Chapter Fifteen #2
"Okay, I'll let Niall know. Thanks again, Captain, and sorry we messed up.
" Logan looked over and grimaced. "Yes, I know better.
Yes, I promise to only play with my guns and not crap on your crime scenes in the future.
" He tapped the screen on his phone. “Cops are on their way. Both Detective Marks from yesterday and Captain Fredericks.”
"For a minute there I thought you were talking to yourself."
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Hands-free streaming. Calls and media go right to my processors via Bluetooth. Until I got these babies, phone calls were impossible.”
Niall frowned as he realized how insensitive he’d been to Logan’s disability. “I’m sorry, Logan. You could have told me to make the call. I forget sometimes that the things I take for granted are a challenge for you.”
Logan placed his hand on Niall’s shoulder and squeezed.
“First of all, thank you. That’s probably the best compliment a person can give me.
Secondly, you’re under a lot of stress and not thinking as clearly as you normally would.
Finally, I make phone calls all the time.
Yes, it’s sometimes difficult, especially if I don’t know the person I’m speaking to or they have a thick accent, but it’s part of our everyday lives, and I’ve learned to compensate. I just make Clay talk to Conor.”
Niall shoulders sagged, and he rubbed his burning eyes. Warmth enveloped him when Logan’s arms encircled Niall’s back. Niall let himself lean on Logan’s strength for a minute before he stepped out of the embrace and cleared his throat.
He held up the last item he’d found in the box. “It’s a newspaper article about some house over in East Boston. It says someone recently purchased the house, which had been abandoned for several years."
“Trevor lived in East Boston when he was a kid, before his old man left. Maybe the house in the article is his childhood home. A memory of better times?”
Niall made eye contact with Logan when he spoke, “Maybe. Can you read this writing on the side?”
Logan squinted and turned his head sideways. “For my pet? Does that mean anything to you?”
Niall frowned. “No. Unless … no that’s too much of a stretch.”
“Stretch away, buddy.”
“Fine. The message under Trevor’s neighbor’s dog said something about runaway pets. This says ‘pet’. What if … what if the person who gave this to Trevor and the person who owns this old house are the same?”
“Son of a bitch,” Logan whispered. “Do you think it’s possible?”
Niall stared at the photo in the clipping. “I don’t know. There’s nothing here that says ‘X’ marks the spot, but in my gut I can’t help but think there’s some kind of connection.”
“I never argue with a gut. Mine saved my ass more than once when I was still in the Rangers.”
“There’s no address listed here. How do we find out where this house is exactly and who owns it?”
Logan smiled. “That, my friend, is why it behooves us to have a police detective and FBI agent in our back pocket.”
A pounding sounded at the front door.
“BPD! Callen, you in there?”
“We’re here and unarmed!” Niall shouted.
Logan raised his eyebrow, and Niall shrugged. “Never hurts to be cautious.”
Logan's shoulders shook with laughter, and Niall couldn’t help but get caught up. He moved to answer the door and let the cops in. A man in uniform and two in suits piled in and quickly shut the door.
“Damn it's cold out there! The snow is piling up as well.”
Logan moved over between the recent arrivals and Niall. “Niall, this is Captain Fredericks, Trevor’s and my boss. Captain, this is Niall Roberge, Trevor’s partner.”
The middle-aged man came forward and clasped Niall’s hand. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Roberge. Be assured that our department is doing everything we can to track down Trevor and whoever took him.”
“I appreciate that, Captain.” Niall held up the newspaper clipping. “This may be a clue. We found it in Trevor’s memento box.”
The captain put on a pair of gloves and took the paper from Niall. “Can’t say I appreciate you poking around before we cleared the scene, but at least you used gloves.”
“The only things I touched in the apartment before donning the gloves are the front doorknob and the outside of the box this was found in. Logan was much better behaved.”
The captain looked around at the mess. “I gotta say there’s probably not much we can do here other than file an incident report. Trevor should be able to claim the break-in under his renter’s insurance once he returns.”
Niall appreciated the captain’s use of language and understood that they were more concerned with finding Trevor than dealing with the mess in Trevor’s apartment.
