Page 83 of Forbidden Moon
“I will, Jack. Hágoónee' ak'is(Goodbye friend).
Gray rejoined the other men, and the truck pulled away from the curb on its way back to Arizona. Running a bit late, Mandy hurried to open the shop for the afternoon while Katrine rearranged her studio space. Having promised to take Walter to the beach, the men got in the car and headed for Van Cleve Park for a bit of sun and surf. After the first turn, William’s curiosity got the better of him, and he looked at Jack in the rear-view mirror.
“Well? What did you decide to do? Did you tell him?”
Jack gave him one of his patient grins.
“Not exactly, my love. I implanted a carefully hidden memory in Gray’s mind. If and when Walter is ready to tell him about us, he only needs to say the wordswolf brother,and it will help convince Gray. Eventually, he must see for himself, but we can save that for another time.”
Walter couldn’t have been more pleased.
“Thank you, Jack. If Gray Feather were here, I believe he would approve of continuing the family tradition. If I do pass it on to Gray, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
Chapter 33
AT THE SAME TIME...
“I appreciate your help, Rascal. I feel safer doing this together.”
RJ pulled the truck into a parking spot across the street and further down the block from the LRC office.
“Of course. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Jo.”
Though Jonah hadn’t asked him to, RJ carried his firearm today. He hoped there’d be no need for it, though better safe than sorry. Under other circumstances, Jonah could protect both of them if he were free to shift—not an option right now, and for more than one reason. They locked up the vehicle and scanned the street for anything suspicious. Seeing nothing unusual, they walked across and entered the building, locking the door behind them.
Jonah shut off the alarm and then looked down in disgust. Bloodstains remained on the entryway floor where Robyn’s attacker went down.
“Damn! I guess no one had time to take care of it yesterday. I can’t leave this here.”
RJ stopped him.
“I’ll do it. Show me where the supplies are, and I’ll clean it up while you look at the camera footage.”
Jonah pulled him in for a kiss.
“Thank you. I’ll try to hurry.”
RJ found what he needed under the breakroom sink while Jonah slipped into the studio. In the corner of the room stood a tall, narrow cupboard filled with wiring, cables, and the internet feed. The daily recordings were part of the security system, separate from everything else, and included a battery backup if the electricity went out. Jonah didn’t expect to have any trouble.
They’d never needed to mess with the simple device before, and it only did one thing. Every forty-eight hours, the system deleted the previous footage and started recording again. Jonah removed the memory card and plugged it into the powerful computer they used for editing the teaching modules. It took several minutes to find the time segment in question, and Jonah forced himself to watch it. The best camera angle came from the ceiling, above and slightly behind where Robyn and her assailant stood.
The entire thing was mercifully short, and he started by making an unaltered copy. Next came some careful adjustments to slow down Robyn’s faster-than-normal reflexes and remove the part where she took the guy’s wallet and made copies. With the addition of some flickering, distortion, and static, no one would think to examine it more closely.
Lastly, Jonah superimposed a modified time-date stamp to cover his tracks. Added together, it looked like any typical sub-standard security recording found most anywhere. He sent the file to a thumb drive for the final step, saved both versions to a portable SSD device, and installed a new memory card into the security recorder. RJ arrived outside the door and knocked.
