Chapter 48
Ridge
I hold up my credentials and let the male behind the front desk get a good, long look at them.
He’s a shifter, mid-thirties, with grease under his nails. There’s a service bell on the counter and a row of pegs behind him with keys hanging from numbered hooks.
“Don’t you need a warrant?” he asks.
“Only if I plan on using the footage in court,” I tell him. “I need access to it to rule a suspect out. That’s all.”
He scratches the side of his jaw.
“Surely we need Mrs. Patel’s authorization. What did she do? I can’t see a female like her doing anything wrong. I don’t like it. I don’t feel comfortable giving you access to her vehicle.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong.” I lean an elbow on the counter and lower my voice. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you.”
I make a show of glancing toward the open door to the workshop and the small waiting area on the other side of the room. There’s no one in either. Just the two of us and a radio playing something low and tinny from a back office.
“Avani Patel suspects her husband of cheating on her,” I say. “She believes he left the house really late on Wednesday night last week to meet with the person he’s been having an affair with.”
His brows lift. “And he used her car to do it?”
I nod. “It looks that way. He parked it badly when he got home, and that’s when Avani scraped it on her way out to work on Thursday morning.”
“These humans. I swear.” He huffs and shakes his head. “I don’t understand why they mate in the first place. They end up screwing around and getting divorced. They don’t know the first damned thing about forever.”
“Not all humans.” The thought comes before I can stop it. Robyn’s face is right there at the front of my mind. “Some humans mate for life.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” He frowns. “Why doesn’t she check the footage herself if she suspects him?”
“Well, she hired me. I think she’s worried about what she will see. Her husband is also extremely controlling, so it’s safer if I do it here. She doesn’t want him finding out she’s been digging.”
“Of course not. He sounds like a real asshole.” He picks a numbered key off one of the hooks. “Yeah, sure. Take a look. The vehicle is in the shop. We were about to start on it, but it can wait ten minutes.” He points toward the area with his thumb. “Have at it.” He hands me the key.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
The Mercedes is up on a low bay. The interior light comes on when I unlock the car. I get in and push the button to start the vehicle.
I take out the USB cable and attach my phone to the dashcam. Then I scroll through the list of clips. They’re each stamped with a time and a length, and there are dozens of them. I go to the one I want and tap play.
The street is quiet as the Mercedes glides through it. A streetlight flicks past, then another. The car indicates and turns.
It’s Robyn’s street.
I have this footage from behind as well.
The Mercedes slows. The driver eases off, and the car coasts the last hundred feet. He parks just short of her apartment building, where the lamps are wider apart.
It’s a smart spot to pick. Out of the camera’s range from the building entrance. Tucked just shy of the corner.
I’m hoping that this dashcam will keep recording with the engine off. Not all of them do. This is an upmarket vehicle, but Draig Island is generally safe, so who knows.
I wait.
The image holds steady. The street is empty. Nothing seems to happen, so I wait some more.
The clip keeps rolling, but nothing is happening.
Crap!
Maybe he got out and went around the back of the vehicle and took the long way through the alley of the second building. It’s possible, if he was being extra careful.
I lean closer, the phone propped against the steering wheel.
A few seconds later, I smile because a figure walks straight across the front of the car.
He stops dead center. He looks left, then right.
He pushes something into the front of his pants.
I think he has a crowbar in his hand, but it’s hard to tell from this angle.
I’m pretty sure the thing he’s pushing into his pants is a sealed, plastic envelope containing documents. He pulls his top over the envelope.
I’ll get my guys to blow it up. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get an image of what’s inside, but I doubt it.
The dash light catches his face at the perfect angle. It’s Dr. Raj Patel. Clear as day, with no room for doubt.
Yes!
He pulls the hood of his jacket up and slips around the side of Robyn’s building, heading for the strip of lawn that runs along the emergency stairs.
I let the footage keep rolling.
The street goes quiet again. Time passes. A cat sneaks across the lawn.
At the nine-minute mark, Patel reappears.
He’s running.
Of course he is, since Robyn caught him trying to break in.
Got you!
The hood has fallen back from his face. He’s sprinting toward the Mercedes like his life depends on it. He’s definitely holding a crowbar. The one he tried to use to pop the slider with.
He’s out of the picture in the next second, and a moment later, the Mercedes is moving fast.
I’ve got him.
I have him red-handed.
I scrub the clip back to the start of the relevant window and pull a thumb drive out of my pocket. The app gives me an option to export. I copy the file from an hour before the incident to an hour after just to be safe. The progress bar fills.
When it’s done, I unplug the cable, putting it back into my pocket. I switch the engine off and lock the car.
I walk to the front of the shop.
The male behind the counter looks up.
“Get what you needed?” His brows go up. “From the look on your face, I’d say you did.” He smiles.
I drop the keys into his palm.
“I caught him red-handed. I have footage of him going into his boss’s apartment.” I stick to the facts as much as possible. “Two guesses why he went in the middle of the night.”
He winces. “Sorry to hear. I like Mrs. Patel. She seems like a nice lady.”
“She is. Please don’t say anything to her. I know she’s going to be very upset about all of this.”
“I swear, I won’t say a word. Not my place.”
“I appreciate it.”
He gives me a small salute as I head out.
I walk to my SUV. Unless I can get a close-up that proves those are work documents, it still isn’t enough for a warrant. I know that. But it’s enough to drag Patel into a room and put it in front of him.
It’s enough to make him sweat.
Chances are that he and his family are being threatened.
The Patels are nice people in a bad situation, the same as Rachael and Layla.
He cares about his wife. He cares about those two boys in the photos on his hallway table.
If I offer him the right deal, the same deal we offered the others, he might take it.
I pray he agrees to make this right.