Page 40 of Just Hide

"You head off then. Just keep me in the loop. I'm carrying on with these checks," Connor said.

Cami headed down the stairs again and back to the helpful, bearded man in reception who turned to her with an inquiring expression.

"I need to access your security camera records," Cami said. “Will that be possible?”

The man's eyebrows raised. "Why?"

"We're trying to work out if anyone was looking at the image recognition software after hours or more than usual," Cami replied.

"Ah, yes," he said, understanding immediately. "Just a moment, I'll just get the information you need. But I'll have to ask permission first.”

Cami nodded, crossing her fingers metaphorically as he got on the phone and began speaking, fast, to whomever he was calling.

"Yes, Gotz," he said. "I know.”

Angry words were audible from the other side.

“Yes, that’s true. I know it’s sensitive and confidential. But this is the FBI, and Marius has already given permission. So, I think you're going to have to do the same.”

He waited. “Yes, you can impose conditions. What conditions would you like them to follow?”

The angry words continued and then changed to a more subdued tone.

"Okay. Good. What's the current code?"

Cami felt cautiously optimistic that Gotz had given the go-ahead, and when the bearded man finished writing, he cut the call and looked up, nodding in satisfaction.

"Mr. Gotz, head of security, has agreed for you to access the footage, but only on the premises and only from an official company computer. Of course, you can use the facial recognition software to work out who's who. But for privacy reasons, we cannot allow any of the footage to be copied or moved off the premises. If you want to do that, you'll need a warrant." His voice was firm.

"Understood," Cami said, thinking that sounded fair. “Thank you so much for helping us.”

He handed her the piece of paper. "This is the access code," he said. "You should be able to access the camera footage from everywhere in the building, and there are a few in the parking lot too. Just type the code into the website, and the cameras will start streaming the footage. Remember you can only work with it here, though. If you try and log in on a non-company machine, they will know. So, you don’t want to do that."

“I won’t.” Considering herself thoroughly warned, Cami thanked the man again and took the piece of paper. Then she headed back upstairs, feeling slightly more hopeful. Maybe this was the clue they needed.

"Camera footage is available from machines in any of these computer rooms, with the correct code," she said. "Now, I have the code."

"Great," Connor said, but Cami had the sense he was only paying her a fragment of his attention. The rest was completely focused on getting through those background checks as fast as possible.

She opened up the company's computer again, entered the code, and soon she was looking into the cameras that had been installed around the office buildings. She was able to switch between the cameras, and she spent a few moments looking at the employees coming and going from the office and then, turning back to the HR side, she checked the personnel records to see who had come in after hours on the time sheets. There were a lot of those. Hundreds, in fact, over the past few weeks. Her heart sank as she considered the enormity of the job that lay ahead.

One by one, she'd have to make a note of everyone who went into one of the computer rooms after hours and search the footage.

Cami sighed. It was an immense job, but the only way to get it finished was to start it. First step, she needed to identify the computer rooms on each floor. The killer could have used different rooms, switched things around, so she’d need all the footage from each floor.

Moving between the camera angles, she got what she needed. Here was one of the rooms, here was another. Here was the footage closest to the room on the third floor, and here was the one for the first floor. But how about the one on the second floor, where they were now?

Cami switched back and forth between the footage, frowning in puzzlement as she looked from screen to screen.

"Look here, Connor," she said finally.

He glanced up from his work.

"I'm trying to get all three sets of footage, but I can't," she explained. "There's something very wrong with this set, and now, I'm wondering if it's been done deliberately."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

"Look here," Cami said to Connor, scrolling through the security images. "Look at these sets of footage from the three computer rooms on the three different floors." She pointed.

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