By then more than half an hour had passed since the first interruption inside the diner. The brothers were sweating through their shirts, the food they had paid for remained unfinished, and their rental car stood open beneath a sun bright enough to turn the chrome trim almost white. Crawford leaned against the wall with his coffee as if he were waiting for an ordinary dispatch call, while Brennan checked the cruiser computer again, perhaps hoping the screen would finally produce something that explained his own behavior.
The screen produced nothing. No warrants. No stolen property. No arrest alerts. Not even a traffic violation. Only two names, two valid licenses, and a rental agreement.
"Both clear," Brennan said for the second time.
"I still don't like it," Crawford answered.
"What specifically?" Brennan asked before he could stop himself.
The older deputy looked at him. His silence lasted long enough for Brennan to regret the question. "You'll learn," Crawford said at last. "You haven't been doing this long enough to trust your instincts."
Brennan looked across the lot at the papers on the ground. Something in him wanted to bend down and gather them. He did not move, and the absence of that small act would later trouble him almost as much as the search itself.
Malcolm's phone vibrated where Crawford had left it on the hood. The deputy glanced at the illuminated screen and saw Dana Sutton's name, then let the call ring out. A second call followed a minute later. He ignored that too, though the repetition annoyed him enough to pick up the phone and turn it face down.
"Somebody's looking for you," he said.
"Then I suggest you let me answer," Malcolm replied.
"I suggest you keep quiet."
The call was no coincidence. Sutton had received Malcolm's message about breakfast and expected a routine check-in before the vehicles reached the diner. Traffic at an interchange and a detour around a stalled tractor trailer had widened the gap between the rental car and her convoy. When he did not answer her first call, she checked the location information he had agreed to share for the trip and began calling again.
She had coordinated protective movements long enough to distinguish inconvenience from alarm. An unanswered phone was not proof of danger, but it was enough to change the team's approach. She directed the lead vehicle toward the diner address, confirmed with the rear vehicles that everyone had received the route correction, and instructed the marshals to prepare to assess an unknown situation on arrival.
Inside the lead Suburban, Sutton watched the miles drop on the navigation screen. A deputy beside her read the last message aloud, including the part about pancakes. She did not smile. She had warned Malcolm about unnecessary stops, and she hoped she would soon be delivering another irritating lecture about why her warnings deserved attention.
At Loretta's Griddle, Crawford became impatient with the lack of progress. He ordered Elijah to stand against the cruiser again after the younger man shifted his weight to ease the heat on his palms. Elijah's fingers were trembling badly enough that he could barely close them into fists when the deputy finally let him lift them.
"You know this is being recorded," Elijah said.
Crawford stared at him. "By what?"