15. Luke #2
My squad car was still double-parked outside her apartment.
I had completely forgotten to find a parking spot when I arrived.
I looked inside Scarlett’s car quickly, finding her purse sitting on her passenger seat, along with a bouquet of flowers.
I took them both with me and locked her car before heading off to the Downtown Diner.
On my way over, I called my best friend to ask for a favor.
If he couldn’t do it, I would call Wyatt, then Reid, then Wes, then my father until someone could help me out.
Luckily, I didn’t have to go through all that.
“Hey, man. What’s going on?” Seb answered on the second ring.
“You busy right now and for the next three hours?”
“Three hours?” he asked. “I can clear my schedule. What’s up?”
My hands tightened on the steering wheel as the thought of Scarlett in danger lodged in my head. “I need you to go by Scarlett’s and hang out there with her until I get off shift.”
“The fuck is going on, man?”
My brothers, Seb, Wes… there was no one else I trusted more in this world than those guys. I knew I needed to keep th is close to the chest, but Seb was going to need to know what to watch out for if he was going to be looking after Scarlett for me.
“She had a threatening note attached to her windshield earlier today. I need to find out who left it, but I don’t want her alone right now.”
“I’m on my way,” Seb rumbled. I could hear shuffling in the background, and then he yelled to one of the other tattoo artists to handle the afternoon client or reschedule her. “I’ll be there in five.”
“Thanks, Seb. I owe you one.”
“You don’t owe me shit. I’ll keep an eye on her. You just figure out who the fuck is threatening her.”
The tension in my chest eased the smallest bit, knowing that Scarlett wasn’t going to be alone for the afternoon.
The homey comfort-food smells hit me as soon as I opened the door. My stomach rumbled, clearly upset that I had skipped lunch. It hadn’t even crossed my mind while I was with Scarlett. I didn’t have time for food now either.
The server, Elizabeth, smiled at me as I stood at the breakfast counter waiting for Sheila.
I gave her a polite nod, which somehow led to her looking me up and down shamelessly.
I turned my attention back to the kitchen door, willing Sheila to come out to the front.
It hadn’t been long since my separation from Juliet—we weren’t even technically divorced yet—but word had spread around town like wildfire that there was new meat on the market.
Finally, just the person I came to talk to opened the door from the kitchen and strolled out. Sheila would have probably been too busy to notice what was happening outside, but hopefully, she had cameras that faced that part of the lot .
“Hey, Sheila. Do you have a minute?” I asked.
“For you, Luke? Always.”
“Somewhere private.”
“Of course,” she said. Her eyes filled with concern as she led me to the back corner of the kitchen. “Is this a personal or work visit?”
Both. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. As of right now, I was keeping the details close to my chest. I just needed to know if Sheila had cameras that recorded and if she would allow me access to them… without a warrant.
“Unfortunately, I’m here on work business.” I pulled out my notepad and pen. “Sheila, did you see anyone or anything suspicious today between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.?”
“Suspicious how?”
“Anything at all. Anyone that made you feel uncomfortable. Anyone loitering in the parking lot but never came inside.”
“Goodness, no. I don’t really pay much attention to the time during the day, but I didn’t notice anything suspicious at all,” she said.
“Now that I think about it though, I think it was about that time that the ladies were here for breakfast. Maeve, Claire, and Scarlett. Maybe one of them saw something.”
“I’ll be sure to ask. Thanks, Sheila. Do you have cameras that face the exterior of the building?”
“I have one that faces the dumpster out back. I’ve had problems in the past with people filling my dumpster with their garbage—and I’m talking sofas and mattresses and whatnot, not a simple trash bag,” she explained.
Shit. The dumpster wasn’t anywhere near the side of the building where Scarlett said she parked. “Is that the only one?”
“And the one that faces the front entrance. I don’t need a lot of security. Besides the issues at the dumpster, I haven’t needed to review the camera footage for anything.”
