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At the concern in Cecily’s question, Bryce stepped closer and leaned over the desk, trying to see what Frank had discovered. Images moved, disappeared and reappeared as the man worked his magic.
“You sure you’re not putting in what you want to see?” Bryce asked.
“I’m using what’s here. Sharpening it, adjusting the exposure. There’s a lot of clutter in the background, so I’m working with one section.”
The image stabilized, and Bryce blinked.
Derek nudged Bryce aside and studied the screen. “This for real? Not something staged?”
“No way to know for sure,” Frank said, “but I’m saying it’s real.”
“You think Grady took these pictures?” Cecily asked. “Maybe someone else took them, gave him the phone. Told him to keep it safe.”
“Either way, we’ve got pictures of a gang rape. At knifepoint.” Frank tapped the screen as he explained the scenario.
“I see it two ways.” Derek strode away from the desk, pacing, as if collecting his thoughts. “Grady ran across the crime and took the pictures. Or, he was involved in the crime and someone else took the pictures, and Grady managed to get the phone.”
“No way,” Cecily said. “To the second one, I mean. If he was involved, he’d have destroyed the pictures, not kept them in a strongbox. I think he planned to use them as insurance, or he was going to give them to the police as evidence.”
“He was arrested,” Bryce said. “If he was going to turn them over to the cops, he had plenty of opportunities.”
“Makes sense to me,” Frank said. “Didn’t you say he was hooked up with a social worker?”
“Right,” Cecily said. “Heather. Maybe he didn’t trust her. After seeing how sketchy her reports were, how she shuttled Grady through the system, I can see how he might not have wanted to give her the evidence.”
“The bigger question is, what do we do with it?” Derek came to the computer, rested a hand on Frank’s shoulder and leaned into the screen again. “Can you tell where these pictures were taken? Or when?”
Frank fiddled with the computer. Furrows creased his brow. “They’re dated six months ago.”
“Way before Grady was picked up,” Cecily said.
“Hang on,” Frank said. “There are no guarantees the date and time on the phone when these pictures were taken is accurate. It’s not hard to set them to whatever you want the date to be.”
“What’s it set to now?” Bryce asked.
Frank reached for the phone, which was on the desk, plugged into a charger. “Today. When D-Man put the battery back in, it would have reset to the current date and time as soon as it found a cell tower.”
“In other words, we have no idea when these pictures were taken,” Cecily said.
“Afraid so,” Frank set the phone down..
“What about a GPS stamp on the images?” Derek asked.
Frank shook his head. “Already looked for those. My theory at this point is this phone belonged to a person who didn’t want it to be used to find him. Whether for his own personal paranoia about being spied on, or because he was involved in illegal activities and wanted to make sure he kept his doings off the grid is another question.”
“I don’t recall seeing anything about a gang rape recently,” Derek said. “Then again, the news is so full of similar stories, even if I’d been watching, I could have chalked it up to another reason I like living out here with the cows.”
“Derek’s right,” Cecily said. “They’ve had some gang activity in the Springs, some with violence, but I don’t follow all the reports since it’s not our jurisdiction. They’ve got more crime, period, and unless it’s out of the ordinary, things start to blur. I’ll ask Andy. See what he knows. He’d be able to find out a lot more, and a lot faster, than I can.”
Hearing Andy’s name roll off Cecily’s lips didn’t trigger any gut reaction from Bryce. Guess a night of good sex had mellowed him. “So, call him.”
“Should we send him the pictures?” Frank asked. “These could be evidence in a crime, and the cops have much more sophisticated software and access to experts than we do.”
Cecily seemed to be weighing pros and cons. She turned her gaze toward Derek. “What do you think? Can we do it so Grady’s name is left out of it?”
Now Bryce’s stomach churned. If Grady was involved, covering it up wouldn’t serve justice. While he’d come across as a reasonably nice kid, Grady clearly had problems. Bryce found a patch of middle ground. “If this is a picture of a crime being committed, the cops would have a stronger reason to look for Grady. Once they find him, we can get the truth.”
Cecily’s lips flattened, and she glared at Bryce. “Grady would not have participated in a gang rape.”
“I didn’t say he did. I said it might be an incentive for the cops to find him. That is what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I want him found, but I don’t want him found if he’s going to be railroaded,” she said.
“Relax, you two.” Derek held up a palm. “Nobody’s going to let Grady be railroaded into anything. We want the truth, right?” He narrowed his eyes at his sister, who frowned, but gave a quick nod.
“Did you find anything else in his quarters?” Bryce asked.
“No, just the strongbox,” Derek said.
“I’m going to call Andy,” Cecily said, “but I’m not going to mention Grady’s name.” She grabbed her phone and punched in a number.
