Sunrise brought a blue warmth to the eastern sky and the low rumble of the RV engine beginning to warm. Uncle Tim woke up when Karen and Emma entered the back bedroom. He got up off the bed, and Karen and Emma climbed into it. He tapped the light switch and closed the door on the two of them laying back-to-back under the covers.

Israel was at the galley table talking to a woman. Uncle Tim sat on the couch so he could see who she was. The topic was the fan abductions, and Uncle Tim recognized her. Zack, the police officer.

Israel interrupted her and looked to Uncle Tim, “Espresso. Please?”

“Me too, please,” she asked.

“Timmy, you know Officer Zack. Or detective or investigator or—not sure.”

Uncle Tim climbed from the couch and stepped over before the espresso machine.

“Just Zack will do,” she said.

“Okay. Hello, Zack. Sugar? Cream?”

“Zack’s here to talk with Paula about her report.”

Uncle Tim poured two cups and started another pot. When he turned with the espressos, Zack had swung around the table and sat beside Israel. She was tapping on the keys of a laptop. There was a binder on the table, and the two of them were looking at photographs in plastic sleeves and a website on the computer. A video was playing.

Uncle Tim leaned over to watch.

“Oh,” he whispered.

The camera appeared to be flying, very slow, as if mounted on a helicopter. The movie was skimming a landscape of gentle hills and valleys. The film quality was high, and the camera work and lighting was professional, cinematic.

The camera glided up along a round ridge of a calf and across a valley formed by the back of a knee. The terrain was smooth and non-porous from the white paint.

“It’s not so much painted,” Zack pointed out. “It’s lighter, more like a dusting—I’m thinking airbrush.”

The slow motion camera crossed a canyon of peach-shaped butt cheeks.

“We never get the faces,” Zack explained.

The camera continued on, northward, along a row of spine hills to a spray of mahogany-colored hair.

“Can you rewind back to the woman’s butt?” Israel asked. “Saw something odd, I think.”

“No. It’s locked as a film. It’s not like QuickTime or YouTube or other kinds of internet films. We can only start it over.”

“Please do so,” Israel asked.

Zack tapped the keyboard twice, once to restart the film and the second to raise the volume.

The movie restarted with an added soundtrack.

A violin was being played in a familiar style. The music carried the film over snow-covered hills and plains.

“There is a second film. Actually, there are five,” Zack said when the movie ended, dissolving into black.

She started another. This one began at the back of small toes.

The camera rose to the heels, and Zack’s finger went to the top right corner of the frame. “See that?” she asked.

“See what?” Israel answered for himself and Uncle Tim.

“It’s fast. Just a glimpse. Shiny wood. Is it a coffin?”

“Let’s hope not,” Israel grumbled.

“Why are we watching these?”’ Uncle Tim asked.

“Officer—Zack found them.”

“Is this—are these of the girls that were taken?”

“Yes. I believe so.”

“And why are you showing this to Israel?”

“Killing time. I have an appointment with Ms. Tue.”

One of the bedroom doors clicked as its lock was opened. Paula looked bedraggled; her clothing was disheveled and sideways, and her shoulders were draped with a blanket from Uncle Tim’s bed.

“I smell coffee,” a sleepy-eyed Paula whispered.

“Good morning, Ms. Tue, I’m Zack. We spoke on the phone.”

“I smell coffee,” Paula repeated.

“Good morning,” Uncle Tim offered her.

Paula turned her eyes to him, not saying a word or changing her expression.

“Right. One second,” Uncle Tim went to the galley.

Paula looked at Israel, Zack, the laptop, and the open binder. She glanced at the empty bench seat across the table and sat down on the opposite couch.

Uncle Tim brought Paula a teacup of espresso on a saucer. She accepted both, giving him a downcast eyebrow.

“Yes, I’m making more.”

She sipped and closed her eyes. “Thank you.”

Setting the saucer on the side table, she beckoned Uncle Tim.

“Sit here,” she asked, glancing at the open spot on the couch. He sat.

“Closer.”

Uncle Tim slid closer.

Zack turned to the two of them.

“Ms. Tue, do you think you could identify your rear—your body from a movie?”

“Huh?”

“I agree,” Israel added.

“I know my ass, I think. I could try.”

Zack turned the laptop on the table. She killed the current movie and selected a file. Before she touched the movie icon, Uncle Tim said:

“It’s her.”

Zack’s finger paused above the keyboard. Both women turned to Uncle Tim.

“How would you—” Paula started and stopped.

“Yes. How? I don’t mean to pry into your personal lives—”

“We don’t have a personal life,” Paula said, speaking over the top of her small cup.

Uncle Tim pursed his lips in response.

“Her right butt cheek,” he said.

“Huh?” Paula repeated.

“Watch the film during that part.”

“Okay ...” Zack replied. She tapped the keyboard, and the film began again. The three watched the slow motion landscape of flesh like a shot from an airplane over a white desert. As the aerial camera skimmed the flesh of two pressed thighs, Israel asked, “The right butt cheek, right?”

Uncle Tim turned away, not replying. Paula turned from the movie to Uncle Tim, back and forth, as the camera crossed the faint crease between leg and rear.

“It is a beautiful rear. So it might be mine…” Paula said.

“Look for gold,” Uncle Tim instructed.

“Gold?” Zack asked, leaning closer to the monitor.

“There? I think—Timmy?” Israel placed his finger on the screen where the right butt cheek was just off center in the frame.

“Maybe. Is that it?” Zack said, staring at the spot above Israel’s fingernail.

“There’s no way to stop the film?” Israel asked.

“Must be,” Zack said. “Well, maybe. I don’t know how.”

“Let me call Weather,” Paula suggested in sad voice. “Can I borrow a phone?”

Israel handed her his cell, and she dialed from memory and tapped the speaker icon.

“It’s Weather,” they heard.

“Hi, you.”

“Hey, Paula. Good morning?”

“Mmm, No. Have a tech question.”

“Gladly. Shoot.”

“Want to do a screen capture on a laptop.”

Weather told her what keys to hit.

Paula did so. “Okay. And?”

“And?”

“Love ...”

“Right. Go to Photos, and it’ll be there.”

“Love you.”

“Good morning again, Paula. Love you, too.”

Zack closed the movie. “Photos, right?”

Paula nodded.

Zack opened Photos and there at the end of a long stream of images was the white smooth rear in full frame.

Paula studied the image for a few seconds.

“When did you …?” she asked Uncle Tim.

Zack double-clicked the mouse, and the snapshot doubled in size.

“You were asleep. I was checking on you.” Uncle Tim said.

“If so, you were checking very closely.”

“No, no. It’s not there in the movie. When I saw you sleeping, that mark had a redness around it. It made the mark look bigger.”

“Zack?” Israel asked, studying the close up.

“I know. I don’t know. Wait. That’s a lopsided V. Why is there a lopsided V? Why is there a gold lopsided V on this darling’s ass?”

Israel spoke to the image. “Could be a V, but I don’t think so.”

“Okay ... so what is it?”

“I think it’s a checkmark.”