Taya exhaled slowly. “Okay. Come with me.” She rose, scooping up her badge and a ring of keys. She was taller thanNaomi had expected, her long strides eating up the corridor as they headed for the security room. Nomai had to practically run to keep up.
At the end of the hall, Taya paused outside a locked door and tapped in a six-digit code.
Maybe she’d seen one too many heist movies, but Naomi had always thought that casinos had top-of-the-line security, with all kinds of guards and monitors and high-tech gadgetry. This room was the size of a broom closet. Three monitors blinked, each splitting into a grid of sixteen views—parking lot, floor, entrances, gaming tables. Two chairs. One was occupied by a security guard who looked like he’d been carved out of wax and sadness.
Taya waved him away. “Go walk the floor. I’ll handle this.”
The guard grunted and left, leaving Naomi alone with Taya and the low hum of electronics.
Naomi slid into the still-warm seat. “Which feed shows the employee entrance?”
Taya leaned in, her perfume a sharp, clean note in the air. “That one,” she said and tapped the keyboard. “We have it saved to disk, in case there’s an incident. This is last Tuesday, right?”
“Right.”
Taya queued up the recording. The time stamp rolled from 23:55 to 00:12, and there was Leelee, clear as day, striding out in the yellow plaid getup. She high-fived a coworker, then headed for the back lot.
Naomi felt a familiar tightening in her chest. That was always the worst part of these reviews—knowing the next frame might be the last time anyone saw the person alive.
“There,” she said, jabbing a finger at the screen. “Pause. Can you zoom on the parking lot?”
Taya toggled the controls, bringing the image up. The lot was mostly empty. One car—a white Camry—crept past, but it didn’tslow down. Another, a black pickup with a crew cab, was parked under the far light, tailgate facing the exit. The license plate wasn’t readable. Of course.
“Can you roll forward?” Naomi asked.
Finley clicked ahead. At 00:14, the black truck’s lights flashed on. At 00:15, Leelee’s little green hatchback pulled out of the slot and took the side road toward the highway. At 00:16, the black truck followed.
Taya went very still. “Is it following her?”
Naomi nodded. “It’s the same model that’s shown up in three other cases. Who owns that truck? Anyone in the employee lot with a black crew cab?”
“Half the county,” Taya muttered, but her fingers moved fast. She scrolled through employee vehicle registrations, mumbling under her breath. “Not ours. Maybe a regular.”
Naomi watched the timestamp tick forward. At 00:19, the security feed flickered right when the truck’s license plate would be visible. At 00:20, the black truck was gone, the parking lot empty.
She pointed at the gap. “You see that? It skips.”
Taya frowned. “Maybe a glitch in the server.”
“Or maybe someone edited the feed.”
Finley looked alarmed. “Who the hell would do that?”
Naomi didn’t answer. She just watched the segment over and over, the little blank in the story, the neat surgical cut in an otherwise perfect record.
Either someone at the casino was covering their own ass, or Leelee’s abductor was smarter than anyone realized.
Either way, the lead had frayed to nothing.
The gaming floor was somehow louder on the way out. Naomi wove through a knot of drinkers, her mood shot through with cold fury. Four women, and the best she could tell their families was “maybe someone edited the tape.” She wanted to throw something. Or break something. Maybe both.
“Hey!” a voice slurred, and a heavy arm landed on her shoulder. The man reeked of gin and aftershave, one of those local types who thought a suit jacket over a tee made him a high roller.
“Lemme buy you a drink,” he said, squeezing her shoulder hard.
She yanked free, every muscle tight. “Not interested.”
He tried again, this time with both hands. “Aw, come on?—”
