucks a week to an old man to keep the truck in his house," Ron said. "The old man didn't even know his name. He comes every day at noon, leaves his car here to take the truck, brings it back about ten p.m. Then he trades truck for car again and leaves."
"Good finding, lads. Come back now, you've earned a while in the dry."
Gillian called Kurt and found him working for Russell on the search for cold cases. So she gave him the number and asked him to check it asap.
"Can't T do it?" Kurt grunted.
She breathed deep and exercised enough peace of mind and understanding to be reborn as the new Dalai Lama. Saturday morning, snow up to the windowpanes in Boston and still falling, a cold to expect glaciers navigating the empty streets instead of buses. Yet Kurt was at the field office. Working. His mood was sort of mandatory.
"She's busy, and not even here, Kurt. Else I wouldn't be bugging you."
It worked. Kurt's reply was a serious nod. "Okay. Tell Russ his searches will have to wait. Anything in particular you wanna know?"
"Who owns the line, contact information. Phone records would come in handy, too. Oh, and can you turn on the phone's GPS without the owner noticing?"
"Hey, stealth is my middle name."
Gillian scoffed and let him work. Her phone buzzed then. She picked up as she pinned a note with the phone number to the board, by the picture of the truck.
"Al..."
"Hey, Reg. Looks like T's got something. She found... I'm gonna read it 'cause I'm not sure what it means. She found a backdoor in the server, in case you know what that is. So she needs to stay here to... follow the code to try to get an IP or a signature?"
Gillian chuckled. "That's correct. Okay, stay with her unless she tells you otherwise. Tell'er to call me whenever she can."
Russell came into the lonely 101 then, eyes down on his tablet. He glanced up and stopped.
"Everybody's still out?"
"Yep. Only grumpy me around, I'm afraid," Gillian replied.
He flashed one of his warm smiles and approached the table, kissing her cheek on his way. "More than enough for me."
