Follow the Money

Shade turns to Nadia as she touches down."So you ask fantastic questions, and make really sharp observations and that's going to be super valuable here! Would you want to handle most of the talking?" Perhaps appealing to ego will help the ever-so-slight tendency towards irritability. I really don't want her calling this guy an idiot. Hell, I'm just glad Fear isn't jumping up and down to give the guy a heart attack.

"Uh..." Nadia eyes him suspiciously for a moment. Why is he saying it like that... Oh, stop being paranoid and accept a compliment for once, she lectures herself. "Yeah, sure, I'll take the lead. Um, thanks for... yeah." She nods at the two men and turns toward the building, subtly squaring her shoulders before approaching at a purposeful pace.

Shade and Fear move to follow Nadia inside as the trio walk to the door a shadow slips across them and they look up to see Archangel taking up a position twenty feet or so above the building. Her wings fully extended she looks down from her position arms at her side.

As they enter the store a small bell mounted to the door chimes their arrival. The interior is lit well with fluorescent lights that give a good view of various rows of smaller machinery like snow blowers, air compressors, and welding equipment as well as some shelves holding common tools and parts for sale. Standing behind the register is a man wearing an oil stained work shirt with a name patch on it that reads 'T-Bone' and the business logo. A shaved head and five O'clock shadow complement his neck tattoo nicely. In the corner a teenager in a much cleaner work shirt is restocking shelves full of motor oil. Clean cut and gangly he looks nothing like his counterpart at the register.

The two of them take note as the three walk in the young man keeps them in sight as he slowly continues his work while the man at the register glares saying "Something I can help you folks with?"

Fear remains silent and takes in the atmosphere of the place for a moment. He looks around for cameras, security features, hiding spots, escape routes or anything else notable in the room or on the employees.

[Notice: d6: (6, 3; 3) = 9]

Nadia gives the man behind the counter what she hopes is a relatively symmetrical smile. "Good afternoon, Mr... T-bone," she begins, glancing at his name tag. "My colleagues and I were hoping to ask the employees a few questions. Are you the proprietor of this establishment?" She continues to smile politely, her hands loosely folded in front of her. They seem a little on edge... Not a good sign. Let's hope they don't take exception to females and/or cyborgs and/or people loosely affiliated with law enforcement hanging around asking questions.

Fear gives the store a look finding a couple cameras in different corners and one pointed at the door. The store is pretty open with some shelving behind the counter and it's attendant past which their appears to be another door.

"Am I what?" T-bone asks in a slightly bemused and possibly even offended tone of voice.

"She asked if you're the owner of this dump." the kid stocking shelves yells to him.

"Oh... Nah, Jack's the owner Imma manager. Jack ain't here neither." T-bone says.

Shade makes his way over to the synthetic engine oil, picking out a nicer brand and heading up to the counter. He sets it down and pulls out some cash, making sure to not get in Nadia's way.
Now we're paying customers as well as nosy jerks, right? That's gotta count for something...

Nadia shifts to one side to give Shade more space at the counter. "Yeah, sorry, um--" Mentally she makes the switch to Normal Person Language Mode before starting over. "Hi, my name is Dr. Delacroix. We're investigating a crime and we hoped you or your employees might have seen something that could help us." She gestures to Fear, hoping he brought a picture of Fistpuncher. "Do you recognize this man?"

Fear freezes for a second, then turns towards Nadia, Is she referring to me? What is she doing? A moment goes by before Fear reaches into his pocket and pulls out the picture of Fistpuncher. He remains silent, looking at T-Bone as he lays the picture on the counter. Afterwards he walks back to his spot near the door.I wish she would've given me a warning before putting me on the spot like that. I'm not a mind reader.

T-bone rings up Shade and hands him back his change and a receipt. The young man stocking shelves picks up a box he had been pulling new product from and moves to a break in the counter setting down the box and moving over by T-bone his name patch designates him as Kevin.

The two of them look at the picture presented by Fear.
[everyone inside roll notice]
"Can't say I do lady." replies T-bone

[Notice: d6: (1, 1) critical fail] Fear appears to be deep in thought.

Nadia watches T-bone and Kevin as they examine the photo.

[Notice d6: (1,4)]

"Fine, we'll do it the responsible way." Not really sure where to start, Trevor takes a look around to see if there's a central office building that stands out from the rest. "There are what, a couple dozen units out here? More? Constance, can you take a loop around to see if there's an office somewhere?"

"In the meantime, we could at least poke our heads in the door. See if anyone's around. Best case, it's full of bad guys and we do the hero thing; worst case, the clean-up crew tells us to go away." Trevor starts making his way to the closest door into the warehouse.

Tremor parks along one of the roads between warehouses, there is plenty of space and several other vehicles are parked similarly. Looking around it's just several identical warehouses. Constance agrees that looking for an office is a good idea and speeds off to check.

