30. Aus
AUS
“What the fuck?” I narrow my eyes. “Play it again.”
Thea scrolls back and plays the footage. Again a dark figure walks into the house around two and then leaves ten minutes later.
“Who could he be?” Thea asks.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I reply. I quickly download the video—everything between midnight and five—and Airdrop it to my own phone. I look up at the guy with the green-stained beard, hand his phone back. “Thank you for your time.”
“Whatever.” He slams the door in our faces.
Thea strokes her chin. “Maybe it was a late-night delivery?”
“At two in the morning? And why would he need to go inside for ten minutes?”
“I don’t know.” She shudders. “I had no idea there was someone else in the house with me that night.”
“You’d have been dead asleep. Sleeping off the shit Wick spiked your drink with.”
“Technically, it was Kin who spiked the drink.”
“Because Wick told him to. You said yourself, he directed him to make it ‘Blackwood style.’” I pace around her. “The cops pinned Kin’s death at around three. This guy came by Wick’s an hour before. It must be connected.”
“Either way, I’m still fucked over.” Thea paces the length of the bearded guy’s porch. “Someone entered at two a.m. and left ten minutes later. The footage isn’t clear, so it could very well be me leaving. We’re back to where we started.”
“Not necessarily. We know someone came by at two.” I pull out my phone. “Maybe there’s more to the video.”
I look back to my phone. I scroll to two a.m, watch the guy enter and leave. Then I keep scrolling.
Three a.m. The hour Kin died.
Nothing.
I keep scrolling.
My breath catches in my throat when I reach the four a.m. mark.
Another dark figure. Possibly the same as the first one, or someone new. It’s hard to tell.
“Holy shit,” Thea breathes. “That means there was someone there an hour before I left.”
I keep scrolling. No one leaves the house until five.
“Not only that,” I add, “but he was there when you left.”
Thea widens her eyes and shivers. “Oh my God.”
“It can’t be Kin. He was dead by four,” I continue.
“Not only that, but as far as the cops know, the shadowy figure… It could be me.” She runs her hands through her hair.
“Two of us walked in at midnight. One additional person came at two, and then left ten minutes later. We assume it’s the same person but it’s too dark to tell.
The cops will think it was me who left at ten past two and returned.
” The color drains from her face. “I’m fucked. Totally and completely fucked.”