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IN THE LOBBY, FISH asked Noble if he monitored the camera feed from the parking lot entrance.
“Yes. That one, plus the main entrance, and the parking lot elevators. It’s real time. You want to go backward in time, it’s in the security office downstairs.”
Fish had expected as much. “Can we go there? I’d like to check something with them.”
“I’ll have one of them escort you.” Noble picked up his phone and made the request. He smiled at Lexi. “Good interrogation technique. I’d have bought it.”
Color rose to her cheeks. “It wasn’t interrogation. Just friendly conversation.”
“Still, very well played.”
“Hey. I thought I gave a very good impression of a rental agent,” Fish said, trying to look hurt.
“You were fine. Consider your ego stroked,” Noble said.
Townsend appeared, waved them toward him. “Let’s go.”
Fish motioned Lexi forward first, taking advantage of his variation of one of Blackthorne’s rules—he couldn’t remember precisely which one—that said Never pass up a chance to use a restroom. His addition was Never pass up a chance to enjoy a woman’s ass.
“Any word on your partner?” Lexi asked.
A pained expression crossed the guard’s face. “Alive, but it’ll be a tough haul down recovery road. He’s still too sedated to tell us what happened, assuming he remembers.”
“He’ll make it,” Lexi said. Firmly. With conviction. As if she had a direct line to whatever power was in charge of the healing process.
When they reached the room with its array of wall-mounted monitors, Townsend introduced them to Cam Arsenio, a tall, lean African American. “He was on nights. He’s been with the building three years.”
As if there was a need to prove security operations were under control.
Based on Arsenio’s cursory gaze, Fish presumed Townsend had filled him in on who he and Lexi were, and why they were staying in the apartment.
Fish explained that they wanted to track an exiting vehicle. When neither guard mentioned seeing Fish’s antics, Fish thought he already knew the answer. Either that, or the guards hadn’t been doing their jobs. Preoccupied? Lazy? Should he report them to Dalton?
He’d give them the benefit of the doubt until he saw the pictures.
“The gate camera would be the best bet.” Townsend swiped his fingers over the controls, isolating the feed in question to a monitor on his desk. “How far back do you want me to go?”
“Let’s start with Jordan exiting the building a few minutes ago.”
Townsend played the feed in reverse, speeding things to a blur, then stopped when the pickup appeared. Fish was less interested in tracking the truck’s exit than the field visible to the camera, which was primarily focused on the entrance side.
The guard repeated what Lexi had surmised—that given how hard it was to get into the garage, leaving wasn’t worth having a dedicated camera for the exit. It was clear the truck was leaving. It was on the periphery of the frame, and only the driver’s side of the vehicle showed. The low wall—more an architectural feature than a serious barrier—was not in the frame.
“Keep going,” Fish said.
When the feed reached real time, there’d been no sign of Fish’s antics, not even a blur of motion. “Thanks,” Fish said.
“You get what you need?” Townsend said.
“We did, and thanks.”
The guard frowned. “Which was?”
“A hole in the system.” He explained what he’d done, where he’d been standing, and how he thought that was one way Iredale might have breached the garage.
“He made one mistake,” Fish said. “He chose two of our operatives to hitch a ride with.”
Townsend stiffened. “He still wouldn’t have made it past the desk. Without a key, he’d have been trapped in the lobby. We would have recognized him for a stranger, and one of us would have come up.”
“He could have had a weapon,” Lexi said.
Fish gave a wry grin. “Or he could have been very good at schmoozing his way past the guard. Our boss had the reputation of being able to get in anywhere and procure whatever was needed when he was active in the field.”
“We’ll certainly relay your concerns to our superiors,” Arsenio said, Boston coloring his words.
Fish almost said not to bother. That he’d take care of it and cut out potential middlemen, but he couldn’t fault these guys. They’d done their jobs. There was no need to make them appear incompetent.
Not to say he wouldn’t follow up to make sure things actually happened.
Townsend escorted them back upstairs.
Fish and Lexi said their good-byes and thank yous as they exited the elevator in the lobby.
“Where to?” Fish asked.
Lexi tilted her head and put a finger on her chin. “Let me think. What are my choices? The mall? The theater? A stroll in the park? Oh, wait. None of those are in the building. I guess we could go to the apartment.”
