She and Christopher approached carefully, moving between the boxes, trying to stay out of sight. It was important to get as close as possible before making their move, so that the killer would have fewer opportunities to get away.
Paige tried to assess the situation in line with her training. There were two big concerns for her right then: one was the open door to the loading bay, which might allow their suspect an easy avenue of escape. The other was the fact that the delivery driver was so close to him, which might allow the killer to take him as a hostage.
Both of those problems were most easily dealt with just by waiting, and Christopher made it clear that he felt the same way, putting a hand on Paige’s arm and gesturing for her to crouch behind a box not far from the loading area. That moment of contact was pretty much the first time the two of them had touched in days. They’d both been so careful to keep their distance that Paige was almost painfully aware of the contact now.
She couldn’t think about that, though. She had to focus on what she and Christopher were there to do. That meant crouching there while their suspect signed for the package, then waiting for the delivery driver to return to his truck.
As he did so, though, their suspect started to move away from the package. That was when Paige realized the downside of the plan: if they waited too long, then there was a chance that he might leave, or move to an area where the two of them couldn’t contain the situation as easily. Paige looked across to Christopher.
He paused for a moment, then nodded and stood from behind the box with his weapon leveled.
“FBI! Keep your hands where I can see them!”
Paige joined him with her shotgun raised, ready for any sudden moves from their suspect. He was standing there looking shocked and terrified, but that just seemed like a normal reaction when someone had two guns pointed at them.
“Cuff him, Paige,” Christopher instructed, keeping his gun trained on the man who had received the package.
Paige nodded, and then moved around the man, taking out her cuffs. “Put your hands behind your back.”
“What’s going on?” he demanded, as Paige cuffed him. “What is all this?”
“We know who you are,” Christopher said. “We know this is where you had the fish tank for your last murder delivered.”
“Murder? I don’t know anything about any murder! I just came here to pick up a package.”
“Then explain why this is the address that a prop used in a murder was delivered to,” Christopher said.
The man still looked slightly panicked, but now also looked indignant. “Because that’s what this place is for!”
“What’s going on here?”
A uniformed security guard came in from the other side of the storage space, his hand on his gun. Paige saw Christopher hold up his badge.
“FBI,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I work here,” the guard said. “What are you doing here? Did someone order something illegal again?”
Paige was confused now, not quite sure what was going on.
“Sorry,” she said. “You work here? What is this place, exactly?”
She’d assumed that it was a storage facility that had been taken over by the killer to store his props. Now, a second possibility came to her, one that, if true, would probably be deeply embarrassing for both her and Christopher.
“This is a storage facility,” the guard said. “We let online sellers meet up here to take possession of goods they don’t want in their houses right away, or that they’re going to put into storage. We have some conference rooms too, and workspaces for small businesses.”
Meaning that there suddenly wasn’t the link that Paige and Christopher had assumed there would be to the killer. Meaning that the man in front of them wasn’t their guy, but was instead just a random individual there to collect something he couldn’t receive at home.
Paige uncuffed him.
“We’re very sorry, sir,” Christopher said to the man they’d leapt out on. “We thought you were someone else.”
Paige knew how awkward a moment like this could be. It was the kind of thing that could generate bad feelings towards the bureau, and maybe even lawsuits. It was also an incredibly frustrating moment, because in a matter of minutes, she and Christopher had gone from being certain they were about to catch their guy to realizing that he was just one more anonymous face in a crowd of people visiting the facility.
No, not anonymous. A thread of hope rose in Paige as she thought of the cameras covering the doors. As she looked around, she saw a couple more in here, obviously meant to keep an eye on the facility’s clients as they went about their business.
“Do you have access to the footage from those cameras?” Paige asked the guard.
“Yes ma’am.”
“We need to see it right away.”