Chapter 3 #2
"I'll try," Lori said, accepting the gloves and pulling them on. The latex felt strange against her skin, clinical and official in a way that made all of this feel even more real.
Her eyes fell to the ground beside Mitch, and she frowned when she saw it. A footprint, clear and distinct in the soft earth of the garden bed that ran along the front of the porch. Her eyes moved to Mitch's feet, then to Ryan's sneakers still clutched in his hand.
"Can I take one of those sneakers?" Lori asked, an idea forming.
She reached out and took one of Ryan's shoes before Mitch could answer, then went down on her haunches beside the footprint. Carefully, without touching the ground, she held Ryan's sneaker over the print for comparison.
"Unless this is Marcus's print," she said slowly, studying the size difference, "this could be a clue."
Mitch immediately went down on his haunches beside her, pulled out his phone, and snapped photos of the footprint from multiple angles.
"No, that is not Marcus's. His shoe is a size smaller than mine.
" He paused, examining the print more closely.
"Ryan and I have the same shoe size. And that is decidedly bigger than both of our feet.”
He leaned in closer, his investigator's mind clearly working through the implications. Lori watched as he studied the depth of the impression, the length and width of the print, the pattern of the sole.
"This footprint is at least a size seventeen, maybe eighteen," Mitch said finally, his voice taking on that clinical tone he used when analyzing evidence.
"See how deep the impression is? That's not just from the weight, though whoever made this is heavy.
The depth also indicates they were moving fast, putting more force into each step.
The stride length suggests someone very tall. "
He pulled out a small measuring tape from his pocket. Of course he had one, Lori thought, as he measured the print carefully.
"Based on the shoe size and the stride pattern we can see in these other partial prints," Mitch continued, pointing to two fainter impressions nearby that Lori hadn't even noticed, "I'd estimate we're looking at someone six foot five, maybe six foot six.
Possibly taller. And given the weight distribution, probably over three hundred pounds. "
Lori felt her blood run cold. "That's... that's enormous. That's a giant."
"Yes," Mitch agreed grimly. He stood up, his eyes scanning the area with renewed intensity. "As I ran out of Seabird Cottage, I saw a grey sedan speeding around the corner onto the main road."
His eyes narrowed, and Lori could practically see the wheels turning in his mind as he connected dots and assembled timelines. Then he turned sharply toward the house.
"The perimeter camera," he said, already moving. "Come on."
Lori followed him back into Sunrise House, her heart hammering as they made their way to Mitch's office. He pulled up something on his phone. It was the security system app, she realized. He began scrolling through footage.
"Here," Mitch said, turning the phone so Lori could see the screen. "This is from the front door camera."
They watched as Ryan appeared in the frame, opening the door and letting Misty out. The dog bounded off toward Seabird Cottage, and Ryan stood at the door for a few seconds, just watching her go. Then he turned as if to walk back inside.
But he stopped. Turned back toward the door. Walked back to it.
Even through the security footage, Lori could see that Ryan didn't look happy. His body language was tense, his shoulders set in that way people get when they're annoyed or frustrated.
He stepped out onto the porch, his mouth moving as if he was saying something to someone out of frame.
And then he vanished.
One second, he was there, clearly visible on the porch. The next second, the frame showed only empty space.
"What the…" Lori started to say, but Mitch was already switching to other camera views, his fingers moving rapidly across the screen.
Nothing. All the other cameras showed absolutely nothing. There was no sign of Ryan, no sign of an attacker, no grey sedan, no evidence that anything had happened at all.
The look on Mitch's face made Lori go cold all over, like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water down her spine.
"Someone looped the feed," Mitch said, his voice flat and dangerous in a way Lori had never heard before.
"What does that mean?" Lori asked, though she had a sinking feeling she already knew.
Mitch looked up from his phone, his eyes meeting hers with an intensity that made her want to step back.
"It means someone has access to our perimeter cameras," he said.
"They knew exactly where the cameras were positioned, and they knew how to hack into the system and loop the footage so we couldn't see what happened.
They could watch us, Lori. They could have been watching us this whole time, learning our routines, planning their moves. "
Lori's mouth went dry. She thought about all the times over the past few weeks when she'd felt like someone was watching her. When she'd attributed that crawling sensation on the back of her neck to paranoia or an overactive imagination.
Maybe it hadn't been paranoia at all.
"How?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "How would someone get access to your security system?"
"That's what we need to find out," Mitch said grimly. He saved the footage to his phone, then pulled up something else. It was the system settings, Lori thought. "But right now, we have to assume we're being watched. We have to assume they know our every move."
He looked up at her, and Lori saw something she'd never seen in Mitch Brandon's face before: genuine fear.
"We need to be very, very careful," he said. "Because whoever took Ryan, whoever has Tessa, and Dr. Simons are not just dangerous. They're smart. And they've been planning this for a long time.”