The Test

Chapter Eleven

Derek

After I left Greene's office, I drove around a bit trying to clear my head. Allan was right, if I wanted to find Layna I had to stay level headed and not make assumptions based on my gut feeling. Just because I felt like something was off with Brian, didn't mean that he was guilty of kidnapping.

It took me about thirty minutes to calm myself down, and that's when I made my way back to the station.

When I walked into Greene's office that he had passed out, face first on his desk. I felt bad for the guy; as hard as I was working to try and help Layna, he was probably working harder. At least I had gotten some sleep last night, I was pretty sure he had spent the night in is office going through leads.

He jumped up when the door closed, clearing his throat. He rubbed his eyes as I took a seat in front of his desk. When he saw that it was me, he leaned back on his chair, rubbing his face as he let out a deep breath.

"I need more coffee," he said as a way of greeting.

"The coffee here is shit, and you know it. Why don't we go grab some from the café down the block; at least then you can get out of the office and clear your head a bit. I think its something we both need at this moment to be honest."

"Yeah, yeah that sounds good," he stood up from his desk, grabbing his badge and wallet from the drawer beside him. I followed his lead and we left his office.

"Detective Green!" a voice called out, and we both turned to look at the young officer that was running towards us. He looked fluster, his face bright red. "We have a situation."

Green just raised and eyebrow at him, and he continued, "There's some people in the conference room saying you called them; from the FBI or something. They just started setting up and I told them to stop that they had to talk to you but they didn't listen."

"You know them?" Detective Green looked at me questioningly. I shrugged my shoulders unsure of who exactly they were.

I followed Detective Greene out of his office, and into the conference room.

"Derek man, what's up?" Humphrey said, waving from where he was sitting at one of the tables. He had his typical set-up of three laptops around him, and he was typing furiously at one. "Do you think I could get the Wi-Fi password?"

I knew that if he wanted to, he could just hack into their internet and go from there, but usually while on a case he liked to be polite and ask first.

Justin was sitting beside Humphrey, a whole bunch of papers in front of him, as he made notes in the files. Amelia was in a corner talking on her phone, but she waved at me when she saw that I had walked in.

Humphrey came around the table, clasping my shoulders. He was the oldest one of us, having worked with the FBI the longest, and in his fifties. It still surprised me how good he was with computers at his age, and it was something we often joked about with him.

"I've heard that you might need our help?" He said kindly, a fatherly warmth in his eyes.

"Would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on?" Greene said calmly from where he was watching the scene unfold in front of him from the doorway.

"Are you the detective in charge of the Layna Keston case?" Humphrey said, standing up and going over to meet Alan by the doorway. "My name is Mervyn Humphrey, I'm the head of this team here. That's Justin Baddox and Amelia Arnocetti. We're with a special unit in the FBI, along with Derek here, that specialize in serial crimes."