The shivering woman rolled onto her right side and brought her knees up to her chest. The thought of her sibling triggered other thoughts, memories from her childhood, from playing make-believe with Jessica. She smiled. Good times.
Growing up, Faith and Jessica had not been typical girls who played with typical girl toys. Their dolls and tea sets became obsolete after their father had taken them to the shooting range, put a twenty-two rifle in their hands, and let them squeeze off that first shot.
From that moment on, the Mahoney girls loved anything involving guns. They read about guns. They drooled over pictures in gun magazines. They even asked their father to show them how to clean the weapons they had fired. They watched cop shows, war movies, Westerns, and spy movies before going outside and playing cops and robbers, soldiers, gunslingers, and secret agents with silenced pistols.
Shutting her eyes, Faith focused on the time she and Jessica had spent pretending they were spies, doing all the secret, clandestine things that spies did. Faith recalled the note she had slipped under the bedpost in her apartment, the note meant for Jessica. I sure hope you remember the silly stuff we used to do as kids, Jess.
∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞
.
Chapter 6
Good Eye
5:59 P.M.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
For the last two hours, Devlin and Randall had gone over every inch of Faith’s apartment three separate times. Neither agent had spotted anything that could have explained the disappearance of the dwelling’s tenant.
Now Devlin and Randall, along with Harker, were huddled together in a cramped closet that housed cheap video security equipment. Multi-colored wires ran in all directions from a recording device attached to a small monitor that rested on a thin metal shelf.
“That’s as far back as the footage goes.” Sitting on a yellow plastic chair in front of the screen, the apartment’s assistant manager wiped a straight finger across his nose and sniffed.
“Mr. Spalding,” standing on the seated man’s six o’clock, Randall glimpsed the back of the forty-year-old’s greasy head of hair, “what’s the reason for the snowy picture...at the 10:14 and 10:29 p.m. mark?”
On Randall’s right, Devlin nodded. “I noticed that, too. According to the time stamp, each blackout lasted about a minute.”
Spalding’s shoulders rose and fell. “It happens sometimes.” He threw out a hand at the devices around him. “This stuff is ancient. But my manager says there’s no money in the budget for upgrades.”
Randall turned to his port side, toward Harker. “You said the victim’s time of death was around 10:30 on the night of the seventh, right?”
The detective nodded.
Randall pivoted back and pointed at the monitor. “That matches with the time the cameras went out.”
“What are you saying?”
“We’re saying,” Devlin interjected, “that whoever did this could have disabled the cameras while they slipped out of the building...with my sister.”
Harker frowned. “Kind of high-tech, isn’t it...for thugs? I mean if you’re going to knock out surveillance, then why not just smash the cameras?”
“Because,” Randall leveled a finger at the screen, “judging from the viewing angle, whoever did that would have been captured on video first.”
Harker nodded. “And we’d have a suspect to go after.”
“Exactly. My guess is they used some sort of device to interfere with the signals.” Randall tapped Spalding on the shoulder. “Are the cameras in the back-stairwell wireless?”
“They are.”
“What about the ones in the lobby and the elevator?”
“The elevator is wireless, but the lobby is,” Spalding pointed toward a grouping of wires coming through the wall in a corner, “hardwired.”
Randall nodded. “That would explain why only the elevator and the back stairs showed those blackouts.”
“Hold on a minute.” Harker held up a hand. “Based on the footage from the lobby, my people have accounted for every individual who entered the apartment from before noon on the seventh through the early morning hours of the eighth. Everyone coming and going either lived here or had legitimate business here.”
Randall eyed Devlin.
She shook her head at him, “I don’t know,” before nudging Spalding and rolling a finger. “Play it again...from the start. There must be something we’re missing. With the back door always locked, whoever took Faith would’ve had to have accessed the building via the front doors.”
*******
THIRTY MINUTES LATER...
Randall dropped a heavy hand onto Spalding’s shoulder. “Stop.”
The assistant manager complied with the directive.
“Back it up a few seconds.”
The recording wound backwards.
“Stop it there. Hit ‘play’ and get ready to pause it.”
The recording played out.
“Freeze it!”
Leaning closer to the monitor, Harker, Randall, and Devlin pressed in on Spalding.
Harker: “What am I looking at? I don’t see anything.”
Randall tapped the glass. “Right there. See that guy in the dark suit and sunglasses...through the lobby’s window?”
“Yeah?”
“Watch carefully. Run it, Mr. Spalding.”
The video started up again, showing a throng of young people coming in through the door while playfully pushing and shoving one another.
Randall gestured. “There. The guy in the suit ducks down behind those teens, slips behind that big potted plant, and disappears.”
Spalding wagged his finger. “Now that I see this...I remember there’s a blind spot that runs along that wall. The camera’s viewing angle isn’t wide enough to capture the whole lobby. Whoever set this system up had to make some sacrifices when it came to coverage.”
“And, if those kids hadn’t all come in at the same time,” Harker shook his head, “we’d have noticed this guy.” A beat. “But an image through the windows isn’t much to go on.”
“But it’s something.” Devlin pointed at the monitor while facing Spalding. “Can you get me a copy of this footage?”
“Sure thing. I might even be able to print you off some stills if you’d like.”
“As many as you can...thank you.” She regarded her partner and shed a partial grin. “Good eye.”
“That’s why you pay me the big bucks, Jessica...to pick up on the things most people miss.” Frowning, “Hey,” he stood taller and
