Page 33 of Just Hide

Sonja Derrick's profile was more hidden. It took Cami a few more minutes of digging to find out about her.

"She's a member of a forum called 'Women in Business,’" she said. "She's been actively participating in discussions on gender equality. She's also mentioned in a few posts about her work in IT security, and she's a member of the American Cyber Security Association." Cami read further, glad to have gotten into a place where she could learn more. This forum was a wealth of information. "She's a single mother of two. She's definitely strong on equality and pushes for women’s rights in the workplace."

"It's not sounding like she's our person," Connor said.

Cami narrowed her eyes. "Oh, wait. I'm seeing something else here. She went skiing this weekend on a dry slope, and she sprained her ankle badly. She's at home, resting it, taking anti-inflammatories, and putting ice packs on it. Apparently, she can't walk at all. I see here her direct boss has actually sent her a 'get well soon' message and given her some work to do from home on this social media page. But obviously, HR hasn't received the doctor's letter yet."

"Okay. That's also not a prospect," Connor said. "I've got nothing so far on the criminal records side, either. Looks like both of them are clean."

There was only one left. Sarah Thompson. Now, Cami was pinning all her hopes on this innocuously smiling blonde, whose profile showed her cuddled up to a golden Labrador and a little blond boy. Not exactly an auspicious start, she thought with a sigh. This wasn't shouting out 'serial killer' to her, although she knew that murderers could hide anywhere.

Seeing Sarah was a mother, Cami looked into that first. She found a mom's group on social media, and there, she found the possible reason for her non-appearance at work.

"Uh oh," she told Connor. "It looks as if Sarah's boy is in the hospital. He was bitten by a dog who got into a fight with their Labrador at the park and had to have an operation on his leg. Poor little guy. Seems she's been by his bedside ever since."

Cami read further, now anxious. "The Labrador’s okay if you want to know. And it looks as if the little boy will be too. He's healing well, but she's definitely been caught up in that. I didn't think she was the killer, and now, for sure, she wouldn't have had time."

Connor nodded. "All three are clear on my side, with no previous trouble from the police."

Their three defectors from work all had reasons. The only one that needed in person confirmation would get a visit from the local police which Connor was even now organizing. Cami felt disappointed. She'd been so sure that one of these would be the one they were seeking, but now they were all the way back to square one.

She went through the list of employees again. There were a lot of them, and now that she was looking, with so much flexible time and unusual office hours in play, she was wondering how the company kept track of all their employees' ins and outs. How did they ensure they were, at least, still clocking in and out at the agreed time? Surely, there must be some way they were doing this.

She glanced down at the business card that the HR manager had left.

"Do you mind if I call her?" she asked Connor. "I have a question."

"Sure," he said. "Go ahead. Ask away. If it can help us, ask anything." Staring at his own screen, he frowned in frustration.

"Okay," Cami said, dialing the number. "I'm just going to ask her about how they track the employees' attendance."

Maria picked up the phone in two rings. "How can I help?" she said briskly. "Make it quick, I'm in a meeting."

Cami explained her question. "Tracking employee attendance. How's it done? How do you log their work hours?"

The HR manager replied, "We use an in-house software solution to track all our employees' clock in and clock out times. It's all automated, linked up to their phones, which activates the entrance doors and access booms for all employees. It's been a great help for us. They can’t access the building without their phone. The phone automatically tracks that they’re there and then signs them out when they leave."

That sounded very effective. Now, Cami needed to know who hadn’t been at work, because they would have been able to commit the murders.

"Thanks. Can I access the records?"

There was a pause. Once again, Cami sensed that Maria really didn't like this interference in her working day. She didn't want people poking and prodding around in her carefully regimented systems.

"I guess you can," she said. "But I'm going to put a note on the system now that will generate a full report of where you've looked. Here are the login details."

She read out the username and password.

Cami thanked her for the information and hung up, feeling more hopeful. This was something they could work with.

She wished she'd known about it earlier because now they could use this software to track when employees hadn't been in the building. If the gaps in their schedule matched up with the times of the murders, then they could be on the path of the killer.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"I'm going to look at all the employees' login and logout times," Cami said. Now that she had a goal in mind, her fingers were flying over the keyboard as she accessed this data, knowing how super important it was going to be.

She didn't even care that Maria was tracking her movements. Let her. She had no interest in stealing any of the code from here, although she wouldn't have minded analyzing it to see how it worked.

But there wasn't time, and in any case, such a thing would get her into trouble. Now was not the time to seek trouble, but rather to seek suspects.

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