CHAPTER 34

AN: What do you think of Steph's deductive reasoning skills? Will her discovery be in time to save Charlie?

DAY 66

Wednesday

FINN POV

A ten-mile ruck march with thirty pounds on Stephanie's back was a grueling way to end the day. I tried to convince her to take a mental break, but she went straight to the sunroom, where she had the entire case laid out. She didn't budge when Oz tempted her to go out in the boat for a couple of hours of skiing. She took a break for dinner and went back to working the case. I checked on her a couple of times and found her tilting her head from side to side while walking around the room. I didn't want to get in her way, so I grabbed the fishing rods and headed out on the boat with Oz.

After catching a couple of walleyes, we headed back to the dock. I tossed a fish on the fillet station for Oz to do his magic and set the bucket with the rest of the fish on the dock. "She was in there for hours again last night."

"It's like she's obsessed," Oz said as he cut the head off and threw it back in the lake.

"I'm beginning to think you shouldn't have asked her to look at this case."

"I wanted to see what she could do." Oz slid the knife down the backbone. "You've read her file. You know she has undefined talent. She takes the little details that seem meaningless and uses them to form a big picture or pattern. With the right training, she could be a top-notch investigator."

"But is it in her best interest mentally and emotionally right now to focus on a missing… possibly dead child? She's still recovering from her own traumatic event."

"Don't baby her." Oz grabbed the water hose and sprayed the fish station down. "She's tough. Probably tougher than both of us put together."

I sighed. "She feels a responsibility for the victims. It's not healthy."

"She told me last night she felt like a loser compared to the rest of the people in her life. She needs to build self-confidence. What better way than to use this case to prove what she can do?"

"How can she think she's a loser?" Just the thought made me furious. "What kind of people is she surrounded by?"

"They've done a number on her," Oz said.

"From the first day of training, she's been determined to learn. She never whined, not once. You've watched her train. She's good, isn't she?"

Oz nodded, and we headed back to the house. "She won't be going back to Trenton the same. Your old unit at the Bureau would be lucky to have her."

"They would, but would it be good for her?" I shook my head. "You've seen her with the animals. She has a kind heart. Working in Behavior Analysis would extinguish her light."

STEPH POV

I yawned as I flipped through one of Mrs. Porter's photobooks for the tenth or twentieth time. I took a generous sip of my coffee to wake me up. Oz and I had stayed up late the night before, talking on the deck, and I was running on fumes today. I'd had the file for three days, and all I could think about was Charlie and his mother. Who killed Mrs. Porter? Where was Charlie? I felt like there was something on the edge of my understanding that would shed light on a key piece of evidence if only I could clear my head long enough for my brain to make the connection. I went into the kitchen to refill my coffee mug.

Oz was sitting at the island, flipping through a book I'd left out. "Seeing the World Through Patterns. Is this from Finn's collection?"

"Yeah, I read it a couple weeks ago and pulled it out last night because.…" I shrugged. "Well, I don't know why. I felt like the answer might be in there, but no such luck." I turned to make a fresh pot of coffee. "It was stupid."

"Stupid is giving up before you exhaust all possibilities."

"Then I must be the brightest bulb in the pack because giving up is not in my nature. Some might say it's a flaw."

"I don't want you to torture yourself with this case."

I started to deny it, but we both knew the truth. This case was consuming me. "I keep imagining Charlie afraid, and I have to do something. The answer is right there, but I just can't see it."

"Yet," he said. His faith in me was overwhelming. I didn't want to let him down.

A quick look at the microwave told me it was 11:00 p.m. "I better get back to it."

"I'm heading to bed. Don't stay up too late," Oz said.

I took my steaming mug back to the sunroom and sat down to leaf through the pages of the photobooks, this time with even more attention to details. With each turn of the page, something niggled at me. Time seemed to slow. It was as if all the parts of my brain were working together for the first time since I opened the case file. This was it. I knew it. All the pictures in the photobooks taken in Charlie's bedroom were from the same angle. That was odd but not impossible.

Sometimes, Ranger would ask me to give my point of view on a security system design from the standpoint of a woman's vulnerability. I remember one client had wanted a system to monitor her newborn child while she returned to work and left the child with a nanny. She wanted to know how her child was treated without the nanny knowing she was checking up on her. My idea was to disguise a camera in a pair of bookends in the shape of a puppy that would sit on the bookcase in the bedroom. The client was happy with the result, and I got insight into what Hector does for Rangeman. It had been enlightening.

Mrs. Porter was a cybersecurity analyst. Her entire career was about caution and keeping vulnerable information safe. What was more vulnerable than her child? I could see her rigging some type of surveillance system up for the nanny. After looking at the pictures in the scrapbook, she clearly used it to take video and still images of her child. Smart.

