“Can you zoom in on the windshield?” Joe asked. “Get a look at the driver?”
Augustus did his best, but it was impossible to see the person’s face. Because the Range Rover was broadside to the camera, the license plate was unreadable.
“Maybe our lab guys can enhance the image,” Joe said.
“Wait—did you see that?” Kate asked.
“What?” Conor asked.
But Kate just stared intently as the video kept playing.
They watched as the man shoved Maeve, trying to force her into the front seat. The motion was so rough, Kate gasped. Maeve resisted, trying to squirm away. He pushed her harder, and she tumbled into the front seat. They watched as the man slammed the door behind her. Kate was gripping Conor’s hand as they watched the person climb into the back seat behind Maeve and the Range Rover speed away and out of sight.
“What did you see?” Conor asked.
“He hurt her,” Kate said, her voice shaking. “And just before he pushed her, she looked straight at the camera and said something. She was trying to send a message. A word—did you see?”
“Can you rewind?” Conor asked Augustus.
Augustus clicked the keyboard and slowed down the video playback to half speed, until Kate said stop. Conor saw what Kate had meant about Maeve staring at the camera, mouthing a word just before she was forced into the vehicle.
But Maeve also made a subtle action, easy to miss. She held her right arm tight against her body, as if to make sure the man didn’t see. Conor saw something glitter as she let it slide through her fingers onto the road.
He hurried out of Augustus’s office—onto the hotel verandah, down the curving steps, and a few yards along the short path between perfectly manicured hedges, onto Bluff Avenue. He stopped in front of the stone wall that bordered the upper parking lot. And he saw what he had missed before.
Kate and Joe were right behind him, and Kate bent down to look at the object. She didn’t touch it; through her own experience, and from being around Conor, she knew it might be evidence. Cars drove past—sightseers visiting Watch Hill, people circling around in search of a parking spot so they could go to the beach.
“It’s Maeve’s,” Kate said, gazing at the fine gold chain that Maeve had surreptitiously let fall onto the road. Conor saw it lying on the tar: a long, glinting S-shaped necklace, almost invisible in the shade of the wall. “She always wore it—she would never have dropped it on purpose unless it had a meaning. She wanted us to know ...”
“Know what?” Joe asked.
“That she’s been taken,” Conor said.
“Like the others,” Joe said.
“What was the word she mouthed to the camera?” Conor asked.
“‘Help,’” Kate said. “I think she was saying ‘help.’”
25
Monday, July 5; 1:00 p.m.
Kate watched Garrett cross Bluff Avenue and approach Joe. He had just returned from the State Police barracks, and she overheard him tell Joe that he had gotten his text about the video of Maeve and had stopped in the security office to review the footage.
Conor took Kate’s hand and began to step away, to give the Rhode Island detectives privacy. She noticed that Sam and Lincoln were standing on the hotel verandah, so she and Conor started toward them, but Garrett called out.
“Conor,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“You’re cleared.”
Conor turned to face him, showing no emotion, as if he’d known all along that he would be cleared. But Kate saw his shoulders relax, and she knew what a relief it was to hear it—it was a relief for her too.
“You understand why we had to look at you, right?” Garrett asked.
“You did what you had to do,” Conor said.
