Page 53 of The Girl and the Lies

“I found this when I went out to my car. It is very significant to the case I am currently investigating. One of the victims is currently in this hospital. I need to see if the security cameras picked up who left this on my windshield.”

“Come with me,” he says.

We go to the security office, and I sit in a stiff-backed chair while he pulls up the footage from the time that I’ve been in the hospital. I go to his side and lean forward slightly to look at the screen. Images from several cameras fill it in little boxes, creating an almost dizzying black-and-white array.

“I’m parked in front of the emergency room entrance,” I tell him, letting him narrow down the options for the cameras. Scanning the screen, I locate the row where I’m parked, but immediately, I notice that only half of my rental car is visible. I point it out. “Right there. Is there another angle that might have gotten more of the car?”

“Just this one,” he says, switching to a different camera shot.

I can see part of the vehicle’s front now, and we scroll forward until I see a quick movement near the car.

“Stop,” I say. “Can you play that again?”

He goes backward a few seconds and plays the footage at regular speed. The movement is at the top corner of the screen, but it clearly looks like someone approaching the car. There’s not enough of the figure to get any identifying features, which leaves me frustrated. This person keeps slipping right between my fingers, and it’s infuriating.

“Thanks,” I tell the guard.

“Sorry I couldn’t be more help,” he says.

I leave the hospital not at all dissuaded by the note. Rather than going back to Bellamy and Eric’s house, I head for the police station. I’m not surprised when I find Detective Fuller there. He’s changed clothes, which tells me he either managed to make it home for a little while today or he crashed on a couch somewhere and he keeps a change of clothes at the office the way I’ve known a lot of detectives do. It’s much the same as the duffel bag of emergency essentials I keep stashed in my trunk just in case I find myself needing to stay at an investigation longer than I thought.

“I heard about Marshall Powell,” he says when he sees me.

“I just came from the hospital,” I say.

“How is he?” the detective asks.

“He’s alive. But that’s about the extent of what I can say about him. He was put under sedation, and they are running tests to see just how seriously he was injured. He was bludgeoned, just like Sabrina. But he managed to get away just before going unconscious,” I tell him. “This needs to be investigated as part of the larger case.”

“It is,” he assures me. “That’s why I’m here. I was finally home trying to relax, and they called me to tell me another of Ellis’s employees had been attacked. At least I managed to get a clean shirt.”

“Does wonders,” I say.

“Yes, it does,” he says with a slight laugh.

“What have you found out so far?” I ask. “I had a chance to talk to two of the responding officers at the hospital, but they didn’t have much information. It seemed like they went to the hospital at the same time as Carla, so they were only able to tell me about the call to dispatch.”

“That’s about as far as we’ve gotten so far,” he says. “A canvass of the neighbors didn’t get us anything but some footage from a doorbell camera of a figure in dark clothes approaching the house and going around to the back. It’s too far away to be able to see any details about the person. That’s what we’re working with right now.”

“Not a lot,” I say.

“Not really,” he agrees.

“Did anything come through with that fingerprint from the car?” I ask.

“It didn’t match anything in the database,” he says.

“All right,” I say, disappointed but not surprised. “Just give me a call if anything comes through.”

“Go get some sleep,” he says.

“Doubtful,” I call behind me as I walk out and head back to my car.

It’s not that I’m not tired. It’s been a long day and an even longer night already. It’s that I know there’s more I need to do before I can even consider laying my head down to rest.

I get in the car and call Ander. It’s late, but I highly doubt he would have already been able to get back to the house and sleep after the incident at the hospital.

“Hello?” he answers in a grumbling voice.

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