I needed the actual crime scene photos showing the room's opposite side. If there was a hidden camera, that's where I'd find it. Desperately, I pulled the crime scene photos off the window and spread them on the table, paying attention to the side of the room where the camera would have been positioned. So many toys were displayed on the two bookcases and the dresser that spotting a camera would be difficult. I needed a magnifying glass. Rushing back through the house to Finn's desk, I grabbed a magnifying glass and tripped over Maggie on my way back through. Luckily, I caught myself.

I examined each crime scene picture with the magnifying glass from every angle. If there was a camera, it had to be in a place that even a trained investigator like the APD or FBI would overlook. I was frantically going from picture to picture when I stopped and blinked. A thrill ran through me. There it was. Right fucking there.

The hiding place was so perfectly disguised that I laughed at Mrs. Porter's cleverness. Most people look for nanny cams in teddy bears or clocks, but they can be in anything, especially if you know how to rig them up. In this case, it was in a Thomas the Tank Engine coat rack mounted to the wall. Specifically, the camera lens was in the spotlight on the right side of the train. The company did not license this, so Mrs. Porter had to have rigged it up herself. There was no way to know what kind of camera she'd used. But I'd bet my life it wasn't hardwired or Wi-Fi accessible. Those were too easy to hack. I'd also bet my life those encrypted external hard drives collected as evidence were full of stored video footage from this camera.

"Oz," I yelled as I flew down the basement stairs. "I found it."

"What time is it?" he grumbled, coming awake like an angry bear.

"I found it," I insisted. Why wasn't he seeing the importance of my discovery?

He picked up his phone. "It's 2:00 a.m."

"Come on," I said impatiently. "I found it."

"I heard you the first three times. What did you find?"

"IT," I stressed.

Luckily, he wore basketball shorts when he threw the blanket off, or my face would've been flaming. I'd made so much noise that Maggie and Finn were waiting as I dragged Oz up the stairs.

"I heard yelling. What's going on?" Finn asked, concerned but not irritated. That was a good sign.

"You have to see this." I was so proud of myself. I didn't even consider that I could be wrong. I knew I was right.

"Ok," Oz said, straightening his hat. I had to smile because it was just so him to grab his hat when being awakened by a crazy woman yelling at him. "Since you've dragged us out of bed, you might as well show us what you found."

"There." I pointed at the spotlight on the train. "Right there."

"What are we looking at?" Oz asked. He and Finn stood side by side, looking down at the picture. I handed them the magnifying glass.

"A camera." I tried to keep the triumph from my voice, but there was no use. I was higher than any junky had a right to be.

"You're shitting me," Oz said after carefully studying the picture. "Son of a bitch! That's a mother fucking camera!" He handed the magnifying glass to Finn.

Finn examined the picture and then smiled at me as he nodded in pride. "What are the chances the murder and abduction are on the recording?" Finn was asking what we all wondered.

"I offered input on a system similar to what Mrs. Porter probably rigged up here. One problem Hector had to work out with the client was how to power the camera. Hardwire it or depend on rechargeable batteries. If I remember correctly, a camera that runs on batteries can hold a charge for up to a week if it is motion activated. A 1TB memory card could mean 30 hours of video. So, it's possible the camera recorded the murder and abduction if Mrs. Porter didn't have it set to overwrite when the card was full and if the battery still had charge."

"That's a lot of ifs," Oz said as he pulled his phone out and dialed. "I know it's late, Mr. Porter, but have you removed anything from Charlie's bedroom since you hired me? That's good. It's a long shot, but we may have a lead. Don't touch anything. I'm on my way." He had a huge grin on his face. "The room hasn't been touched since it was released by the crime scene unit. He closed the house and moved in with his brother."

"Why didn't he tell anyone about the camera?" I asked.

"I doubt he knows. He certainly never mentioned it." He studied me with a seriousness that made me a little uncomfortable. "You realize that the FBI's Child Abduction Emergency Response team, as well as local police and even me, have all been over that scene with a fine-tooth comb. How? How in the hell did you see this when we couldn't?"

"It was the photo books. All the pictures taken in Charlie's room were from the same angle. I might not have made the connection if I hadn't consulted on that Rangeman case."

"I looked at those same pictures and didn't see it," Oz said. "You recognized the pattern that no one else saw." He took me by the shoulders and kissed me straight on the lips. "I gotta go." He ran down the stairs, presumably to dress and pack his bags.

Finn stepped closer, placing one hand on the side of my face and caressing me. "You're extraordinary. You cataloged all the pieces of the investigation, even the ones no one thought were important, and shuffled them in your brilliant mind until they clicked into place."

My cheeks burned from his praise, and I looked away. "Thank you. Hearing you say that… you don't know what it means to me." I had to get the focus off me, so I began removing the case file pages I'd taped to the windows while Finn gathered all the photobooks. Once we returned everything to the file box, we waited for Oz at the top of the stairs. He practically ran over us, trying to get out the front door. "Let us know what happens," I called after him, but he was gone. I looked at Finn. "Do you think he'll call?"

"Don't worry, we'll hear from him." In the moonlight on the front porch, Finn pulled me into an embrace, kissing the top of my head.