Page 19 of Casey's Hero

“Anything?” Casey stood beside Jacob.

“We just got to the right camera and started through the images from the approximate time we left him around eleven o’clock last night,” Jacob said to her. He touched the young man’s shoulder. “Can you increase the speed?”

“Sure.” The hotel worker clicked the fast-forward arrow, and the video zoomed through an hour, then another. For the most part, the hallway was empty, with a couple arriving after midnight and nothing for the next couple of hours. Then, a blur of movement emerged in the corner of the video. A man wearing a black ski mask appeared, and he held something up to the camera's lens. A moment later, the image went dark.

Casey’s heart skipped several beats.

The hotel worker gasped. “He sprayed the camera with black paint.” He fast-forwarded through the rest of the footage. All four hours were dark. “Now, why didn’t I notice this on the monitors this morning?” He glanced up at the two monitors in front of him. Each had an array of images from different locations across the property. The far left corner square was dark. The hotel worker cursed. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”

“Sometimes, we see what we want to see,” Jacob said.

“Yeah, but that’s pretty important.” He shook his head as he studied the remaining video squares.

Casey leaned over his shoulder, her heart sinking into the pit of her belly.

Jacob leaned in and did the same. “All the rest are intact and projecting images.”

“Yes, they are.” The clerk brought up the early morning recordings from another location in the hotel. “The next image is taken from the lobby.” He played the four hours in triple-time. Nothing out of the ordinary jumped out.

Jacob dropped into a seat beside the clerk. “Is there a back door used by the service personnel?”

The man nodded and clicked on the keys, bringing up another video of what appeared to be a service elevator. He forwarded quickly to the time just after the man blacked out the camera lens on the floor where Hawk’s room was located. Two men dressed in coveralls, with hats pulled down low over their faces, rolled a laundry cart between them out the back door. A light shone over the loading dock. They pushed the cart into the back of a service van and closed the door.

The clerk stopped the video. “That’s not our usual laundry service,” he said. “We have our own washers and dryers. The only laundry we send out is our draperies.” His brow furrowed as he squinted at the image. “And we wouldn’t have had anyone here at three in the morning. I’m surprised the door alarms didn’t alert us.” He let the video continue.

The two men moved around to the front of the truck and climbed in.

“Stop,” Jacob said.

The clerk hit the pause button.

Jacob leaned closer. “Can you print that image?”

“Sure.” The clerk hit the command to print, and a sheet of paper slid out of the printer beside him. He lifted it, looked down at the page then handed it to Jacob.

“I think we can get a license plate number off this,” he said.

Casey looked over his shoulder. “It’s really blurry.” Her eyes narrowed.

“Hawk’s people might be able to sharpen the image,” Jacob snapped a picture of the printout with his cell phone. “Hank Patterson, his boss in Montana, has a computer guy who could chase this down.” He scrolled through the contacts on his cell phone and punched one, sending the photographed image and a message. A moment later, his cell phone pinged with a response.“Hank’s guy, Swede, is on it. He’ll get back to us as soon as he has a match.”

Casey nodded toward the clerk. “Call the police. I think our friend has been kidnapped. We need them to conduct a search of the island for that vehicle.”

“If they left here at three in the morning,” the clerk frowned, “they could already be anywhere. Even off this island. They could be on a boat, any other island or on a plane to who knows where.”

Casey sank into a chair beside the hotel clerk. “Holy cow. Who would have done this?” Her eyes widened. “How am I going to tell Kalea?” She shook her head, her jaw hardening. “I’m not going to tell her. At least, not until we have a better handle on what’s going on. Hell, I’d rather not tell her at all if we don’t have to. Which means we have to get him back. Soon. He’s getting married in less than thirty-six hours. We have to find him.”

CHAPTER 5

Jacob placedhis hands on her shoulders. “What are you talking about? This is a crime scene. We’re not qualified to launch our own investigation. We need to get the police involved to run this license plate and locate the owners of that delivery van.”

“Those plates are probably from a rental or stolen plates from another vehicle. The police are going to run them and find a dead end..”

“They might get a hit and find out who rented the van. Swede might get the hit first.” As if on cue, a cell phone rang.

Casey glanced down at hers. “Not mine.”

Jacob pulled his cell phone from his right pocket and frowned. “Not mine.”

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