She hit Pause. She stood back and examined the two screens. It had to be the same kid, same spiked hair, same loose gait and baggy jeans and the same bright white high-top tennis shoes. It was the shoes that she'd noticed first. What teenager, especially a boy, was able to keep his shoes so white? Could it be a coincidence that he was in both stores just minutes before the robberies?
She opened her file folder and shuffled through to find the stores' addresses. One was on the north side. The other in West Omaha. The third in the northwest section.
She pulled out the third video. Two could be a coincidence. She replaced one of the others with this one, rewound and hit Play.
Nothing.
She rewound farther back and tried again. The store was busy. This must have been the afternoon robbery. The others had been at night. But this last one the robber must have gotten cocky and struck in the afternoon, in broad daylight.
Grace watched closely. She didn't see him. No walkthrough in front of the freezer case. There were others but not him. She rewound the tape again and started from the beginning one more time.
'Grace?'
She hit Pause, turned and looked up at Joyce Ketterson in the doorway to the small conference room.
'It's the call you've been waiting for. Zurich is on line two.'
'Thanks, Joyce.'
She grabbed the receiver, her eyes staying on the paused TV screen.
'Hey, sweetie,' she said. 'Sorry I missed your call earlier.'
'I've got about five minutes before they begin serving dessert and coffee. How are things?'
Vince sounded tired. She knew without asking that he probably hadn't slept yet, except for a catnap on the long flight over.
'Things are going okay.' She wouldn't worry him about Barnett. There wasn't a thing he could do about it. 'How'd the meeting go?'
'It's still going. So, seriously, I do need to get back in there, but I just wanted to see how you were.'
She smiled. He was doing a good job sidestepping the topic of Barnett, too.
'Hey, what's with the ceramic gnome?' she asked. 'Are you planning some tacky front-yard landscaping? Actually, it's kind of cute.'
'I don't know what you're talking about, Grace.'
'The ceramic gnome?'
'Gnome? You mean like dwarf?'
'Yes, silly. The one you left on the steps down to the garage,'
'Grace, I swear I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Richard's waving me back in. I gotta go. You sure you're okay?'
'Oh, sure, fine.'
'Okay, give Emily a hug for me. Love you.'
'Love you, too.'
She decided she'd ask Emily about the ceramic creature. Maybe one of the workers had left it. Although they hadn't been back since last week. Then it occurred to her-what if Jared Barnett had been in the house? But why leave something like a stupid ceramic gnome?
She shook her head and stared at the TV screen. That was when she saw him again, or rather a sliver of him.
She was certain it was the same kid. He had his back to the camera. His right hand reached up over the door to the freezer case-a strange way to hold it open. But then she saw the reason. A little girl stood below him, getting something from the same case. He was holding it open for her, holding his arm way above her head, so as not to touch her. His hand was in a place where no one else probably touched, where there still might be some fingerprints. And, yes, there at the foot of the screen was one of the bright white high-tops.
She picked up the phone again and dialed.
'Darcy, it's Grace. There's something I'd like you to take a look at. Believe it or not, I may have found some fingerprints for us in one of the convenience stores.'
CHAPTER 44
11:17 a.m.
Tommy Pakula sat in his Explorer, the door open, his cell phone in his lap. He could see the Sarpy County sheriff's deputies, their wide-brim hats bobbing between the trees as they searched the woods around the cabin. Bloodhounds were on the way, but Pakula didn't think they'd find anything. If it hadn't been for that farmer panicking and calling in his stolen pickup, they would have had the fucking dogs out last night, though he had to admit he wasn't sure they could work in the lightning and rain. Hell, they even had to ground the helicopter. The sons of bitches had lucked out.
Pakula ran the palm of his hand over his head. It was a good sign that they hadn't found a freshly dug grave, and yet the flip side wasn't much better. He had come close to letting the media reveal who the owner of the red Saab was. They'd find out soon enough if they started digging into the registered vanity plate. He had considered plastering the television stations with Andrew's name and photo. Someone may have already seen him. Could have called it in. But if the killers saw it, they might see Andrew as a liability. One thing Pakula was sure about, if that happened, these two psychos wouldn't be letting Andrew catch a ride home.
Pakula left the deputies and drove the short distance to where Hertz and the crime lab techs were still going over the crashed car. He could see they were taking the long way around to avoid sloshing through the tire ruts. Their alternate route didn't look much better. There was more rainwater between the rows of corn, and there was mud everywhere else.
He stepped over the busted barbed-wire fence and noticed a No Trespassing sign still attached, now mud splattered and barely hanging on. That summed it up pretty good. These two guys had no respect for authority, no respect for private property, no respect for anybody but themselves.
'We're getting what we can,' Ben yelled to him as Pakula stepped from one mud pile to another, making his way to the car. 'Then we'll haul it in and comb the inside.' Ben tapped out a cigarette, and when one of the techs scowled at him, he headed back the way Pakula had just come.
Pakula recognized the tall, skinny kid, Wes Howard, and mumbled a hello. He didn't envy these two, crawling around in the mud, trying to do their grid of the scene with latex gloves on and plastic bags in hand. He stayed back about twenty feet, trying to get a sense of what those two assholes went through during their scenic crash in the country. What did they do next? How did they happen to stumble onto the cabin Andrew had rented?
'Air bag deploy?' he asked.
'Nope and thank goodness,' Wes said. 'Sometimes they make a mess of the evidence.'
'Yeah, but sometimes you end up getting some blood or snot for DNA.'
'No blood or snot but plenty of vomit in the back seat.'
'Really? Isn't that interesting. Anything else?' Pakula asked.
'We'll dust the interior for prints after we haul it in. Footprints around the car are pretty much washed away. Although I think I have a partial on the inside back doorstep.'
'Nothing got left behind in the car?' Pakula came close enough to glance inside. It was looking more and more like the assholes didn't get away with any money.
'Couple of pairs of bloody coveralls, one kerchief. No weapon. We'll do a good vacuum job back at the ranch. I did find this in the mud.' Wes held up a plastic bag with what looked like a piece of jewelry, some kind of pendant or locket. 'It's not tarnished, so I don't think it was here before the car crash. Just dirty. And I don't know too many farmers who'd be wearing something this fancy while plowing the field. Has an engraving on the back.' He took a closer look then handed it to Pakula. 'TLC and JMK. Mean anything to you?'
'Probably not tender-loving-care, huh? Mind if I hang on to this for a couple days?'
