Lyn

"Morning, sleeping beauty," I said as I heard him walk out of the guest bedroom.

"Waffles," he begged, "Coffee."

"Got the last part," I said as I handed him a paper cup with the hot brew. Cream, no sugar. Just how he liked "crap coffee". I continued, "I've been listening to the recordings while you have been asleep."

"How many bugs did you plant?" he asked.

"Twenty," I replied.

"And you listened to them all?"

"No," I scoffed, "This computer is amazing. It has a program where I isolate a piece of dialogue," I highlighted a selected portion, "Click search," I right clicked and selected the option, bringing up a window, "Select the variation allowance," I set it for 80%, "And it searches for repeats of the sound."

"And where did you learn how to do that?" Trev asked.

"See, it's this magical button called the 'help button'."

"Snarky does not look cute on you," he said, "Find anything interesting?"

I pulled up the interrogation, "He's good. Doesn't hesitate, calm and collected."

Trev listened closely to the interrogation. He closed his eyes and cocked his ear to the computer, "Stop," I paused it, "Rewind, thirty seconds."

I did so, and the recording played.

"Do you know any one by the name of Jon- no H- Trevinski?" I recognized the voice of the agent, Patriks.

"No, name doesn't ring a bell."

"What about a... Trevor McDonald?" This time it was the redhead cop, Caine or something.

"I don't know anyone by those names."

"Mr Reece, these are known aliases of Micheal Pierce, and if you withhold any information that may lead to his capture, that is a felony." Patriks.

"That guy on the news?"

"Yes, him."

"I- I don't know anything about that."

"Stop," Trev commanded, "Right there, a lie."

"How do you know?"

"I spent a week picking apart an interrogation performed by Hal Ambler against a method actor. I went over the video a hundred times, slow motion, rewind. I finally picked it out on the audio. The guy's voice was wrong. In one word, he put too much stress on the first vowel. Just like now."

"And that is how you tell he's lying?"

"Give me two hours with this interrogation recording and I will prove that he is either lying or not."

"By looking at how he stresses a vowel?"

"It's about 60% accurate. If I find more, will that satisfy you?"

"What am I going to do in the meantime?"

"Get into Reece's room, see if anything hinky is in there."

"And if the cops show up?"

"Use your imagination. I'll give you warning if I hear them ordering a search of the room over the bug."

It was all a matter of lying sweetly to the front desk guy to get a card key and room number.

It was an average hotel room, nothing special. Usual discount furniture that looked fashionable nailed to the floor.

I opened the closet, and sure enough, the safe was there. It had a key pad, but also a masterkey lock in case of malfunction. I just got out my picks and ruthlessly opened it.

Ah... interesting...

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