The roll up loading door of warehouse 17 is still open just as Logan last saw it. Stepping inside Trevor is met by a large open and dark space the light coming from the door only extends a few feet inside before being taken over by the inky black shadows.

Logan shrugs. Instead of following Trevor, she loops around to see if anything else has moved, namely the plates-less blue pickup that had been parked outside. It hadn't seemed particularly important the night before, but one never knows. She hadn't exactly left herself with many other options.

[Shades notice d8(1) wild(3)]

As the trio wait for a response Nadia notices the younger man flinch ever so slightly and get a bit jittery after a brief glance at the picture.

Kevin shrugs shaking his head no and says "Hey T-bone I'm going to get another case of 5W from the back to finish off those shelves." turning to make his way between the shelves behind the counter.

T-bone grunts in the affirmative to Kevin and turns to the others "Anything else?"

Nadia watches Kevin leave out of the corner of her eye. Shit, what now? Hopefully if he tries to sneak out in the next thirty seconds, Archangel will see... Ok, try not to cheese off T-bone, then go after the kid in a minute. There's always time to catch up with him later, right?

She turns back to the manager. "I noticed a rather impressive hole in your back fence, there," she says conversationally. "Is there an interesting story behind how that happened?"

She continues to study the manager for any sign of nervousness or description.
[Notice: d6*= (6,6,5 wild=1)=17]

Kevin meanders back through the door behind the employee only shelves as T-bone gives a negative sounding grunt. "Some assholes stole a truck few days ago, happened at night not my problem. Jack filed a police report and I had to patch up the fence. That's all I know."

---

Looking around Logan finds the truck just where it had been during the night.

Logan glances at the box and peers inside the cab, looking for anything amiss. She checks the dash on the driver's side for a VIN number, and tries the doors to see if they'll open.

Nadia nods. Stolen truck, no surprise there.

"I see," she says calmly. "And who closed the store that night? Did you catch anything on your security cameras?" She doesn't remember seeing any cameras outside, but decides it would be an oversight not to ask anyway.

She stops herself from flooding the man with more questions as they spring to her mind. Did they steal the keys or hotwire the truck? How long has Kevin worked here? Does he have keys to the store? How many other employees do you have? Was that particular truck parked in such s way that it would be the obvious choice to someone who had never been here before? I wonder if Terror of Temperature had a car-stealing device like in Dr. Horrible. Oh shit, Constance's papparazza didn't just tell Fear where the truck was, therefore someone other than the three in custody presumably was there after the robbery to drive it away, which means if we're lucky Kevin could describe at least one more person--ok, one thing at a time, pay attention.

Well that's weird. Seems darker than you'd expect in daytime even if the lights are off. Might as well do this the safe way. Trevor rolls his shoulders back and stretches upward, his body lengthening as he goes. His skin hardens and takes on the appearance of the warehouse floor as he reaches a final height just over 7 feet.

Trevor pulls out a small flashlight from his pocket, the type you can usually get for a dollar or two from a bin by the checkout in hardware stores, and moves into the warehouse to see what, if anything, is stored there.

[Notice d4(2), wild(2) = 2]

Logan inspects the truck finding it locked and clean both in the cab and the back. She jots down the vin (1GBHK34U95E285713) but finds nothing else of interest.

---

"I closed that night like I do most nights, we ain't open real late we close at 7. Everything went as usual and the next morning everything was still locked how I left it. They must'a done something to the security system cause when we Jack checked it for the cops it wasn't recording and there wasn't any footage for the whole day. Listen if you want anything else go talk to the cops or Jack alright? It ain't my place to talk about this kind of stuff." T-Bone answers Nadia.

---

Tremor walks into the warehouse sweeping his flashlight back and forth. His cheap light reveals that most of the building is empty with just a few items showing up toward the middle of the space. He advances cautiously continuing his sweep as he moves toward the objects his flashlight revealed. Closing in he finds a patch of the concrete floor that is charred and surrounded by remnants of some pallets now spread across the floor as well as work lights on stands three of which have tipped over.

---

From her vantage point above the building Archangel sees the figure of Kevin as he exits the back into the fenced in lot of rental vehicles and equipment. He begins hurriedly walking toward a far corner near a gate in the fence and what appeared to be the employee vehicles a red pickup and a tan sedan. Archangel swoops low and begins following him making no move to hide herself. As soon as Kevin spots her he takes off at a run to his vehicle.

Logan wanders back to accompany Tremor. As she approaches, everything gets slightly lighter. The sunlight creeps farther into the warehouse, as though a cloud shifted and made room for a few more rays. Tremor's flashlight may be subtly brighter, as though the small battery inside jostled into a better position.

Ok, sounds like this guy's done talking. Next step: grab the kid and find out what he knows--better to grill him outside and not in front of his manager.

Nadia smiles at the manager. "Thank you very much for your time; you've been very helpful. I hope your stolen truck gets returned. Have a good day!" She turns with a polite nod and heads out of the shop, beckoning to Shade and Fear as she goes.