The next morning, Isaac was pleasantly surprised to discover that they could figure this thing out. He agreed to listen for the still-sleeping Greer while Sidney grabbed a quick shower and then fixed an easy breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast.
He ate while she got dressed and then jumped in the shower himself. When he was done, he dressed and gathered his gun and holster.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
“Well, that routine felt very backwards.”
Sidney giggled. “It did. But it allowed me to actually shower and put on clean clothes, and make you breakfast. So I’m calling it a win.”
Isaac smiled at her. “Happy I could help you in some small way. And I want to thank you again for taking on the brunt of this.”
“I want you to stop saying that, Ike. If you could be here helping me, you would. But your job is to find the bastard who took BG’s parents away from him. That’s huge, baby. And while you go off and do that, I’ll stay here and take care of him. I’m just lucky Zoe has been so great in allowing me to take the time to deal with this.”
“Remind me to thank her personally sometime.” Isaac kissed her forehead.
“You know, I feel like taking care of Greer is the least I can do for Cara Buckley.”
“How do you mean? You never even met Cara Buckley.”
“Well, I know that. But… and I don’t know if I even believe in ghosts or spirits or whatever, but…”
Sidney paused as though she were searching for the right words to explain herself. Then she fixed him with a such a serious look, and Isaac held his breath waiting to hear what she was trying to say.
“Can you imagine how unsettled Cara’s spirit must be right now? How worried she must be about what’s going to happen to her baby boy?”
Sidney sounded almost anguished, and he watched tears well up in her eyes.
“Hey, I thought I was supposed to be the super empathic one of this family.”
Sidney grinned at him as a tear fell to her cheek. “I know I sound silly.”
Isaac wiped that tear away with his thumb, and then softly kissed her lips. “No, you don’t sound silly, darlin’. You sound like a mother.”
Sidney’s eyes met his. Isaac kissed her lips again.
“I’ll tell you what… I will do absolutely everything in my power to help Palmer and Driscoll find whoever did this. That’s a promise, okay?”
Sidney nodded and glanced across the hall into the guest room at Greer. He was still sleeping.
“I have to get going so that I don’t blow the morning briefing.”
“Okay. Be careful today. Stay safe please. I need you.”
Isaac smiled at her. “I need you too, beautiful. Desperately.”
He kissed her again, this one lingering and full of longing. Then he looked over at Greer for a moment and was out the door.
At the station, Isaac rushed to the unit boxes and then into Gavin’s office to get ready for the morning briefing. And just like the day before, Detectives Palmer and Driscoll followed him in.
“Morning, Sarge,” Lynn Driscoll said.
“Hey ladies. Any progress overnight?”
Sasha Palmer stepped forward. “Yeah, we actually came up with two good leads. The first one ultimately took us nowhere, but the second is looking promising.”
Isaac looked up from his morning briefing notes.
“Really? Tell me about both.”
“First, we discovered that Shane Buckley was involved in a road rage incident about a week prior. Checking door cam footage we spotted a confrontation that happened in front of the Buckley’s house that almost came to blows,” Sasha explained. “We traced the plates of both cars through traffic cams from that date and saw the inciting incident. I’ve got it cued up on my computer if you want to see it.”
Isaac took a breath and looked down at the notes in his hand and checked his watch for the time. “Yeah, okay.”
He followed them out to their desks and watched as Sasha started the video clip. He saw the near miss in traffic and then the aggressive tailgating, yelling, and gesturing.
“And this guy followed Shane all the way home?”
“Yes, sir. In front of the house he hops out of the car and it almost got physical.”
“What stopped it?” Isaac asked.
“Cellphones,” Lynn chimed in. “A few of the Buckley’s neighbors were outside and started taking cellphone videos. The guy got back in his car and pulled off.”
Sasha keyed up another bit of footage that showed Cara rush outside with Greer in her arms, and Shane jumping in front of her to protect her from the crazed jerk.
Irene Willis told him that Cara said Shane’s temper had gotten him into enough trouble recently. Isaac wondered if this confrontation with Mr. Road Rage was the trouble Cara had been talking about?
“So you’re thinking what?” Isaac said, feeling the frown settle between his brows as he tried to put the pieces together. “That this guy came back a week later and killed them both?”
He didn’t buy it.
The murders had been brutal. Much too brutal for road rage to be the motive. They were missing something.
“Well, we traced the plates and got an ID on this guy.” Sasha handed him a mugshot. “Name is Tim Fuller and he’s in our system for several aggravated assaults and other misdemeanors. He’s also got ties to a local skinhead group.”
“Does he now?” Well, that changed things, didn’t it? “So you think when Cara rushed out of the house to see what the commotion was, this Fuller guy got a look at Shane’s Black wife and baby and made a mental note to come back and take care of it?”
Sasha shrugged a shoulder. “It’s a theory. We picked him up at a club overnight where he works as a bouncer. Even showed him the footage.”
“And?”
“He copped to the road rage, but says he never even thought about coming back to finish the job,” Lynn said.
“He followed Shane all the way home just because he was pissed at being cut off in traffic. What would he have done if the Buckley’s neighbors hadn’t had cell cams trained on him?”
“Good question, sir,” Lynn said.
Isaac handed back the mugshot, his mind buzzing with different scenarios. “I believe Fuller has a bad case of anger management issues. But is it bad enough to escalate to murder?”
Sasha shrugged her shoulders again. “I don’t know, but we had to kick him loose because he has a solid alibi for the time of the murders. He was working the door at the night club. Got about a hundred witnesses.”
