Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Interesting.
Unfortunately, once the streets that led to the academy became more residential, the cameras all but disappeared. If the man was evading city street cameras, he wouldn’t have had to once he turned off the main drag.
Mark sat back, considering for a moment, and then he put a different thumb drive in, this time from directly after the shooting.
There again.
Only this time, the very tall man in the ball cap appeared to be walking with a woman.
Mark clicked through a few images, his heart giving a small jump. It had to be.
The woman wasn’t wearing a sweater, but…she might have taken it off. The couple were leaning into each other as if they were having an intimate conversation.
Or as if she was supporting him.
He clicked through the rest, this time with more focus and excitement, the feeling that he’d found something that might lead somewhere else boosting his energy.
Unfortunately, that hope crashed when the couple turned a corner onto a street that, as far as he knew, had no available footage.
Damn.
But before they turned, Mark saw the man trip slightly, a small stagger that made the woman stumble too before they both righted themselves and continued on.
“Who are you?” Mark muttered.
He clicked through a few more cameras on different streets, moving through time, but the couple didn’t appear on any other footage.
Double damn.
He sat there for a minute, drumming his fingers on the desk. He felt as if he’d just discovered something that had changed the case. He just needed to figure out how to move it forward even more.
The girl. He had more information about what she looked like now. Or…mostly. She had dark, wavy hair that was half clipped back. About five foot five he’d estimate, average weight. It was more than he’d had to work with until right that minute.
It took him about thirty minutes to find the same girl on the footage in the time frame before the shooting. And this time, she was wearing a bulky, coral-colored sweater. He used the videos to follow along behind her, much more easily than he’d followed the tall man in the ball cap. But it appeared…it appeared almost as if she was following that man. He rewound and rewatched until he was almost certain that was what she’d been doing. She knew him. But they hadn’t arrived together. And whether the man realized he was being followed, Mark couldn’t say.
What is this all about?
He picked up the phone and called the district where the detectives working the case were stationed. Mark made his request, and an hour and a half later, another delivery person arrived with a second package.
Mark thanked the young man, tipped him, and shut the door, and despite his tired eyes, he was eager to get started poring through more video.
“Where did you come from?” he murmured to the unknown girl, rewinding through time, going farther outside the radius, tracking her to the moment it appeared that she spotted the tall man, jerked to a halt as though in shock, and then raced across the street and followed his path. She didn’t plan to be at that school. She was only there because of him.
Back…back…she’d been walking briskly, looking over her shoulder frequently as though she expected to see someone behind her. Did you think you were being followed?
All his hackles were raised.
“Come on. Bring me somewhere helpful.” Somewhere that will help me learn your name.
He paused the video. There she was, exiting a building. He zoomed in. The Department of Social Services?
“Okay, okay, now we might have something.” He was talking to himself the way he did when there was a possible break in a case. If Laurie had been there, he’d have looked up to see her smiling at him. She knew his tells.
He used a search engine to find the number to the department and then dialed it and waited on hold. He identified himself to the receptionist, who put him through to someone else and then someone else. It was a big department, and lots of people had been working that day…he got the same hopeless answer once, twice, three times. Finally, the fourth person he was transferred to suggested that he speak to a social worker named Chantelle who was a manager and definitely would have been in the office as she didn’t go out on calls.
When the woman named Chantelle answered in a clipped greeting, he once again gave his spiel, with much less enthusiasm than when he’d first given it twenty-five minutes before.
“Hold on, what time?” the social worker asked.
“A few minutes after one.”
“Oh. Yes.” She sighed. “That would have been Autumn Clancy. I’m not sure what you’re calling about, but if it has anything to do with the fact that she stole my files—”
“Hold on, please.” His heart drummed. “You said her name is Autumn Clancy?”