When Cecily asked to be patched through to Andy, Bryce took some small—very small—satisfaction she didn’t have the detective’s direct line programmed into her phone. He felt a little more satisfaction when her voice was strictly professional, no small talk, nothing to indicate he was anything other than a cop she happened to work with. He listened as she relayed the information, knowing better than to tell her what to say, although if it were up to him, he’d have gone a few steps further than asking Andy to check the records to see if there were any recent reports of gang rapes.
Cecily disconnected and put her phone on the desk. “He’s not on duty right now, but he’ll check and get back to me.”
“You didn’t mention we have the pictures,” Derek said.
Good. Let big brother be the bad guy.
Cecily gave him an indulgent stare. “One step at a time. First, we find out if anything happened. Why open a can of worms before it’s needed?”
“Seems to me, we’re on a fishing expedition, and worms would come in handy,” Frank said. “I’ll keep digging for anything that can pinpoint a location. Nothing I’ve found is recognizable as coming from the Springs. If Grady took them, it could have been anywhere along his route after he ran away.”
“What about faces?” Derek asked. “Enough for facial recognition?”
“I don’t think even your buddies at Blackthorne could enhance them enough, but if you want to shoot it their way, let me know.”
“Could you do that?” Cecily turned her brown eyes to Derek. “They’d be able to find Grady, wouldn’t they?”
“You planning to hire them?” Derek asked. “I’m all out of favors. We should use our local resources.”
Cecily stared at her phone, as if willing it to ring. When it didn’t, she picked it up and put it in her pack.
“Can someone give me a lift to my place for my car? Frank’s got the computer skills, and I can go to the station, see if I can access any information. I’m not being of much help here.”
Derek cast Bryce a pointed look. “I’ve still got ranch stuff to deal with.”
Did he think he was doing Bryce a favor by having him play chauffeur? The lack of enthusiasm—the lack of anything—in Cecily’s expression said otherwise.
Cecily was grateful for Bryce’s silence as he drove from the ranch to her house. “Thanks for the lift,” she said when he pulled into her driveway. “I’ll see you. Let me know if you hear anything. I’ll be at the station, so use my cell.”
He nodded and drove off.
Was this the usual morning after regrets they’d skipped when Derek had called them to the ranch? They’d spent the night in a motel, so there was none of the do I stay or go home? to deal with after they’d used Bryce’s second condom. Had she expected Bryce’s attitude toward Grady to have done a reversal because they’d slept together?
She changed out of her quasi-homeless clothes and went to the station. Andy wasn’t in, but another of the detectives was willing to hunt through the reports for gang rapes, and he didn’t press Cecily for why she wanted to know. Eventually, he’d mention it to Andy, who would connect it to Grady, but for now, she might get what she needed without opening those cans of worms she’d been trying to avoid.
“It’ll be a while,” he said. “I’ve got a couple hot leads to follow on a case I’m working.”
“Whenever you can will be fine,” she said. After a quick trip to the breakroom to see whether anyone had brought in any homemade goodies—they hadn’t—she sat down at a vacant desk and went over everything she and Bryce had done—and hadn’t done.
Something teased at the back of her brain. There had been one or two of the homeless men who’d seemed to be giving her more than the usual guy appraising a woman looks. At the time, she’d thought that was all it was, but thinking about it, maybe she’d seen something else. Maybe they’d wanted to say something, but didn’t want to contradict their spokesperson.
She needed to know.
She left a quick voicemail for Derek—Bryce would try to argue with her—saying she was following a hunch at Stargate Park. She got into her SUV, plugged her phone into the charger, and set off down the mountain.
Traffic was light. Everyone was going up to the resorts or to look at the fall colors, so she was in Stargate Park in record time. She spotted the cluster of homeless people she and Bryce had talked to last night. After making sure some ones and fives were handy in an outside pocket of her purse, she made her way over. People were taking advantage of the crisp fall weather. Kids were enjoying themselves on the playground, joggers filled the pathways, dogs and masters were out for exercise. A curious golden retriever puppy strained at its leash, approaching Cecily.
“She’s friendly,” the dog’s owner said.
“Aren’t you a pretty pup.” Cecily gave the dog a scratch, then meandered toward the area the homeless group had been last night.
“Hey, Ginger, right?” one man said.
Cecily gave him a grin. “You remembered. I was wondering if you might have thought of anything else. Something that might help me find my friend.” She focused on one of the men who’d expressed interest in her last night.
He wiped his hands on his dirty camo pants. “Probably nothing,” he muttered.
“Hey, it might be something,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me, and I can decide.”
He stepped away from the group, jerking his head that she should follow. She did, trying to stay downwind. The smells of sweat, booze, and cigarette smoke surrounded him like flies on a manure pile.