Isaac heard her response, but he was stuck on something he’d said only moments ago. “Cell cams.”
“Sarge?”
Both ladies were staring at him, giving him that he’s-gone-off-the-rails-again look.
“Where’d the door cam footage that spotted the confrontation at the house come from?” he asked, his mind wizzing like a computer.
“The neighbor across the street,” Lynn said.
“The same one that found the bodies the other night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And does she have door cam footage for the night in question?”
Sasha and Lynn exchanged a strange look, and Isaac knew he’d just hit on something.
“Yes, she does, sir,” Sasha said. “And it’s… disturbing.”
“Disturbing how?”
“Well, it’s—”
“Wait.” Isaac glanced at his watch again. “Hold that thought or I’m going to be late for the morning briefing. Let me go do this. You two stick around a few minutes and I’ll be right back.”
“Yes, sir.”
Isaac dashed off to conduct the morning briefing where he assigned a couple of new cases and then fielded questions on Pete’s progress. Then he rushed back out to the pit where he motioned to Sasha and Lynn before he reached them.
“Okay, you said the door cam footage of the night in question is disturbing. How so?”
Sasha took a breath and Isaac could tell she was trying to decide where to begin.
“So, after we kicked Fuller, we went back to the door cam footage, and that’s when we spotted this.”
She cued up another snippet of footage and Isaac turned his attention to her computer screen.
“Like the last clip, we’re looking at the neighbor’s front yard, but the action happens across the street. Focus here.” Sasha pointed to the background.
Isaac leaned in closer to the screen. Unlike last time, this clip happened at night, so it was harder to see. But as he watched, he saw what looked like a man dressed in all black running out of the Buckley’s front door.
“Is he wearing a ski mask?”
Sasha paused the playback. “We can’t really tell, sir. It’s dark and the footage is very grainy, but this is the part you have to see. Watch closely.”
She started the playback again and Isaac squinted, leaning in more. The man in black set something down in the driveway and ran off.
Isaac’s blood ran cold.
“Is, is that…” He didn’t just see what he thought he saw, did he? “Was that Baby Greer?”
“Yes, sir.” Lynn nodded, her expression grave. “That’s why the neighbor found the kid in the driveway. Whoever did this carried him out of that house intending to take him, we assume. We have no idea why he thought better of it and left him behind.”
“Son of a bitch,” Isaac said. “Have you handed this footage off to IT to see if they can clear it up any?”
“I set a flash drive on the intake desk myself yesterday evening,” Sasha said, shrugging a shoulder.
“And?”
“And we still haven’t heard anything. I don’t think they’ve gotten to it yet.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Isaac said, making a mental note to go see John Barton himself this morning. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“We spoke to Shane Buckley’s siblings, but they were no help. Claimed they hadn’t been in touch with him since he ran off and married Cara, who they called a few choice words. We spoke to several of Shane’s co-workers. No real leads to speak of. Everyone he worked with thought very highly of him and his work. Everyone except Shane’s family describes he and Cara as the perfect couple. Sweet to each other, very much in love, the real deal. What we really need is to ID the man in this footage.”
“All right. Good work, both of you.” Isaac looked them both in the eyes. “Go home. I’ll light a fire under the IT department.”
“Thanks, Sarge.”
“Have a good one, Sarge.”
Isaac took a deep breath and headed for the staircase. No time like the present to bug the tech staff over a case.
On the fifth floor he went straight to Lt. John Barton’s office and knocked on the open door. “Hey, John?”
Barton, who was seated at his desk, turned around and smiled. “Hey, Ike. How are you this morning?”
The big jovial smile from Barton still seemed so weird to Isaac. It wasn’t that long ago that all he got from Barton was an expressionless stare. Apparently the man had been afraid of Isaac for years because he had some screwy ideas about psychic people eating your soul or some such nonsense. But that all changed when Isaac had saved the man’s life last year. After that, Barton had declared them buddies and all but demanded they be on a first name basis.
“I’m good, how about yourself?”
“Doing good, buddy. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I was hoping to get your assistance with some door cam footage.”
“Sure. Is this about the hate crime case?”
“Actually, it’s a case that Palmer and Driscoll are investigating. But I have a vested interest beyond simply trying to fill Hayes’ shoes and overseeing all the cases.”
“Oh, this is about their double homicide with the orphaned kid you took home?”
Isaac was set back apace, and he actually took a step backward, slipping his hands into his pants pockets and staring at Barton.
Was the whole precinct aware that he’d temporarily taken this kid in? Were they still studying his every movement like he was some circus freak? Accepting the weird abilities, but still fascinated by them?
“Um… yes, it is. Sasha Palmer said she delivered some footage to your intake box yesterday evening, but she still hasn’t heard anything. We need that footage enhanced so that we can try and ID the person who killed that couple. It’s the only good lead we have, John.”
Barton stood up. “Okay. I personally haven’t taken in anything from Palmer and Driscoll in the last twenty-four hours, but let me check with my guys. If one of them have it in their cue I’ll take it on myself. And if they’re working on it now, I’ll stand over their shoulder and supervise. That always gets them motivated.”
He winked and Isaac grinned.
“I really appreciate this.”
“It’s no problem. Should I bring it to you or deliver it to Palmer’s desk?”
“Bring it to me, please.”
“I’ll have it to you by shift change.”
“Thanks, John.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Isaac left the IT department and went back down to the pit and headed for Hayes’ office. As he walked, all he could think about was that footage. And he wondered what might’ve happened to Greer if he’d been taken by the mystery killer.