Sarcasm dripped from her voice. She punched the call button on their elevator.
Why was she upset? They’d found a possible gap in building security. Emi and her team were working to track the Falcon, maybe get definitive proof he and John Gunther were one and the same. She was that much closer to putting the Falcon behind her.
***
LEXI TAPPED HER FOOT as the elevator made its way to their floor. Inside the apartment, she went straight for the command center.
“Lexi, what’s the matter?” Marv followed behind her. “I thought we’d made progress, finding another way Iredale could have gotten into the garage.”
“We should look at the gate feeds again. If he snuck in when someone left, we need to find someone leaving before he showed up at the elevator.”
“We already showed that he’d have been out of camera range.”
“Humor me, okay? We need to start watching when Iredale shows up at the elevator with Fozzie and Rambler, and go backwards from there. Why didn’t the security guards do this?”
“Because the guy was in custody, and then everything hit the fan.”
“You have anything better to do?” She pointed at the controls. “Do it. We still have the recordings, right?”
“I assume so.”
She moved out of his way so he could call up the camera feeds from yesterday.
“You only want the gate?” he asked.
She thought for a second. “Is there a way you can turn back the time on all of them at once? That way, we can scan the feeds from the gate, the elevators, and the wide angle feeds from the parking levels. I’d like to see how Iredale did it. Whether he was the shadow under Jordan’s truck, or if he entered via the dead zone, or maybe another way altogether.”
Based on his eye roll, Marv seemed to think she was crazy, but she knew she’d go crazy if she didn’t keep busy until Fozzie reported in. If they did catch Iredale bypassing security, Blackthorne would know what hole to plug.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said. “Maybe it’s nothing but a way to pass the time, but I’ll be doing something.”
“It’s also possible Iredale came clean. It’s not like he can use it as a bargaining chip. I think he was angry at being caught, and withholding information gave him a perverse sense of satisfaction.”
She slipped the elastic off her ponytail, looped the band around her wrist, and shook her hair out. “Maybe so. But if he talks, we’d still want to confirm it. Make sure he wasn’t lying.”
Marv’s gaze at the ceiling said he thought she was wasting her time, but she didn’t care. All they had was time. She’d waste it any way she wanted.
Lexi wasn’t going to admit to herself that she was going through the motions to avoid doing what her body was telling her what she really wanted, which was Marv.
They’d worked side by side for years. She’d always liked and respected him, felt comfortable with him. Admired him. Considered him first-rate at his job. Working for Blackthorne had changed him. He had an easy self-confidence, a new maturity. He was still Marv, but at a whole new level, which had nothing to do with his buffed body.
Half an hour later, her eyes burning, she regretted her fixation with trying to do something. She’d watched the morning exodus as people left the building, presumably going to work. The exit gate, she noted, didn’t close after each car. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she left the desk and went in search of Marv, who was—no surprise—drinking coffee. He had a movie playing on the television, but seemed more interested in his phone than watching Daniel Craig save the world.
Not in the mood to watch the movie, she stood at the edge of the couch.
“Any luck?” he asked, his attention on her.
“Not sure. I was watching the cars leave the garage.”
“The camera angle doesn’t change,” he said.
She frowned. “Let me finish. The gate stayed open while a string of cars left. Do you think there’s a gate override? If so, could that be a weak spot in security?”
“Good question. Let’s find out.” He strode to the command center, picked up the desk phone and called the security office.
He posed the question, listened for a moment, said, “Thanks.”
To Lexi, he said, “When there’s a line of cars, there’s always one setting off the sensor, so the gate doesn’t close.”
“Okay, so that couldn’t be triggered from outside.”
“Nope. The sensor’s several feet behind the gate on the inside. If Iredale didn’t smuggle himself in via a resident’s car, or schmooze someone into driving him in, our best bets seem to be either on the far side of an entering vehicle, or sneaking in before the gate closes after someone leaves.”
Lexi sighed. So much for impressing Blackthorne with her investigative prowess.
Fish’s phone rang with a ringtone she’d come to associate with Emi. He took the call, listened, and reached for the computer controls.
“Adam’s finished his meeting at Merlin.”