“See, that picture, that kid. There’s this guy. Not part of a gang, like the one that hangs out here.” He tilted his head again, in the direction she and Bryce had gone last night after leaving his group. “This other one likes younger kids, the down-on-their-luck ones. If he’d come across your friend, he might have recruited him, you know.”
Her heart thumped. A lead? “Recruited him for what?”
The man hiked a shoulder. “They work in teams. Finding marks. People with money.” He scratched himself, and Cecily averted her eyes. When he was done, he continued. “Now, I ain’t never seen any of these. Heard about ’em is all. Rumor is, he feeds ’em, gives ’em a place to stay, and they work for him.”
“Doing what?” she asked again.
“Mostly stealing. This guy, he might be some Asian fellow. Chang, I’ve heard him called. Others say, no he’s a Mexican. Rico, or something like that. Anyway, the young ones, they go up to tourists or people who look like money, maybe give them a sob story, ask for cash, or who knows what. Then when the mark is paying attention to the kid, one of the other guys picks their pockets, or steals purses, whatever. Heard they did some mugging, too. Your friend—he’d fit in with how they operate.” The man eyed her purse. “What I heard—again, it’s only what I’ve heard—the kids live an okay life.”
“You’ve been very helpful,” Cecily said, trying to piece his Fagin-esque ambiguities together in a picture that would give her something to go on. And trying to picture Grady as a con artist. “Thanks for your time.” She handed him two fives, hoping it was enough. “Do you know where I might find these people?”
He pocketed the fives and gazed at her purse again, not speaking. “I might. Only what I’ve heard, mind you.”
She pulled out another five, but kept a tight grip. “What did you hear?”
“You might check over round the new museum center and the swanky shops. Or in the Broadmoor complex. Good pickings there.”
She handed over the bill. “I’ll do that. Thank you.” She hoped he wasn’t going to spend the money on booze or cigarettes, but wasn’t optimistic.
She got in her SUV and wondered how to find Chang, or Rico, assuming they existed. Would they let her into their circle? She should have stayed in her homeless clothes. The man had said they recruited kids. That, she wouldn’t be able to pull off. She wasn’t dressed like a wealthy tourist, either.
She’d start at the museum center downtown, which was closer. She’d play it by ear from there.
Cecily decided a “wealthy tourist” in Colorado Springs didn’t look like a wealthy tourist in New York City—or even Denver, for that matter. Did she have to look like a tourist? The museum center was host to locals as well, and her cowboy boots and western shirt ought to work fine. Knowing she was going to visit the homeless crowd, she’d downplayed her jewelry, but her silver and lapis earrings and matching ring might help project the right image, might tempt someone to approach her.
After finding a slot in the museum center parking lot, she flipped down the vanity mirror and refreshed her makeup. She was about to leave the car when she decided she ought to be sensible, and retrieved her Lady Smith revolver from the glove box, then slipped it into her purse.
She locked her car. Now what? Unlikely any of the people her source had described would be inside the museum. But there were shops and galleries. She’d hoof it and see what happened. Hooking her purse over her shoulder, she meandered out of the parking lot and down the sidewalk.
What would she be doing if she were a rich woman, tourist or otherwise? She window-shopped, browsed inside some of the exclusive boutiques. Other than sales clerks, no one paid her any attention.
Hungry and in need of a restroom, she ducked into a small Indian café—none of those in Pinon Crest—and asked for coffee and an order of samosas. While she waited, she used the small but elegant ladies room and wondered if she was wasting her time. What made her think she’d be lucky enough to run into one of the kids her source had told her about in her first hour of trying to attract one? Or even that her source hadn’t been making the whole thing up for a few more bucks?
Either way she needed lunch. She took her seat at a table for two near the front window where she could observe the passersby—and maybe catch a glimpse of the action her source had mentioned. The server approached with her coffee. “Your samosas will be up in a minute.”
Cecily thanked her and resumed people watching. Outside, a woman dressed in skinny jeans, flat-heeled black suede boots, and a form-fitting gray sweater walked a dog bearing a marked resemblance to Charlie. Cecily shook her head as the woman tried to keep her dog from approaching every pedestrian on the sidewalk, scaring a toddler who cried and buried his face in his mom’s legs. Mom glowered at the woman with the dog, scooped up her kid and put him in the stroller.
A youth on a skateboard zipped by, followed by two more, all plugged into earbuds instead of paying attention to what was going on around them. One barely averted hitting the dog walker, another almost clipped the stroller.
Cecily was tempted to call the cops and report their recklessness, but the dog walker and the mom chatted, seeming to have banded together as new allies against the skateboarders. After a moment, the dog and master continued on their way. Her server returned with the samosas, but out of the corner of her eye Cecily caught the flash of alarm that spread over the mom’s face.