Detective Marks came back from Trevor’s bedroom with his pen flying away on a small notebook pad.
“In Trevor’s absence and in consideration of his relationship with the department, I’ve got the uniform cataloging the damage for the report.
Mr. Roberge, have you noticed anything missing?
We might miss small items, but we can try to track down significant pieces that someone could pawn. "
“No, sir. Trevor doesn’t really have many material possessions. His biggest pride and joy was that television,” Niall said, pointing to the corpse of technology.
Detective Mark’s winced, “Is that one of those new OLED sets?” He whistled softly. “That one’s going to hurt. Wait, are those—” He walked over and flicked on his flashlight. The beam shot through the thin screen onto the wall behind the TV.
Niall had been so focused on the screen itself that he didn’t think to look any further. Someone rapped at the front door, and Logan opened it.
“Hey Gale, thanks for taking the call.” Logan gestured for Niall to join him. “Niall, this is Gale Benner. She’s one of the CSIs Trevor and I work with.”
Niall offered his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Detective Marks waved the CSI over toward him. “Gale! Priority one. Get these bullets out of the wall and over to the lab. Have—” Marks looked back over his shoulder at Logan. “Well shit, you’re here.”
Logan went over to the wall and peered through the hole. “I’m going with them. It’s the best way I can help Trevor right now. This one appears to be intact. It looks like the stud prevented any damage to the round. Now that’s a one in a billion shot.”
“Um, guys? If you move, I can do my job, and we get this evidence processed.”
Both men stepped away, and Niall turned to see Captain Fredericks still looking at the newspaper clipping. “What do you think, Captain?”
“Your theory is plausible. The part that sucks is normally I would give this to Trevor to enhance so we can try to identify exactly where this house is located.”
“I might be able to help you with that, Captain.”
“What? How?”
“I’m a photographer. I have a complete digital lab set up in my studio.”
“No shit? What are we waiting for then? Callen!” Fredericks waited until Logan looked over at him. “You good?”
“Good, sir. I’m taking this slug back to the lab to see if I get a hit in IBIS. I’ll call you and Marks the second I know anything either way.”
“Mr. Roberge, let’s go see if you can wave your magic wand the same way Mitchell can.”
Niall clicked the scan button, and a digital image of the newspaper clipping slowly appeared on the large monitor in his studio.
He’d increased the resolution of the scan so they could enlarge the image, selecting only that portion with the photo of the house.
He opened his Adobe Lightroom program and imported the photo.
Fredericks looked over Niall’s shoulder. “Hey that’s not bad.”
Niall moved his mouse over the screen and set the pixel ratio to one-to-one—this essentially zoomed the photo in the active window. They could now move around and focus on any part of the picture they wanted to.
“That makes things easier on my old eyes,” Fredericks joked.
Next, Niall increased the exposure one-third of a stop, which lightened the image to combat the yellowing of the newspaper. He then clicked on the development tab and played with the temperature, tint, contrast, and noise reduction. Not his most refined work, but sufficient for their needs.
“All right, let’s see what we’ve got.” Niall set the ratio back so they could view the entire image on the active screen. What appeared was a picture as it probably looked the day it was shot.
Fredericks slapped Niall on the back. “Not bad. Not bad at all. Can you zoom in on the house number?”
Niall did, but they couldn’t read it because of a large shadow. He selected his spot brush and did some more manipulation with the exposure and sharpness. The number nineteen appeared in clear contrast to the surrounding image. Niall’s heart raced as the digit leapt from the screen.
Fredericks pumped his fist. “Yes! Now, nineteen what?”
Niall moved the mouse all over the image, but there was no sign of a street name anywhere. “Sir, you see that truck? If I can get you a license plate, can you pull up the DMV file for the registered owner? It might give us a street name.”
“Good thinking.” He removed the radio from his belt. “Dispatch, this is three-one-two.”
“Go ahead, three-one-two.”
“I need you to run a plate for me…” Fredericks looked down at the screen to see the spot Niall had enhanced. “One-Six-Charlie-Victor-two-five.”
