Page 148 of Bound By Fire
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Ridge
I get into the SUV and pull the door shut behind me. All I can think about is the evidence in my laptop bag.
I scrub a hand over my face.
I pick up my phone and note that I have two missed calls from Reed.
She wants an update.
I’m trying to decide whether to call her back and what to say when I do, when my phone rings.
It’s Flint.
I tap to answer. “Speak to me.”
“We need to meet.” His voice is short. “Vasanti’s Hardware on Eighth and Vine. The lot on the east side. Now.”
“Vasanti’s? Why there?”
“You’ll see when you get here.”
The call cuts, and I put my phone down.
I head out and am there in under ten minutes.
I spot Flint right away. He’s parked at the far end, near the trolley bay, leaning against his bike. His helmet hangs off one handlebar.
I pull in next to him and get out.
“What’s going on?” I ask as I shut the door.
“I got in to see Magma.”
I exhale. “I’m all ears.”
“He’s angry, confused, and disappointed,” Flint says. “That and seriously fucking upset. He wants to know why no one is listening to him. He mostly wants to know how a burner with his prints ended up taped under his bed.”
“That’s what I want to know, too.”
“Yeah.” Flint scrubs a hand over his jaw. “I had to walk him through it. I asked him about cell phones. Had he picked one up, handled one that wasn’t his, anything in the last two weeks. He said no, but I kept pushing. He still said no. Then I asked him to think about it harder. To walk back through every day of the last fortnight and tell me where he had been.”
“And?”
“At first, nothing. Then he told me that last Wednesday, he came in here, to Vasanti’s, on his lunch break. He needed a part for that fence he’s been fixing at his place. He was at the counter when a human female dropped a cell phone right at his feet. He picked it up and handed it back to her.”
“That has to be it.”
“Magma found it strange that she was wearing gloves on such a hot day,” Flint adds. “He forgot all about it until our conversation sparked his memory.”
“This female wore gloves so that she didn’t get her prints on the phone,” I say.
“Exactly.”
I look up at the front of the store. There’s a security camera under the awning over the main door. A second one tuckedabove the trolley return. I scan the lot. There are two more on the light poles. One at the bay where Flint parked. One at the side exit. All angles are covered.
“I take it we’re here to try to get the CCTV footage.” I lift my brow.
