Page 93 of Static

"Early," Hellfire told him with a shit-eating grin, echoing Toxic's correction from earlier back at him.

Toxic flipped him off.

"Trent had something on him," I told the room, ignoring the others. Silence descended.

"Why is he trying to find it now?" Smoke asked. "Why not before?"

"Because we weren't putting any pressure on him before," Lockout answered. His eyes were narrowed, his finger tapping on the table as he thought about the situation.

"Exactly," I replied. "We're closing in on him and he knows it. As it stands we don't have anything concrete on him."

"Which is why we've been going after his suppliers," Priest said.

"He can't afford for any shred of evidence to make its way into our hands or it's over for him," I added.

"How would he know? That Trent had something on him?" Toxic asked.

"He tried to use it to get himself out of jail," Butcher replied. "Guarantee he told Fremont to get him out or he'd make sure the right people got whatever he had."

I nodded in agreement. "That's what I think, too."

"Which means Fremont called his bluff, had him killed, and figured he'd find the evidence later," Hush said. "Ballsy."

"Arrogant," Riptide said. "Sounds exactly like Fremont."

"So...what is he looking for?" Ricochet asked.

"And do you think he found it," Hellfire added.

"I don't think he did," I replied. "Gwen didn't see anything missing. And I doubt Trent was stupid enough to tell Fremont exactly what he had and where he was hiding it. Which is why he broke into the storage locker after he didn't find whatever it was in Gwen's house."

"Shit, he may try looking again," Lock said.

"Yeah," Rip added. "It's going to be small. A USB most likely. Trent was an asshole, but he wasn't stupid. He'd know better than to store something like that on the hard drive of a computer, or in the cloud. It would need to be small and concealable."

"Why check Gwen's house first?" Ricochet asked.

"He must have thought he'd be more likely to hide it there," Hush said. "Less connection with Fremont."

"When he didn't find anything, he moved on to Trent's stuff," I continued.

"So, where is it?" Toxic asked. "If it's not with any of Gwen or Trent's stuff?"

"I think I know, or, at least I think I can find out." I told the room. "Give me until the morning and I should know where to look for it."

Lockout nodded, then looked around. "Anything else?"

Everyone grumbled and shook their heads.

"Good," Lock replied. "Go the fuck back to bed. If anyone knocks on my door before eight a.m., I'm shooting through the door and making you clean up your own blood."

The pieces were finally starting to come together. Fremont backing off after threatening the women and kids at the apartments, the break ins, even the one at Gwen's work, it was all clicking into place.

Trent was a lot of things, but apparently stupid wasn't one of them. Unhinged, untrustworthy, sneaky, but not stupid. He knew Fremont might turn on him some day, so he hid evidence. In his coke fueled rage that ultimately landed him in jail, he tried to use that evidence against Fremont, but it couldn't save him.

Okay, so maybe he was stupid, at least at the end. He was already in over his head by that point. Nothing was going to keep Fremont from silencing him. It would have been smarter to send the proof of Fremont's misdeeds to his superiors. Or the media. Oh well, it was too damn late for Trent. And he deserved the end he got. But now, maybe whatever kind of proof he'd gathered could help his family. After what he did, he owed it to them.

The question, of course, was where did he hide it? Fremont and his goons had already searched Gwen's house. They didn't find it there. And we're assuming he didn't find it in the storage locker. If he had, we were fucked anyway.

---