Seconds passed until the disembodied female voice echoed through the tiny speaker, “One-Six-Charlie-Victor-two-five. No wants, no warrants. Registered to A. Edelman, number twenty Haynes, East Boston.”
Niall nearly jumped up and kissed the Captain. They had an address! Now, all they had to do was find out who owned the house. As Matt had said the night before—they were one step closer.
Niall’s phone rang on the desk, and he looked at the screen to see Rick’s name.
“We’ve got an address,” Niall said before Rick could get a word out.
He heard the clicking of computer keys through the connection. “What is it? I’ll do a reverse address search.”
Niall rattled off the address and waited while the results popped up.
“Got you fucker! The resident is listed as S. Hampton.”
Niall relayed the information to Captain Fredericks, who held up his hand.
“Just a minute, Mr. Roberge. So far, all we have is a theory. Just because that house is owned by our missing suspect, doesn’t guarantee that he’s the one who has your partner.”
Niall put the phone back up against his ear. “Rick? Can I talk to Matt?”
Niall’s breath stalled in his chest as he waited for Matt’s voice to come through the phone.
“ Caro ?”
Niall closed his eyes as Matt’s deep voice washed over him. “We’re so close, love. There’s one missing link. Have you heard anything from Logan?”
“No, not yet. Clay’s been on and off the phone with guys from the department.
He’s trying to find out if Hampton showed up for his shift at work.
Ryan is running a complete background check on Hampton as we speak, that man has some scary information at his fingertips.
Conor and Calleigh are making everybody some food.
I don’t know what it is, but your place certainly smells delicious. ”
“Our place, love. From now on, it’s all of ours.” Niall printed out the image for Captain Fredericks. He saved a copy to both his hard drive and saved one to a jump drive for the police. “What about Rick?” A loud sound like an explosion on a movie reverberated through the phone.
“Rick’s in charge of entertainment. He and Ethan are challenging anyone who’s gotten a little too wound up to a game of Mindseye on Trevor’s Xbox.”
Niall’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Sounds good. We’re almost done here then I’ll be coming home. I could use a little stress relief when I get there.”
“Don’t worry, caro . I’ll take care of you.”
Niall glanced over his shoulder to see the captain’s back turned his direction. “I’ll hold you to that, love.”
Niall hung up with Matt and turned to see Frederick with a confused look on his face. “What’s wrong? Did you hear from Logan? Did dispatch say anything else?”
“I thought you were Trevor’s partner?”
“I am.” Niall handed over the print and jumpdrive.
“Then who did you just call ‘love’?”
“That was Matt. He’s our other partner.”
Fredericks jaw dropped to the floor, and the papers nearly slid out of his hand. “Other … you mean there are three of you … together?”
“Yes. I love and share my life with two men, as do they.” Niall shut down his computer, then faced Fredericks.
The captain’s face didn’t scream hate or intolerance.
In fact, Niall had been impressed by how remarkably professional the captain had been regarding his relationship with Trevor.
Maybe working with both Trevor and Logan every day had opened Frederick’s eyes to acceptance of gay relationships, or maybe he was one of the few of his generation who accepted alternative lifestyles.
“People actually do that? Not just for sex, but live that way?”
“Sure. We have some good friends who are in a ménage marriage with their wife. They have three beautiful children and couldn’t be happier.”
Fredericks shook his head and turned to leave the studio. “Man, I’m getting too old for this stuff.”
Niall laughed. “We’re not exactly trendsetters. Relationships like ours have existed since the beginning of time. I was raised by my grandparents, who were also a threesome.”
He was locking the studio door when Fredericks’ phone went off. “This is Fredericks.”
Niall stood with the snow blowing around them, unabashedly listening in on one side of the conversation.
He looked up at the sky and prayed that Trevor wasn’t out in this crap somewhere without protection.
Since they’d left Trevor’s apartment, a good three inches had piled up on top of the five that had come down that morning.
Niall rubbed his hands together and bounced on the balls of his feet.
His condo was only minutes away, and he wanted to get back there.
The captain was immobile as a statue, despite the freezing temperatures and wind blowing at them off the harbor.
Captain Fredericks closed his phone, turned to Niall and smiled. “That was Logan. We got him.”