Page 86 of Three Girls Gone

“Yeah, of course. And that’s why you want to look at my video. Is it helping? Is that the man who took her?” Tessa pointed toward her tablet nested in Trent’s hands.

“We believe so. Now, we need to look at some more footage. I assume the camera was triggered a bit after this?” Amanda said, looking at Tessa.

“Let me see.” She put her hands out for the tablet, and Trent passed it over. She fussed with it for a moment. “A few more times after that from the looks of it.”

They watched a racoon race across the street and a piece of trash blowing down the sidewalk. But they struck gold on the third video. The time stamp was 2:27 AM.

It showed the dark-clad figure again, but this time he was carrying a limp Eloise in his arms.

“Is she—?” Tessa clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Ma’am, it might be best if you leave this to me and Detective Stenson,” Amanda said, drilling her with her eyes.

“Ah, sure.” Tessa backed up to the couch and sat down.

Trent, who had paused the video at Tessa’s interruption, resumed the playback. On screen, the dark-clad figure hustled down the sidewalk toward the pass-through. He ducked down there and disappeared out of sight.

Once the video cut out, Trent looked at Amanda. They’d caught him in the act, and that revelation packed an emotionalpunch. This strange man had just helped himself to the Maynards’ sweet daughter. As a mother, Amanda was triggered. She would sacrifice everything to see this through and stop this guy. They needed a digital copy of this video to take with them and to forward on to Digital Crimes, but one other thing stood out to her. “Tessa,” Amanda said, turning to face the woman on the couch. “Could we get a copy of all the videos shot in the last twenty-four hours?”

Tessa pushed off the couch and came over to them. “I’m sure I can figure out a way to share all the files.”

“Thank you,” Amanda said.

“If I could?” Tessa held out a hand for the tablet, and Trent passed it over to her. She studied the screen, her brow bunching down in focus. “Ah, here it is. Where should I send it?”

Amanda rattled off her email address.

Tessa pecked at the screen as Amanda spoke, and soon after said, “Done. Did you receive it?”

Amanda pulled out her phone and checked her email app. One filtered in from Tessa. She opened it and counted the attachments. “Twenty videos?”

“Yeah, but they’re short. Only ninety seconds each.”

That didn’t sound as overwhelming as it could be. “This is wonderful, Ms.Keirns. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. I hope you find the girl.”

“We’re going to do all we can,” Amanda said, and she and Trent left Tessa with a card and a request that she keep all that footage backed up somewhere, despite Amanda now having a copy.

Trent slid behind the wheel. “He knew what he was doing. There was no hesitation about jumping the fence.”

“I noticed that too. He had in mind where he was going to enter the home.”

“So he must have scoped things out before he came to take Eloise,” Trent put in.

She nodded and smiled at him. “Exactly.”

“That’s why you asked for that extra footage from earlier?”

“Yep. If there’s video of him when the sun was still up, we just might get a clear shot of his face.”

“We can hope.”

“Yes, we can.” She was making peace with hope.

“Back to Central?” Trent asked, looking over at her.

“Yes. We’re going to watch all these videos and get anything we need over to Digital Crimes.”