Five

True to his promise, Wayne met Zoe at the county police headquarters with a large bag of fresh popcorn in hand.

She pointed at it. “You must really love popcorn.”

“Don’t you?” He grinned. “This might end up being dinner.”

Not the day she’d planned when the invitation to watch security footage had first come up.

Zoe followed Wayne into a small, dark room filled with electronic equipment, control panels, a couple of computer keyboards, and numerous monitors. He pulled up one of three chairs on rollers and signaled for her to grab another. Plopping the bag of popcorn on the control console, he crossed an ankle over his knee and balanced a keyboard on his lap. “Here we go.”

Grainy black and white footage flickered onto one of the screens. Overhead views of people coming and going, passing through the hallways.

Popcorn for dinner? They might still be here for breakfast if they had to go through all of this.

Wayne tapped some keys and the image switched to a different camera. And another and another. “There.” He leaned forward and pointed at the screen. “That’s the door to Kinney’s room. I think this angle will give us the best view of anyone who entered and exited around the time of his death.” Wayne played with the keyboard and mouse, rewinding and fast-forwarding the footage. “According to the report, an aide found his body shortly after noon on Monday when he didn’t show up in the dining room for lunch. What time were you and Pete there?”

“Between nine and about a quarter ’til ten.”

“Okay.” Wayne pecked the keys, sending the figures on the screen racing backwards. “We know Kinney was alive when you left, so that’s where we’ll begin.”

Even with the speed set at fast-forward, Zoe expected to be there a while, waiting to see someone enter or leave Kinney’s room. Apparently, Wayne did too. He reached for the bag of popcorn.

A blurred figure disappeared into Kinney’s room. “Wait,” Zoe said. “There.”

Wayne clicked the mouse, freezing the picture. “What? I missed it.” He reversed the footage, still faster than normal.

The person in the image sped backwards into the hall. “There,” Zoe said again.

“I saw it.” He stopped the film and advanced it at normal speed.

This time the figure hobbled into the frame and turned into the room. “It’s John Kinney.”

“Yep.” Wayne touched the corner of the screen where the time and date were printed. “9:56.”

Wayne let the footage roll at normal speed for a few minutes. Kinney remained inside and no one else entered the frame. The detective reached for the keyboard, but before he could click to fast-forward, someone wearing a ball cap appeared on the monitor. As Zoe watched, the figure stopped at Kinney’s doorway, paused, and entered the room.

She glanced at Wayne. “Did you see that?”

The detective’s face revealed no sign of his trademark smile. “Yeah.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned toward the screen. “Timestamp, 10:02.”

Exactly eight minutes later, the person stepped into the hallway and headed toward and under the camera, out of the frame. The bill of a Pittsburgh Pirates ball cap shielded his face from view.

The skin on Zoe’s neck prickled. “Do you think—?”

Wayne lifted a hand to silence her. “Too soon to tell.”

But almost a half hour later, after fast-forwarding to the point where the aide entered at 12:10 and immediately rushed back out, they determined no one else had come or gone from the victim’s room.

Wayne reset the footage to 10:10 where the man in the ball cap stepped back out into hall after apparently committing murder. Freezing the frame, the detective stared at the image. “Yeah,” he said. “I’d be willing to bet that’s our killer.”

Zoe studied the monitor, willing the man on the screen to lift his face. “Who is he?”

“Now’s when the real fun begins. We get to watch the rest of the security footage to track his movements and try to catch a glimpse of his face.” Wayne leaned back in his chair. “Better have some popcorn.”

* * *

  

The day’s light drizzle had let up, and the sun, low in the western sky, split the clouds and sparkled off the damp spring-green grass. Zoe slid down from the cab of her pickup in Pete’s driveway, next to his township vehicle. She stepped through the kitchen door—no one but strangers ever used the front one—into an invisible cloud of garlic, onion, and tomato.

Pete turned from the stove. “Glad you could finally make it.”

She inhaled deeply, her mouth watering. “You made spaghetti?”

He held up a wooden spoon coated in sauce. “Sort of. I hope doctored-up jar sauce is good enough.”

One of Zoe’s orange tabbies trotted over to greet her as she collapsed into the chair next to the door. “I’m so hungry, even canned ravioli sounds good.” She despised canned ravioli.

Pete made a disappointed face. “Well, I suppose I can toss this and see if I have anything like that on the shelf…”

“Don’t you dare.” She unlaced her boots and tugged them off, setting each next to the chair. The cat meowed, and Zoe picked her up. “Hi, Jade.”

The tabby squirmed in protest, wriggling free, preferring to rub on Zoe’s legs.

Pete stirred the pot and set a lid on it before crossing the kitchen to stand in front of her. “How’d it go?”

She called him a couple hours ago to let him know she’d be late but hadn’t gone into any details. “We think we found the killer on the security footage.”

“Oh?”

Zoe stood and slung her jacket and purse on the hall tree. “Male, wearing a ball cap.”

“That’s not a lot to go on.”

“I know.” She sighed and stepped into Pete’s arms, burying her face against his chest and breathing in his freshly showered scent. Even better than the aroma of pasta sauce.

“Could you identify him?”

“Nope. He kept his head down. We couldn’t find a single frame with his face visible. There’s a lot of footage to go through yet, but from what we could piece together, he wandered around a while. Then he went into John’s room, came out eight minutes later, and exited the building. Never once looked up. He even tipped his head away from some of the cameras that might’ve caught a profile.”

Zoe could hear the rumble in Pete’s chest. “He was street-smart enough to keep his face shielded.”

