Page 19 of Say Nothing
She said her goodbyes to him, then left the office to find Derek.If Calvin and Casper had both associated with James Weber while in prison, then that was another link.Weber was a man who understood security systems and had no trouble breaking the law, from what she’d heard.
Is there a chance he had a debt to the two men, and this was repaying it?Would he kill more of the women who testified against the men in that prison?
"I’ve been thinking," Derek said as soon as she reached him."We need a list of all the women you coached to testify in court.It’s a long list, I know, but we need to start working our way through it to warn them they might be in danger."
"Okay," Alison said."Before that, we need to find James Weber.He might be our killer, and we need to find this killer before he kills again because I’m certain he will.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The room was dark, lit only by the wall of monitors on one side of it.There were twelve screens in total.Three on the left-hand side were live feeds from the cameras outside the property.They recorded all day, every day, and the footage was uploaded to the cloud and stored locally.The owner had never needed to use the footage recorded, but, as with most things, it was often only useful when needed.It only took one incident for the recordings to become the most important thing in the world.
A dark, shadowy figure slowly crossed the room, draining the last of the energy drink they held.They crushed the can in one hand and tossed it to the side, where it flew through the air, clanked off the wall, and bounced into the recycling bin below.They continued across the room, heading past the corkboard with pinned pictures to the wall of monitors.
The figure wore a thick sweater with a black hood that was pulled up to cover their hair and head.The hood hung around their face, casting their features in shadows and providing a layer of anonymity that was unnecessary in the building, which only they knew about.They sat at the large desk and swiveled from side to side, looking at the monitors.
They first checked the three monitors, which showed the live view from outside.One covered the door, the other two showed both sides of the building.The building backed onto another, so there was no way for anyone to enter from behind, useless they drilled a large hole in the wall.
The monitors were arranged in four columns of three.Three showed the outside world, which was blank, then there were three showing various web pages, including those of security companies.The figure tapped on the keyboard, and the monitors on the opposite end from the security monitor zipped into life.
They were blank for a moment before they flickered, and video footage and photographs filled all three.A tap of the mouse, and the video footage on the top right-hand monitor played.It showed a woman, Patricia Montgomery, as she went about her business.
The footage had the grainy effect of old home movies, but this was no home movie.The footage had been taken from numerous CCTV cameras and stitched together to appear as one continuous movie, changing camera angles periodically to follow Patricia as she walked down the street.The figure followed her for a moment before going through the numerous photos collected on the two screens.
There were numerous photos of Patricia in different places at different times.Some were taken directly from CCTV feeds, while others were crystal clear, taken with a professional camera.The figure ran their finger up and down the small wheel embedded in the mouse to cycle through photos like flipping through a Rolodex.
Another few taps on the keyboard and the last three screens flickered to life in the opposite way that two women had flickered to death, strangled with his hands around their necks.
Patricia Montgomery—you will soon join that elite club.
When the final three screens came alive, they showed schematics and device circuitry.The bottom screen changed from a picture of a CCTV camera to a black screen with a green flashing dash.The figure entered a few commands, and the screen filled with code, running up and up and up into infinity.
The schematics and blueprints showed a plan of Patricia’s house and the security system within.The figure looked at the screen with the running code as the code stopped scrolling to reveal a cursor at the bottom.They entered another command, and it looked for a second like nothing had happened before one of the screens showing the outside of the building changed to one showing the outside of her building.The other two monitors followed.
They took the mouse and held down the right-hand mouse button while moving the mouse slowly up and down and left and right.The camera followed the movement, the live footage on the screen changing as the camera moved.The figure smiled.
Then, another command was entered, and a confirmation appeared that the security system had been disabled.A final command, and the security system was enabled again.They moved back to the third row of monitors and switched to the username and password entry.They entered the details and checked the security system.Nothing registered that it had been turned off and back on again.
Once more, the figure smiled.
Then a wider smile as something caught their eye.The killer hadn’t expected Patricia to be home, not yet, but there was always some change in her daily routine.They watched as she reached the house and parked in the garage.Then, followed her on the interior cameras as she made her way through the house and into the kitchen.She took the bottle of white wine from the fridge and poured herself a small glass.
The figure leaned in closer to the screen and watched her take a sip.They zoomed in on her face until it was so blurry that they could hardly make her out anymore.She sipped the wine and smiled, and even in the blur, the killer could see that it was a genuine smile.She was happy.
Is there anything greater than dying when happy?
They didn't want to be tied down to watching the next victim for more time than was needed, so they went back to the keyboard, and a moment later, the screens were back showing the exterior of the building.They closed down the other nine screens for now and got up from the chair, stretching their arms above their head, arching their back.
People often thought that the more extensive a security system was, the better it was, but that wasn’t always the case.With an extensive security system came complications, and with complications came vulnerabilities and exploits.The simplest security system, the lock, had stood the test of time for years, but it wasn’t good enough anymore.
Still, there were few ways to bypass a lock outside of physically manipulating it.With the new security systems, there were dozens of ways to get around them, and each time a bug was found and patched, two more sprang up like a multi-headed hydra.
The figure left the monitors and turned to the large corkboard to his right.The light from the operational monitors was enough to see by.There were dozens of pictures on the board, almost a hundred.One photograph in the middle was a little larger than the others.It showed Dr.Alison Payne.They’d taken it straight from her professional website and printed it off to take pride of place in the middle of all the other women.
They were all pinned to the wall, and a green string connected each woman’s pin to Alison’s pin.The figure took up a pair of scissors and cut two of the strings, those connecting Alison with Margaret Donovan and Sarah Livingstone.The green ends fell limp.Then, they took some red thread and made two new connections between the women.
The phone on the desk rang.The figure was annoyed by the intrusion, but went to the calling buzz.They picked it up and answered.
"Hello?"the voice was almost singsongy."…Yes, of course.I would be delighted to help you…It is no problem whatsoever.What's the address?… You are most welcome, and I look forward to seeing you soon… Yes…Yes…All right, well, you have yourself a fantastic afternoon, and I will see you as soon as I can…Okay, bye."
