It was after three in the afternoon in Colorado, the middle of the business day.
“Hey, it’s McManus.” Quinn brought Tower up to date, telling him about the villa and what they’d seen. “Shields believes Jack Murray mailed his original mobile phone to me in Denver. Is there any way you can go check? Thanks.”
Quinn gave him the passcode information for his apartment in LoDo then ended the call. “He’s sendin’ some guys off to check.”
They made tea and waited for Tower to get back to them, Elizabeth’s mind sorting through the scattered pieces.
“Jack came home upset early on a Saturday morning after being out most of the night. He bought the new phone the following Monday. He kept the old one on him at all times until he mailed it to you shortly before he was murdered.” Elizabeth could think of only one reason for that. “There has to be something on it—a call or conversation he recorded or photos or a video. Maybe he had proof of what was happening there, just like you suggested.”
“You’re thinkin’ the killer murdered him to retrieve it.”
Elizabeth played with that idea. “He killed Jack, took his phones, concealed them somehow. When he discovered that what he was looking for wasn’t on that phone, he put the pieces together—or hacked the phone records—and learned that the phone he had was a new one, not the one he wanted.”
“And he’s been tryin’ to find it since.”
Elizabeth took a sip of her tea. “That’s why he broke into Jack and Ava’s place—to find it. That’s why he searched your room. He must have the same phone records we have. He would see that Jack called you before the phone disappeared.”
Quinn’s phone buzzed. “McManus here. Och, are you serious? The bastards! It disnae matter to me. Thank you. Right. It’s there then?”
Elizabeth interrupted him. “If they found the package, tell themnotto open it. They need to do that in an EM-proof environment.”
Quinn conveyed the information then ended the call. “Someone broke into my condo and trashed the place. Tower has contacted the police.”
“Oh, Quinn, I’m so sorry.” Had the killer gone after the phone there?
“He says nothin’ is missin’ as far as he can tell. My TV, my firearms, my computer—they’re all there. He had someone check the mailroom at Cobra HQ, and there was a package to me from Jack. Jack didnae mail it to my home. He was too smart for that. He mailed the phone to Cobra.”
They had it. They had Jack’s old phone.
At last, they were getting somewhere.
* * *
Quinn and Elizabethwoke up the next day to the news that Tower had found an EM-proof room at the Denver research lab of a US military contractor. He and some members of what everyone affectionately referred to as Cobra’s “geek team” had taken the phone to the lab to open the package and crack the phone’s password, though Elizabeth insisted Jack had probably removed it.
“Whatever was on there—he’d want you to be able to see it. I’m betting he thought getting the phone into safe hands was life insurance for him.”
Once they had access to the phone’s contents, they would upload everything to Cobra’s cloud server. The phone would remain in the lab until Jack’s killer was arrested.
Because Denver was seven hours behind Glasgow, Quinn and Elizabeth found themselves with time to kill. Though Tower and the rest of the staff at Cobra would no doubt be fine working around the clock, the military contractor stuck to business hours.
“It’s three a.m. there. We’ve probably got five hours until the lab opens.” Elizabeth was clearly impatient to move forward.
“I’ll take out my stitches, and then we can go visit another castle.”
“Only if you really want to. I feel like I tortured you yesterday.”
He kissed her. “I’m just teasin’. I love seein’ your face light up when you see somethin’ that excites you.”
“We can get the doctor to remove your stitches.”
“I can do it myself. I’ve done it afore many times.”
When his stitches were out, they rode the lift down to the garage and set out for Dumbarton Castle, a drive of about thirty minutes from their hotel.
Quinn looked at his gas gauge. “I need to stop at a petrol station.”
“Are there any that have convenience stores? I need to pick up a few things.” She wrinkled her nose in dislike. “It’s almost that time of the month.”