“Or the killer was aware of the cameras’ locations. Wayne and I figure he’s spent enough time there to know his way around and know about their security.”

“That’s a good probability.”

She eased out of Pete’s embrace. “Anyway, Wayne said he’d have some of his men go through the rest of the footage from yesterday and from the days leading up to the homicide. But without a face to match, all the guy has to do is change clothes and wear a different hat, or no hat at all. There isn’t much of a chance we’ll ID him.”

Pete gazed over her head, his expression stoic.

Zoe made a guess at his thoughts. “You’re worried about Harry.”

Pete’s jaw twitched. “Hell yes, I’m worried about Harry. I had qualms about Nadine’s insistence on moving him there last winter. He seemed to settle in well though, so I dropped it. But now…”

She filled in the blank. Now a murderer had shattered the illusion of security. “Have you spoken with your sister?”

“I called and left a message.”

“You know she’ll insist on moving him.”

“It’ll be the first thing we’ve agreed on in a decade.”

“I checked on him today.”

“Oh? How was he?”

“Good. Better than most days. He knew who I was. And he said he saw a stranger wandering around the place the morning of the murder.”

Pete’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? He was sure it was that morning?”

“Kinda. Sorta. Maybe.”

Pete nodded. “That’s what I figured. Besides, everyone is a stranger to Pop.”

“My point is you need to quit worrying so much. Your dad is fine.” Zoe fingered Pete’s arm, sliding her hand down to clasp his. “And we’re gonna catch this guy before he can do any more harm.”

The corner of Pete’s mouth tipped into a hint of a grin. “We?”

“Yeah. Me and—”

He groaned. “Do not say ‘Wayne.’ I’m getting a little tired of you being so buddy-buddy with that guy. Especially talking about him when I’m holding you in my arms.”

She knew Pete was teasing, but she stood on her toes to give him a quick kiss. “You have nothing to be concerned about.”

“Yeah? Prove it.” His arms encircled her waist drawing her to him and the kiss he returned threatened to divert the conversation into the bedroom.

When his hands slid lower, she ducked out of his grasp. “Later, I promise. But I need some of that spaghetti because I’m too weak from starvation right now.”

He aimed a finger at her in a mock threat. “I’m holding you to that promise.” Turning, he headed back to the stove. “By the way, did you ever call that guy claiming to be related to you?”

Crap. She’d been so focused on the case, she hadn’t mentioned her lunch plans to Pete when they’d spoken earlier. “Uh, yeah.”

“And?” He lifted the lid to peer into the pot.

“He’s my brother.”

The lid clattered to the stovetop, splattering pasta sauce. Pete ignored the mess, facing her. “Your brother?”

“Half-brother.” She explained about her father’s premarital affair and the resulting child.

Pete fell silent for a few moments before asking, “Did he mention how he found you?”

“He tracked down his birth mother who told him who his father was. From there it wouldn’t be hard.”

“No.” Pete’s voice was pensive. “It wouldn’t.” He returned to the pot and the mess he’d made, grabbing a dishrag to wipe the counter. Over his shoulder he asked, “Have you talked to your mother about this?”

Zoe cringed. “Not yet. I thought I’d meet him first.”

“You’re meeting him? When?”

“Tomorrow for lunch.” She braced for the impending storm surge. Hurricane Pete.

He wheeled, dishrag in hand. “When exactly were you going to mention this?”

“I just did.”

“You have no idea this guy’s for real.”

“I know that. We’re meeting at Walden’s. There’ll be people around. And once I see him, I’ll know if he’s really my brother.”

“How? Do you have some built-in lie detector I don’t know about?”

Pete’s surly tone grated on her. “Yeah. The same one you do,” she snapped. “You call it your gut. I call it intuition.”

He flung the dishrag into the sink. “Dammit, Zoe—”

“I know what my dad looked like. If this guy is his son, there’ll be a resemblance. I mean if he has dark hair and eyes, he’s probably not my brother.” Unless Cox’s biological mother had dark hair and eyes, but Zoe would deal with that possibility when and if the situation called for it. “And it’s lunch in the middle of Phillipsburg, not a clandestine encounter in a dark alley somewhere.”

Pete crossed his arms. “I’ll meet you there. What time?”

Zoe stuttered. “No.”

His eyebrows shot up. “No?”

“No,” she repeated firmly. “If Jason Cox is my brother, I want to hear what he has to say. Having a cop, especially one looking like…” She gestured at Pete’s cross-armed power stance. “…you…sitting across the table from him, isn’t going to be conducive to relaxed conversation.”

“It’ll encourage honesty. What time?”

Zoe bit back a frustrated scream. “No. I mean it, Pete. I don’t want you there.”

Her words stung. She could see it in his face. “Look, I just want to get a feel for the guy, one-on-one, this first time.” She cocked her head and gave him her best flirtatious grin. “Then I’ll set up another lunch for the three of us, at which point you can do your best to scare the crap out of him.”

The muscle twitching in Pete’s jaw told her he wasn’t backing down.

“Besides, how long does it take you to run a background check? I’m not meeting him until noon. You do that thing that you do…” She mimed typing on a computer, “…and if you find out Jason Cox is on some terrorist watch list, I’ll bring you along and you can arrest him.”

The muscle in Pete’s jaw stopped jumping, but he didn’t relax his stance.

Zoe sashayed over and placed a finger at the center of his chest. “I know you want to protect me. But I need to handle this my way.” She traced a path down to his belt. From the hint of a groan on his breath, she knew she’d won.

“You don’t play fair.”

She raised onto her toes, bringing her lips near his ear and whispered, “Not when I’m starving. You’re about to burn the spaghetti sauce.”