CHAPTER TWENTY
She had called the owner immediately after leaving the diner and had been pleasantly surprised to find that he was already at the center; he was installing new handholds on the beginner’s path.He had not been thrilled about receiving guests at the early hour, but she had stressed the urgency.
Now she just hoped he would be cooperative enough to help her find what she needed in the security footage.
Kim got out of her car and walked to the front entrance.
She knocked on the locked door, and it was opened almost right away by a man in his thirties.
He wore cargo pants and a faded t-shirt with the climbing center’s logo across the chest. His hair was pulled back in a short ponytail and he had the lean, muscular build of someone who spent most of their time climbing.
"Mr. Reeves?" Kim showed her credentials as she approached.
"That's me. Andy, please." He pushed the door open wider and gestured for her to come inside.
"I appreciate you seeing me at the early hour."
Reeves flipped on the lights and the interior of the gym came into view.
Climbing walls stretched up to the ceiling on three sides, with routes marked in different colors.
Crash mats covered the floor beneath the bouldering section.
The place smelled like chalk dust and rubber—not an altogether unpleasant smell, honestly.
"You said on the phone this was about Lisa Anderson?" Reeves walked toward the back of the gym. "Is she okay?"
"She was attacked when she left here last night,” she said, deciding to keep the details to a minimum. “She survived but she's in the hospital with serious injuries."
Reeves stopped walking and turned to face her. His irritation about the early morning vanished. "Jesus. What happened?"
"I can't discuss the specifics of an ongoing investigation. But I need to see your security footage from last night. Lisa was here climbing and she says her attacker admitted to dosing her water bottle with something. I’m hoping we can catch it on camera.”
"Of course. Whatever you need." Reeves led her through a door marked Staff Only into a narrow hallway. "Lisa's been coming here for three years. She's one of our best climbers. If I can help catch whoever hurt her, I'll do whatever it takes."
They entered a small office cluttered with climbing gear and paperwork. A desk sat against one wall with a computer monitor and keyboard. Reeves sat down and pulled up the security system interface. Kim was impressed; it was a newer system, sleek and capable of a lot more than a basic setup.
"We have four cameras," he said, clicking through different views. "Two covering the main floor, one on the bouldering section, and one covering the gear area where people store their bags."
"I need to see footage from the main floor and the gear area last night, when Lisa was here.”
“Yeah, I think she usually rolls in around 6:30. Let’s see…”
Reeves pulled up the footage and set the playback to double speed.
Kim watched as the timestamp in the corner advanced through yesterday afternoon, starting at 6:00.
At 6:35, Lisa Anderson appeared on camera, walking across the main floor toward the bouldering section.
She wore black leggings and her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail.
She set her bag down in the gear area and pulled out climbing shoes.
"Can you slow it down to normal speed?" Kim asked.
Reeves adjusted the playback. They watched as Lisa chalked her hands and approached one of the more difficult routes marked in red tape.
She started climbing with smooth, controlled movements.
Her technique was impressive even to Kim, who knew nothing about rock climbing.
Lisa moved up the wall like it was natural, finding holds that Kim would not have seen and using her momentum to reach the next grip.
Other climbers in the gym stopped what they were doing to watch. Kim could see them glancing over, tracking Lisa's progress up the wall. A few pulled out their phones to record her. A little creepy, Kim thought, but it made sense. She was practically destroying the course.
"She's really good," Kim said.
"One of the best we've had. She's climbed some of the hardest routes in the country." Reeves pointed at the screen. "That's a V9 problem she's working on. Most people who've been climbing for years can't do that."
Kim focused on the other people in frame.
Several climbers watched Lisa from different positions around the gym.
Most of them were openly staring, clearly impressed by her skill.
But one figure caught Kim's attention. A person in a dark hoodie stood near the edge of the camera's view, partially obscured by one of the support pillars.
The figure was not climbing. They were just watching.
"Can you switch to the gear area camera?" Kim asked.
Reeves clicked to a different feed. The timestamp showed 7:03. Lisa was still climbing in the background, visible through the doorway. She was a bit out of focus from this range. Her bag sat on the floor near a bench where several other bags were lined up.
The figure in the dark hoodie appeared in frame. They moved quickly, glancing around to see if anyone was watching. Then they crouched down beside Lisa's bag and reached for something beside it.
It was a water bottle.
The figure pulled a small object from their pocket and twisted the cap off the water bottle.
They added something to the liquid inside, then replaced the cap and set the bottle back where it had been.
