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He laughed. “Chipper as always,” he replied. “Okay, let’s start with you telling me what equipment you have with you.”

Smith rooted through the kit he’d brought, enumerating everything to Mays as he pulled it out of the bag and set it carefully on the carpet. Most things were either closed—like little containers—or sealed in plastic.

Mays told us what we needed—swabs, small plastic tube containers, a little bottle of distilled water, gloves—and then walked us through the process of carefully wetting the swab, rolling it over the dried snot on the window, then sealing the swab in the tube. It really wasn’t terribly hard, although you had to be careful not to mangle the swab, over-wet the swab, or touch anything else.

Then I made him talk us through scraping the scuff mark off the bookshelf, then pulling more dirt out of the dried mud spot on the carpet.

“Anythingelse?” he asked, finally.

“Only if you can tell me where I might find a missing car wash token,” I told him.

He was silent for a moment. “I have a suggestion…”

I knew exactly where his suggestion was. “Har har, Mays.”

Smith looked confused.

“Thanks,” I said to the CSI tech on the phone.

“No problem. Do let me know if you managed to get anything?”

“I will, and, seriously, thanks.”

He sounded amused when he replied, “You’re welcome.”

I hung up.

“Where does he think you should look?” Smith asked me.

“Up my ass, I’m guessing,” I replied.

Smith snorted. “Somehow I don’t think I’d find it there.”

“No, you would not,” I confirmed. “Not into sticking tokens up there.”

He let out a deep rumble of a laugh. “Noted.”

We packed up the kit and our evidence, then headed back to the kitchen to rescue our coffee—his had probably melted and mine was probably cold.

Elliot was sitting at the counter, doing something on his laptop. He looked up. “I put the frozen one in the freezer, and Val’s is in there.” He pointed at an insulated travel mug. “I want my cup back, though.”

“Thanks, El.” I took a sip and was pleased to find that it was still plenty warm.

Smith rescued his from the freezer, but didn’t bother trying to take a sip. We’d been in the office for probably forty-five minutes, which meant that his blended coffee smoothie-thing was nearly solid. It also meant that we needed to get on the road to get to Green Bay by ten.

“Thank you for your time, Elliot,” Smith said.

“Let me know what else you need,” Elliot replied, and I could tell by the intensity of his expression that this was still stressing him out. He wasn’t broken, but he really wanted to find out what had happened—and so did I.

* * *

It wastwo minutes after ten when Smith pulled into a sizeable parking lot behind a rather bizarre combination of businesses—a brewery, a bakery, a TV station, a law firm, a lingerie store… and the Green Bay office of the FBI. All of them were in mostly non-descript brown buildings.

Apparently the FBI wasn’t big into fancy buildings. At least not in small to medium-sized cities, given how bland the one in Richmond was, as well.

I followed Smith inside, and he flashed his shield at the pale, brown-haired man sitting at the security desk. I pulled out my wallet and offered my ID, as well. I debated showing my PI’s license, but I figured Smith would suggest it if he thought that was a good idea.

It was the first time I’d been in a federal building since leaving the RPD—every time Raj needed something from me or someone else at Beyond the Veil, he came to us.