Page 34 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

“MS. GORDON, COME quick!”

It was Hope Alonso, the junior agent whose ability to hyperfocus was like a superpower. Nicky was still impressed by how she’d spotted the spy cam over the back door of the salon. And now she was teeing up more video footage in the Sandbox.

“What do you have up there?”

“You know how there was only one functioning camera on Roscomare Road when the two kidnappers took the Schraeder children? And we couldn’t see any spotters, unlike the Boo Schraeder abduction?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I found the spotter,” Hope said.

The digital detective work wasn’t conclusive, but it was impressive. Hope had seen a pale figure behind the picture windows of the closest house. The figure was almost as wispy as a ghost and could easily be mistaken for a splash of sunlight on the window. Except for…

“What is that? Is that a backpack over that figure’s shoulder?”

Hope beamed. “Okay, you see it too! I’m already having digital forensics try to sharpen the image, but for now, just go with me a sec…”

She tapped keys to bring up another video feed in a new window.

“This is Linda Flora Drive, the street that runs parallel to Roscomare Road. I pulled up footage from their traffic cams around the same time when the school bus was stopped over on Roscomare. And look at this.”

On the surveillance feed was a slender young woman in a pale blue raincoat with a buff-colored backpack slung over her shoulder. She moved quickly but not as if she were fleeing. More like she was late for class.

“Do we know who she is? Does she live in that house?”

“No ID yet,” Hope said, “but she does not live there—the owners moved, and it’s been on the market for a while.

And if we rewind a few seconds”—she did—“you’ll see that the possible spotter came from the back of the adjoining yard.

No reason to do so unless she came over from the house on Roscomare. ”

“Oh, that is good work,” Nicky said. “Please tell me we can trace her movements from this point.”

Mike Hardy had joined them and was studying both video feeds intensely.

“We can trace her a short distance,” Hope said. “She walks down the hill a bit and climbs into an SUV. Looks like it’s the same SUV we tracked earlier and found abandoned on Hilgard Avenue.”

“Would that be our second spotter?” Hardy asks. “The Girl in the Pale Blue Raincoat joining our Jerkbag in the Green Cap?”

“Maybe,” Nicky replied.

“Yeah, something’s bothering me about them.”

“Go ahead.”

“These kidnappers are smart. They’ve overlooked no details so far. They disable every single camera in the area except the one they want us to see.”

“Right. And?”

“And somehow they miss a spy cam in one location and don’t realize the getaway path for the second spotter is lined with functional cameras?” Mike said.

“Maybe we weren’t supposed to see the figure in the picture window,” Nicky replied. “I think we all would have missed her if it hadn’t been for Hope.”

“No offense to you, Alonso,” Mike said with a smile, “but I can’t help thinking that they’re still playing with us. Sending us on a manhunt for these two people as a distraction.”

Nicky nodded. “It’s the green ball cap and the blue raincoat that are bothering you, right?”

“Very distinctive fashion choices, wouldn’t you agree?” Hardy said. “You wouldn’t catch me dead in a green cap in this town. People might mistake me for an Eagles fan.”

Nicky had to admit that Mike had a point. She was also thinking about Virgil Tighe’s tip about Tijuana.

Maybe this was phase two of the kidnappers’ plot: Let the members of the task force believe they were making excellent progress on a number of fronts while the kidnappers’ actual movements were obscured.

“That doesn’t change the fact that we need to find these two right away,” Nicky said.

Mike nodded. “I call dibs on Green Cap.”