“I love you,” she said seriously. “You’re stuck with me, so get that look off your face. I’m okay, I promise.”
“I’m holding you to that,” he said. “Lean on me.”
“I might have to, just a bit.”
They slowly walked down the gravel road, Kara limping but managing just fine, she thought. They stopped a couple times toeat berries and rest. After the third stop, she looked across the field and thought she was hallucinating.
“Matt, is that a house?”
She pointed not at the end of the gravel road, but across the field, to a cut-out in a grove of trees.
“Maybe it’s a mirage,” she said, feeling disorientated.
Matt looked. “You were right the first time. It’s a house.”
“What if it was flooded and abandoned, too?”
“Maybe it was, but I don’t know how long this road is, and honestly, Kara, you look like shit.”
“Jeez, always the Casanova, aren’t you?”
“Abandoned or not, it’s shelter, and if we’re lucky, we’ll find water. So we go there and lie low, and if it’s safe, I can leave you to get help.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, and they detoured across the field.
28
Catherine and Ryder arrived at the luxury hotel in Jacksonville where Garrett Reid was staying. They were greeted at the front desk by the security chief, Kristin Gee, who escorted them to her office.
“I have the feeds cut and saved for your review,” Kristin said.
“Thank you,” Catherine said. She motioned for Ryder to work his magic and watched over his shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of Garrett’s partner. She didn’t want to predispose herself into believing that it was Hope Davidson, who Michael and Sloane had identified as the likely accomplice, so she laid out photos of not only Hope but the other women she’d identified as possibilities.
Kristin had helpfully cued up the moment when Garrett entered the evening before. There were seven entrances to the hotel, and they viewed four entrances at a time on the large screen.
It took an hour, even running through the feeds at triple speed, but then Ryder spotted someone familiar.
“That’s her,” Ryder said, stopping the recording and enhancing the image. “That’s Hope Davidson.”
Catherine looked. The woman had her hair up in a wide-brimmed hat and was wearing sunglasses. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. I’ll prove it.”
He started the tape again at normal speed, saw what elevator she went in, then pulled up the elevator feed. She didn’t take off the hat or glasses, but the elevator angle caught a good image of her profile as she adjusted her hat. Ryder clipped it, then brought up the image of the unknown maintenance worker and put the profiles side by side. Close, Catherine thought, but it wasn’t enough.
“We need more.”
“Hold on,” he said. He typed rapidly, then three photos of Hope Davidson popped onto the screen—including one body shot. They had been taken at the resort and posted on the resort website, and except for the one head-on image where she worked behind the gym desk, they were candid—Catherine didn’t know if Hope was aware they had been taken.
Ryder then waited until she exited on the fifth floor, froze the screen, and clipped the image of her full body and matched it near perfectly with the full body shot he had from the website. Then he switched the feed to the hall camera, and as they watched, she walked down the hall and knocked.
The door opened and she smiled and looked up, giving them the perfect profile shot as she entered. They couldn’t see Garrett Reid, but that was his room.
“That’s her,” Catherine said. “This is enough to get a warrant. I’m calling Tony.”
Michael and Sloane drove to Hope Davidson’s house in Palm Coast, north of the resort in a very nice subdivision walking distance from the beach. Sloane looked up the property while Michael was driving. “An LLC owns the house. I guess she’sleasing it, but damn, this is much nicer than Reid’s place. Three bedrooms, three baths, decks and views from virtually every room. Last sold for three quarters of a million nearly a year ago. Maybe she comes from money, because there’s no way she can afford this on her income.”
“We only have a search warrant at this point. Tony is still working on getting her financials and phone records. He was lucky to get this so quickly.”