The entire action took less than five seconds.
And with that done, the figure started to walk away.
Kim leaned closer to the monitor. "Can you pause it right there?"
Reeves froze the playback. The figure's back was to the camera, the hoodie obscuring their head and shoulders. Kim could not see a face; she couldn’t even determine if the person was male or female from this angle.
"Can you go back a few seconds? I need to see if we get any other angle."
Reeves scrolled the footage backwards and played it again. This time, Kim watched carefully as the figure moved through the frame. For just a moment, as they turned to look toward the climbing area, the left side of their face came into view.
"Stop. Right there."
The image froze. Kim could see a partial profile. Male, probably in his twenties or early thirties. Pale skin. The edge of a jaw and cheekbone. Not enough for a clear identification, but more than they had before.
"Can you export this frame?" Kim asked.
"Sure." Reeves clicked a few buttons and saved the image to the hard drive. "I can send that to you via text or email. Do you need any other footage?"
"Let me see what happens after Lisa finishes climbing."
They watched as Lisa came down from the wall and walked back to the gear area. She picked up her water bottle and took a long drink. Within minutes, she gathered her things and left the gym.
The figure in the hoodie followed about thirty seconds later, staying far enough behind that it did not look suspicious but close enough that they were clearly tracking her movements.
Kim felt a cold certainty settle in her stomach.
This was their killer. This was the person who had drugged Lisa Anderson and sent her into the sky to die.
She thought about Miles, about how he would process this information.
He would want to know every detail, would analyze the footage frame by frame looking for additional clues with his patented obsessive nature.
She had been working with him long enough now to understand how his analytical approach worked, how he built profiles and connections from small pieces of evidence.
Kim had only been on the team since the Portland case, but she had spent enough time around Miles to recognize his dedication to these investigations.
They had gone out for drinks twice after particularly long days of work.
Both times had been strictly as colleagues, just two people decompressing after intense casework.
But somewhere during those conversations, Kim had developed what she could only describe as a schoolgirl crush.
It was ridiculous. She was a professional FBI agent with years of field experience.
She had no business developing feelings for a colleague.
Especially one who was still clearly processing grief over his dead fiancée and who seemed completely oblivious to anything beyond the cases they were working.
But there it was anyway. The way Miles listened when she talked actually engaged with her ideas instead of just waiting for his turn to speak.
The rare moments when he smiled, usually at something self-deprecating or absurd about the work they were doing.
The intensity he brought to everything, the refusal to give up even when leads went cold.
Kim shook off the thought and focused on the screen. This was not the time for personal distractions.
"Can I get copies of all the footage between 6:35 and when Lisa left?" she asked. "The full recordings from every camera. And that image you just took for me." She gave him her phone number, and she was impressed when the still image came through just ten seconds later.
"Give me a few minutes and I’ll send you that footage," Reeves said.
While Reeves worked on copying the files, Kim pulled out her phone and pulled the still frame up.
Then she forwarded it to Miles and Vic with a brief message explaining what she had found: Partial view of suspect tampering with Lisa Anderson's water bottle at climbing gym.
Male, 20s-30s, pale complexion. Full footage being copied now.
She stared at the partial profile on her phone screen.
The killer had been careful, had stayed at the edges of the camera coverage and kept his face hidden as much as possible.
But he had made one small mistake. He had turned his head just slightly too far while checking to see if anyone was watching.
Kim hoped that one moment might be enough to identify him if they could match the partial profile to someone in their facial recognition database.
Reeves gave his hands a single clap and said, "All done. You'll get a link via text to my Dropbox. You can check the footage there."
"Thank you for your help. This could be huge.”
“I hope it is. And if you see Lisa again, please be sure to give her my best.”
"I will. Thanks again.”
Kim left the gym and walked back outside. She looked to the lot and sighed. “Shit,” she said. She’d been so wrapped up in speaking to Reeves and looking at security footage that she’d forgotten to ask the Uber driver to wait. She pulled the app back up and ordered another.
As she waited for her ride, she looked at the partial image of the killer on her phone.
It wasn’t much. Just the left side of a face, partially obscured by the hoodie.
But it was more than they had before. It was proof that the killer had targeted Lisa specifically, had followed her to the gym and waited for an opportunity to drug her.
Kim wished she had more to work with—that the cameras had captured a clear frontal view or that the killer had been careless enough to show his face fully. But wishes did not solve cases. Evidence did. And they had evidence now, however limited. She just hoped it would be enough.