Page 64 of Call Back

“I put the envelope behind the barrel around ten forty-five. Then I waited for him to show up.”

“Your phone call this afternoon was a fake, right?”

He grinned. “Not entirely. I called my cell phone carrier and ignored the prompts.”

“Sure, he showed up, but we’re no closer to figuring this out. It was hard to make out his voice, but it sounded raspier than Owen’s. So if it wasn’t Owen, was it someone working with him or someone else entirely? And if it was someone else entirely, he has to be someone familiar with my father’s friends, or one of yours.”

He shot me a scowl. “I’m not ruling anyone out right now, but my guy is a vault. I trust him. I still think it’s Owen or one of his cronies. But maybe the footage will help tell us.”

“How did you know I took a video?” I asked.

His eyes widened. “You took a video?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know what we’ll see. I didn’t think of it until he came back the second time, but I was trying to keep out of sight, so it was at the wrong angle. Probably blurry, too, because of the rain.” I narrowed my eyes.

“Let’s see it.”

I pulled out my phone and played the footage. Between the rain, the bad camera angles, and the blinding headlights, it quickly became apparent I hadn’t gotten anything useful.

Shutting the app once the video was finished, I snuck a glance to Colt. “If you weren’t talking about my video, what were you talking about?”

“The reason I chose that location in the first place. I have access to the security cameras on the loading dock.” He dug his phone out of his pocket, swiped the screen, and pulled up an app. After logging in, he held out the phone so I could see it, showing me the current view of the loading dock area—dark and raining. Then he touched the screen and the image started rewinding at a rapid pace. He clicked on it again, slowing the recording down, and then pressed play. I watched as Camera Colt appeared with a folded-over manila envelope. He disappeared when he got within a couple of feet of the building.

“Why’d you disappear?” I asked.

“The barrel was out of the camera’s range,” he said. “Denny—my friend of a friend—had some trouble with vandalism, and he installed the surveillance system to see who was responsible. There’s a camera on the other side too. But the barrel is just out of view.”

“And he just gave you the password to look at the footage?” I asked in an accusatory tone.

“Hell, I set it up for him.”

“What?”

“I have several skill sets,” he said with a smirk. “How do you think I found those cameras in your apartment so quickly?”

Good point.

“I would have angled the ones at the loading dock differently for this,” he continued, “but I didn’t have time, and it would have been difficult to explain why I was messing around on the roof.” He started the footage again, and Camera Colt stepped back—presumably from the barrel—and walked offscreen to the right.

“Denny typically doesn’t have deliveries on Wednesdays,” Colt said as he fast-forwarded the video. “That truck wasn’t supposed to be there. I was counting on being able to use both cameras.” He slowed the feed down to normal time again when the sedan came into view. The man got out of the car, advanced toward the barrel, disappeared, and then returned to his car. He glanced around before getting into the sedan and driving away.

“Anything useful?” I asked. I hadn’t seen anything that looked helpful, but Colt was obviously more experienced with this sort of thing.

“Not from this angle. Let’s watch the rest of the footage, although I’m pretty damn sure he stayed out of range when he came back.”

He let the tape continue to play. I could see my head peeking out from under the trailer, then Colt diving underneath. Headlights shone on the wet pavement; then—several long moments later—Colt crawled out with his hands up. Neither the guy nor the car were visible.

“Shit,” Colt cursed. “Let’s try the other camera. I was hoping to at least get a license plate number.”

“If you got one, you could find out who it belonged to?”

He shot me a look that suggested my question had insulted him to the core.

“Sorry.”

He tapped the screen, and sure enough, a new angle showed up—the semi from the other side. There was some distortion, probably from the raindrops, but the view was clear enough. A car whizzed backward across the screen, but Colt kept rewinding.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

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