Caged

Customer

Malcolm woke up yelling per usual. He got dressed and left for work. When he came in Gil immediately came over and asked him to help him while he went through the file of the first interview the police had had with the owner of the gas station. Malcom picked up and started reading. His facial expression turned from tired and bored to shocked. "Gil, look at this." Gil walked over and peered at the file from behind Malcolm's shoulders.  "It's a completely different story than what he told us. And it has nothing to do with what really happened either time." "Do you think that he was the one who set her up?" Malcolm asked. "What other reason?" "Well he could be being threatened. I feel like the stories are so different from each other that someone really trying to hide something couldn't possibly make that mistake. Maybe the stories being so different was sort of his way of asking for help." "That's genius. JT, get over here." JT stood up and walked over. I want the two of you to look this over as much as possible to see if you can find some kind of hidden message in it or a double meaning. "What?" Gil asked seeing the look on JT's face. "Your gonna have to learn to get along because Dani isn't here." He added as he walked away rolling his eyes. "I'm not that bad am I?" Malcolm asked. JT just looked at him.

Once they were in a conference room Malcolm got out a marker and started writing on the board while JT sat at the table with the file in his hands. "Alright. So what is the first thing he said?" "He started off by saying he'd already told his story the first time but he would tell it again." JT replied. "Ok. That's good so that is the first hint that he might of been trying to get us to look at the file." "Then he said that a man and a woman walked in and he was going to take them at the cashier next. But then another man walked in, a customer. Then-" "Okay. Stop there." Malcolm said. That was one thing that really stood out to me. He kept mentioning that this man was a customer." He sat and thought for a minute. "Ok. Skip everything else just read me the sentences where he mentioned that the man was a customer." "Okayyy." JT said annoyed that he was being told what to do by him. "So I started to take it out but then all of a sudden she turned and when she saw the face of the guy who had come in, the customer,-" "Okay. Stop right there." He scribbled on the board again. "Customer." he wrote it out on the board. He circled the letters T O M. "Tom." "Isn't that a stretch?" JT asked. "I mean yes. But whenbhe said the woman recognized the man how would he know that was what was happening when she saw his face? He works at a gas station he most likely can't read people but he also couldn't see there faces. He couldn't see her face because she was facing the other way. So maybe that indicated that he knew him. Not the other way around. But how did he know heim" He jumped up onto the conference table and started walking back wards still staring at the board until he reached the edge farthest from it as if seeing it from a longer distance would help it make more sense. JT furrowed his brows looking at him like he was redicoulus. "Of course!  It all makes sense now!" "Yeah. No. I literally have no idea what you're talking about." He jumped down off the table and ran out of the room. "Heyyy. Bright!" JT walked out to find him searching through different cults and satanic groups with the symbol of a triangle nearby. "Why?" He asked. "Shhh." A couple more seconds went by. "Aha! There is a satanic cult group website here with the symbol of a triangle. Which I saw a tattoo of right below his ear on his neck. The satanic group is named Cusmer and Tom Grade is the one running it." "Ok. That's actually pretty impressive." Malcolm nodded his head in a way of saying thanks.

They explained every thing to Gil and he had someone search the guys name and try to find out where he was now. "Ok. It says here that he went missing about 3 weeks ago." Gil scoffed and JT sighed in disappointment. "Of course he did." Gil said. "Well then let's go pretend to arrest the owner of the gas station so that if Tom is listening in he will think he is being framed and then when we get him here we can get him protection and have him as a witness against Grade." "Alright." Gil agreed. JT can you stay here and try to find any connection Tom Grade may have with the NYPD agent that was killed?" JT groaned but didn't say anything.

When they showed up to the gas station they went inside and saw someone else at the counter. "Hi. How can I help you?" "We are looking for Henry Tarp. The owner of this gas station." "Oh. He hasn't come in in awhile. He texted me like two days ago that he wasn't coming in for a while and to quote "hold the fort down." Gil and Malcolm passed each other a look. "Do you happen to have his address?" Gil asked while holding out his badge. She raised her eyebrows and pressed her lips together while she wrote it down on a slip of paper. "Let me know if I can be of anymore help to you." She said with a fake smile as they turned to leave.

They went back and got JT before they went with guns and body armor to Henry's house. Gil walked up first and knocked on the door. "Henry Tarp! NYPD!" Nothing. "Open up!" There was still nothing. He tried for about 30 more seconds and then kicked opened the door. They each took different rooms. "Clear!" "Clear!" "There's no one here." Malcolm confirmed. Gil sighed and rubbed his eyes aggressively. "Great now our two only leads are both missing!" Malcolm had noticed he had been exhibiting extreme signs of stress lately over Dani's case. He had never seen him take anything else so seriously. "It's ok. We'll find something else."

Gil told them to go home and then tomorrow they were going to try to follow traffic cameras or anything to see where he had last been tomorrow. Malcolm went home and looked at the clock. It was almost time to meet with Dani. He quickly ate the cold eggs he had left on the counter that morning and left for his long awaited destination.