“What? That someone broke into a random house on gingerbread lane to download Vaughn’s virus onto a kid’s computer? All in broad daylight?”

“Yeah, that,” she said.

“About an eleven.”

“But they’re not suspects. We agree on that?”

“Those two? Yeah.”

“So why do it? Why here?”

“Maybe someone’s playing with us. Letting us know he’s too smart to be caught. Spinning us in the wrong direction.”

“You think he’s just showing off?”

“Well, this fits my definition of a wild goose chase.”

“I don’t know. That’s a lot of risk. Break into a house? In this neighborhood? In broad daylight? And for what? To waste a couple hours of our time? Doesn’t seem worth it.”

“Maybe he’s making an alibi for Tate. Possible there’s two of them.”

“That we know of. There’s a lot you can do in a couple hours,” Jenn said. “We should get back to Grafton.”

“Agreed.” Hendricks started the engine but left it in park. He stared at his partner. “What?”

“I’m going to talk to the neighbor.”

“The old lady?” Hendricks asked. “What for?”

“I need to know what Terrance Musgrove has to do with any of this.”

It was forty minutes before she got back in the car.

“Did she give you her recipe for snickerdoodles?”

Jenn held up a finger to him as she took out her phone and called George. She explained the situation to George as Hendricks listened.

When she finished, George asked her what they needed.

“An open-records check on a Terrance Musgrove.” She spelled the name and gave his address here on Orange Lane. “Ten years ago, approximately.”

She turned to Hendricks.

“What county are we in?”

“Westmoreland,” Hendricks said.

George told her he would call ahead and smooth the way with the local police. Jenn dragged her tongue over her teeth. Either Tate had a partner, or they had the wrong guy. God help them if Tate was innocent.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Gibson slipped inside the storage unit and pulled the rollaway door down behind him. The smell of stale sweat and vomit greeted him in the blistering heat. He heard movement from behind a chain-link fence that stretched across part of the room, and cautiously approached in the gloom.

Kirby Tate was curled into a fetal position on a pile of straw. Despite the oppressive heat, he was shivering. Through narrowed eyes he watched Gibson with a feral wariness. Gibson forced a smile onto his face and held up a bottle of water that perspired in the heat.

Tate licked his cracked lips.

“Take it.”

Tate shrunk back toward the wall as though Gibson were threatening him with a gun, not offering him a drink.

“Take it,” he repeated. “It’s all right.”