“That’d be good,” Ali said, and he smiled. “Why was Jannie so happy?”
“She won her race, beat the strongest girl in Maryland.”
“Wow,” Ali said. “And no foot pain?”
“None,” his dad said and turned to leave.
“Dad?” Ali called after him. “Do you think real magic exists? That there are people who can make things appear and disappear for real?”
“No,” he said. “It’s all deception, sleight of hand, smoke, light, and mirrors.”
Ali nodded. “I think so too.”
“You want lunch?”
“I’ll come down in a bit,” Ali promised. He watched his dad duck his head going out the door and listened to him drop to the second floor, then the first.
Ali felt a moment of guilt before launching the Internet browser again. He didn’t like lying to his father or directly disobeying him, but someone had to figure out what was wrong with the videos.
He hit Play again and decided not to fast-forward, to watch them all from the beginning. He focused on the middle camera, the north one, looking back across the width of the factory floor with the bottoms of the three spotlights on the roof of the southern alcoves visible. Ali froze the screen and zoomed in.
He’d hoped to see some shadow there behind the spotlights, the suggestion of a silhouette, but he saw none. He hit Play again and noticed a tiny blue pinpoint light flash. And then it was gone.
It took Ali three attempts to freeze the middle video feed on that tiny blue light. He zoomed in on it but couldn’t tell what the light was attached to. Frustrated, he hit Play again. He focused on the third feed, the one showing the length of the factory room, with the spotlights aimed toward the mural.
He zoomed in on the spotlights, but saw no one behind them.
Who was running the lights? And where was that blue pinpoint? Try as he might, he couldn’t spot it.
“Ali!” Nana Mama yelled up the stairs. “I’ve got your bacon, lettuce, and tomato down here waiting.”
“Coming, Nana,” he cried. He cleared the browser’s history to cover his tracks, then shut down the web page.
Ali got up and headed toward the stairs, only vaguely aware of the stacks of evidence boxes he passed. Indeed, he was thinking so intently about that pinpoint blue light that he barely noticed that the box on the filing cabinet closest to the door was labeled AUTOPSIES.
CHAPTER
65
WE WERE FINISHING up lunch when I heard a knock at our side door.
“Who’s that now?” Nana Mama grumbled. “A damn reporter again?”
“If it is, I’m calling a real cop,” I said, grinning and tousling Ali’s hair because he seemed lost in thought.
I put my dishes on the counter, crossed to the side door, and opened it. A distressed Alden Lindel stood there.
“Mr. Lindel?” I said, stepping out and closing the door.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Cross,” the father of the kidnapped girl from Ali’s school said. “I know you’ve got your own issues, but I didn’t know where else to turn.”
I took a deep breath and then gestured to the basement door.
In my office, Lindel reached into his jacket pocket and came out with another flash drive in a baggie. “This time they hanged Gretchen.”
He dropped into the chair, hid his face in his hands, and sobbed. “God damn it, they hung my daughter, or made it look that way, and they’re selling tickets to the show on the Internet.”
I flashed on Jannie and felt sick to my stomach. I walked over, put my hand on Lindel’s shoulder, and said, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”