Page 16 of Crossfire

“That’s impossible. The odds of a civilian?—”

“I thought so, too,” I interrupted. “But she ran right into the arms of the cops. No one working with either would have done that.”

He was silent again, digesting all this.

“Shemustbe involved.”

I knew better than to argue with my boss when he was this flustered.

“I take it, from your line of questions, she’s at the police station?” Daniel prodded.

“She is.”

“Hold on. I’m conferencing Seth in.”

Seth was the best IT guy I’d ever worked with—and for good reason. He had an uncanny ability to navigate the digital world like a hacker himself. But there was more to Seth than just his skill with computers. He had a razor-sharp mind and an insatiable appetite for success. I’d seen him work late into the night, his eyes glued to the screen, determined to solve even the most complex problems. It was this drive that had propelled him to get promoted to our team, and now he had his sights set on even greater heights.

Seth was vying for a promotion—with his longer-term goal of replacing Daniel whenever he moved on or retired. The question was, could Seth’s ambitions help me with finding this woman?

“Seth,” Daniel started. “Where are you at with pulling the footage?”

“I’m starting with the cameras around the garage and working my way out.”

“The surprise guest,” Daniel pressed. “Can you run facial recognition?”

Keyboard clicks cascaded over each other, followed by a long silence.

“Don’t have a clear shot of her face,” Seth answered.

“From any angle?” I asked in disbelief.

“Might be one from another camera, but not the one on the southeast corner. That’s the one I’m scrubbing right now.”

“Hack into any security camera within a five-block radius of that garage,” Daniel said. “Go through all the security footage, starting with any image of that woman and backtracking her movements until we can see where she came from.”

“Before or after I track Nightshade’s movements?”

“After. How long will it take to track his?”

“Nightshade stopped at another garage. Figuring out which vehicle he got into is like a needle in a haystack in a metropolitan area. We have to follow each vehicle one by one to see where it went and see if we can identify the driver.”

“Nightshade wouldn’t be sloppy enough to drive his own getaway car. He’s probably hidden in the trunk or a fake compartment of a van,” Daniel said.

“Welcome to my haystack.”

I scrubbed the side of my face.

“How long do you think that will take?” I asked.

“So far, I have twenty-four vehicles I need to track down.”

“Twenty-four?” I choked.

“And counting. It’s a twelve-story parking garage. Each level holds a hundred vehicles, and twenty-four got out before we roped it off. That number will get bigger, the wider we cast our net. If I was Nightshade, I might hang low in the parking garage, but Daniel’s team is clearing it, car by car, so…”

“For-fucking-ever.”

“The second thing you asked me to do, boss, was reverse-engineer where we think Nightshade came from. Same exercise, but backward, following the SUV from where it entered the parking garage. You want me to prioritize this surprise guest over Nightshade?”

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