Hope blossomed in my chest. Depending on the angle, Scarlett’s car might be visible in the footage.
“Would I be able to take a look at the recordings from earlier today? I don’t have a warrant for them. I’m asking as a favor.”
Please say yes.
Please say yes.
“Of course you can. Come over here. The camera system is set up in a little broom closet though.” Her skeptical eyes took in my height, my broad shoulders, and large arms. “I’m not sure you’ll fit in there.”
I didn’t care if I had to army crawl into a crawl space. I just needed to see that footage.
“I’ll make it work. Thank you, Sheila.”
I tried to keep my expectations low until I saw the camera feed. It was possible that she didn’t capture the corner of the building, and this wouldn’t provide the lead I needed.
Sheila opened the door to a space that truly was as small as a closet.
An ancient-looking PC sat on a shelf with an equally old tube-style monitor.
Sheila wiggled the mouse to bring the computer back to life and entered a password.
As soon as she got past the log-in prompt, two camera feeds filled the top two boxes of a four-box grid, leaving the bottom two boxes to show a connectivity error message.
Fuck yeah. The camera was mounted on a light pole facing the entryway door, but it also captured a good portion of the parking lot on that side of the building.
“Can you make that feed fill the screen?” I asked, pointing to the camera in the top left. “And take me back to 9:00 a.m. this morning? ”
She clicked around for a moment until she recalled the controls and brought me right where I needed to be. I didn’t want to be rude, but I also didn’t want an audience before I had a chance to review the footage myself. I hesitated, trying to figure out how to nicely word that I wanted to be alone.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do or if there’s anything I should know about.”
I held back my sigh of relief. Sheila was a damn good woman. I was oddly proud of my father for snagging her. “Thanks, Sheila. I’ll let you know.”
My broad shoulders filled the doorway, so I didn’t need to worry about someone walking by and seeing the footage. I hit Play and accelerated it to ten-times speed until I saw Scarlett pull into the spot. I quickly moved it back to regular speed, rewinding it a few seconds so I didn’t miss a thing.
Scarlett’s bright red hair and perfectly shaped ass hypnotized me.
I watched her walk from the car into the building without taking my eyes off her.
I had to rewind it so I could focus on everything else going on.
The second time through, I still only had eyes for her though.
Dammit. Third time’s a charm. This time, I was able to focus on the rest of the surroundings.
Nothing of note happened for the next couple of minutes.
Claire came into the frame from the right, and a moment later, Maeve, carrying Veda in her car seat, came from the left.
Still, nothing was going on near Scarlett’s car. I moved it up to two-times speed.
About fifteen minutes later, I saw it. A hooded figure walked up from the right. Black sweatshirt, no logos, jeans, white sneakers. I rewound again and brought it to regular speed.
He approached the car with his head down.
Keeping his back to the camera, he reached across her windshield and kept walking in the same direction, exiting the frame on the left.
The entire thing lasted less than twenty seconds.
I replayed the footage a dozen times, pausing it to analyze the person’s build, stature, height, weight.
There were no distinguishing marks, and they clearly knew where the camera was located to avoid it expertly. If I had to guess, I would say it was a man between five foot eleven and six foot one.
We didn’t have traffic cams, having only one stoplight in town anyway.
Across the street from the diner were some smaller businesses.
A cell phone repair shop, an accountant firm, and a vintage clothing store.
I didn’t hold much hope that any of them would have cameras that faced the street, but I would check.
This, at least, gave me something to work with.
Now, I knew that whoever left the note had done so intentionally.
They knew where the cameras were and how to avoid them.
And they knew which vehicle was Scarlett’s, even though she had been inside for the last fifteen minutes.
It was possible they saw her exit the car and waited, but there wasn’t any reason to.
No. This person knew who Scarlett was, what she drove, and that she was working with me to dig deeper into the Karrigan case. And I knew one person who had all of that information.
I didn’t know what Monroe was trying to hide, but I was going to find out.