“You did this yourself?” Hunter asked, taking it all in.
“I had some help,” he admitted. “The barn was here when I bought the property. Needed a little bit of work on the exterior, but not much. Replaced some wood, slapped on a coat of paint, added some security. Reese and I built the staircase.”
“Impressive.”
“Thanks. Honestly, I hadn’t had this in mind when I did it. I was just playin’ around out here, passin’ time while I recovered and tried to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Thought maybe it’d be a man cave of sorts, figured it was smart to safeguard it. Then once the governor proposed the task force, I knew it would be a good base of operations.”
“Since you don’t have walk-in clients, I can see that,” Hunter acknowledged.
Reese appeared, setting four empty coffee cups and a steaming carafe on the first desk he came to before formally greeting RT and Hunter.
“Help yourself,” Reese said. “Need cream or sugar?”
“This is perfect,” RT said, pouring a cup before resuming his exploration of the space.
When RT stopped at the base of the staircase, Brantley moved closer.
“That was an afterthought,” he explained. “When the team started to grow, we had to add on. Put in the staircase to utilize the loft square footage. Added the conference room.”
RT moved deeper into the room. “You’ve got what? Three thousand square feet in here?”
“A little more with the loft, but yeah.”
“Even with all this, you’ve got some extra room for growth.”
“We do.”
“I’m curious about this,” Hunter said, motioning toward the row of whiteboards mounted on the wall.
“Those are our evidence boards. We start one with each case. It allows us to see the visual breakdown of what we know and how it all relates.”
“Is that what this one is?” Hunter motioned toward the board at the end, which had various images taped to it as well as writing that connected a few dots.
“Yeah. We’ve been lookin’ into a social media scam, tryin’ to figure out who’s behind it.”
“I’ve heard about that,” RT said, stepping closer to the board. “They infiltrate the virtual community groups on Facebook and whatnot. Pretend to be a member, get to know the others.”
“Yep,” Brantley confirmed. “And in at least one instance that we know of, they’ve attempted to kidnap a kid.”
“Seriously?” Hunter’s voice had deepened. “That’s bullshit.”
“Yeah, well, unfortunately, that’s humanity for you.”
“You plan to continue lookin’ into it?”
Brantley met RT’s gaze. “Was hopin’ to.”
“I think you should.” RT glanced at Hunter. “You know what’d work great for them?”
Hunter nodded. “It definitely would.”
Lost, Brantley stared at the pair, wondered if they were going to share with the class.
“Oh, sorry.” RT smiled, looked back at the wall, and motioned with his hands. “We’ve been workin’ on a display screen that would allow us to do somethin’ similar. Ours is a bit more complex bein’ that we’re trackin’ multiple clients at a time. It’s digital and live, meaning it changes all the time as our agents update details. But it would work brilliantly for this, too.”
“Display screen?” Reese asked.
“It’s touch screen, like a tablet, only on a grander scale. You’d only need one because you could archive each case in a folder, open them as you need it. We’ve got software that would allow you to write notes, pin things in whatever order, show the images just like you would see them on an evidence board.”
“JJ would go apeshit,” Brantley said with a laugh.
“You said you’ve got a team of six now?” Hunter asked, perching on the corner of an empty desk as he sipped his coffee.
“Seven,” Brantley corrected. “I’ve recently hired JJ an assistant.”
“Potentially eight,” Reese corrected. “He’s made an offer to another … comm specialist, but he hasn’t accepted the position yet.”
“How many more are you lookin’ to bring on?” RT strolled back toward them.
Brantley glanced at Reese, nodded for him to answer.
“That depends on how we structure it,” Reese told RT. “As it is, we’re a bit lean for a full investigative team in this area. Since our cases require us to move quickly in the sense that we’re lookin’ for someone who could potentially be in a life-or-death situation, we need to cover ground quickly. But at the same time, we need to maintain coverage on our workload.”
“The cold cases?”
“Exactly.”
“Will you continue those?” RT asked, glancing between them.
“I’d like to lend a hand to neighboring departments if we’ve got the ability to do so.”
“So how many are you thinkin’ and how much ground are you coverin’?” RT lowered himself into one of the chairs, propped an ankle on a knee, and sipped his coffee.
“I’d say a full team would be roughly ten, maybe twelve. That includes the electronics experts and support personnel.”
“Ten or twelve per region?” RT clarified.
Reese looked at Brantley, then back to RT as though confused by the question. “Yeah, I guess. Are you lookin’ to create more teams?”
“I’m not.” RT motioned toward them. “But I figured y’all are.”
Brantley hadn’t discussed this with anyone, including RT. It had been mentioned, but only once. Something about creating these teams in a few major cities across the US.
“Eventually,” Brantley noted.
“From experience,” RT continued, “I can tell you it’d be wise to keep your electronics and support teams in one place and send field agents where they’re most needed as you grow. Less on overhead that way.”
“We’re willin’ to do whatever you need us to do,” Brantley told RT. “Our only objective is to remain useful to those who need our services.”
RT looked at Hunter, the men clearly having a silent conversation. When Hunter nodded, RT turned a wide grin on him and Reese.
“I’m not gonna pretend we have to get into the minutia to move forward. From the minute you showed interest, we were on board.” He chuckled. “In fact, it took me all of three minutes to present it to the board and get one-hundred-percent buy-in.”
Brantley stared like an idiot. He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but having spent his entire career working for the government, where the wheels turned slowly when it came to decision-making, he damn sure hadn’t anticipated a full-on welcome by the end of this meeting, much less just half an hour in.
“Seriously,” Hunter tacked on. “We’ve taken our fair share of missing-persons cases over the years, but we’ve never had the manpower to dedicate full teams to it. However, there is one caveat.”
Of course there was.
Brantley waited patiently for the bad news.
“Man, don’t look like someone punted you in the balls. It’s not that bad,” RT said with a choked laugh.