“Do you take video or pictures?”
Mason nodded. “I have lots of both. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“It’s more than okay. Someone is trying to terrorize Paradise, and I thought your drone might have picked up who might be responsible. It might even show who shot Ivy with that tranquilizer dart. Could we look at what you’ve got?”
“I have lots of SD cards with pictures and video. You can take them to look at, but you’ll give them back, right?”
“We’ll make sure you get them all back.” Blake nodded. “You started volunteering two weeks ago. Did you shoot video right away?”
“Yeah.” Mason’s gray eyes were anxious. “You’re sure I’m not in trouble?”
“No trouble, just a lot of thanks.”
“I’ll get his stash.” Randy returned a few moments later with a plastic storage container full of SD cards. “This will take you a while to get through.”
Blake glanced at Paradise, who was smiling. Neither of them minded staying up late in each other’s company to check out this lead.
Chapter 14
The video began to play on the laptop in Paradise’s living room, and she nestled against Blake on the sofa to watch it. The black kitten on her lap she’d named Merlin, and the mostly white one sleeping on her foot was Luna. “The view from the drone is incredible. I think I’ll use some of this footage for social media. He got some great shots of the white tigers in the water with the trainers.”
The video showed a white tiger leaping for a balloon as it played with Evan, and Paradise couldn’t stop the shiver that traveled down her spine. That would never be her “playing” with a big cat. She pointed out Mason in his wheelchair with the controller in his hands. The boy’s enthralled expression made her smile.
Blake poked a finger at the screen. “Look there. Is that someone with binoculars?”
She squinted at the figure crouched behind a water trough outside a shelter in the African safari enclosure. “There’s something in his hand, though I can’t quite tell what it is. Or even if the person is male or female.” A hoodie covered the man orwoman’s head and hung down over jeans. “I think it might be binoculars. They appear to be focused on the big cat habitats.”
The video blanked out for a few seconds before changing as the drone moved from the white tigers to the pond where the otters lived. She spotted Mason in his chair again near a park bench along the stone sidewalk. The picture grew closer and sharper as the camera angle zoomed down to show the otters frolicking on the grass by the water. “Fast-forward,” Paradise said. “See if you can find that guy who was watching the big cats.”
Blake nodded and the speed of the video picked up. The camera angle changed again to higher above the park and panned back toward the shelter’s roof in the safari area again. Zebras strolled after a bus that lumbered through the double gates, and two giraffes hurried toward the leaves waving outside the open windows of the vehicle. Paradise watched tourists feed the animals before the drone lifted higher in the sky and moved closer to the shed and water trough where they’d seen the figure.
“He’s gone,” Blake said. “But he left the binoculars behind.”
She spotted them on the lip of the trough. “This was recorded the morning of Ivy’s death. We should see if they’re still there. Maybe they have fingerprints or DNA evidence on them.”
“I doubt they’re still there, but we can check. A curious zebra probably carried them off by now.” Blake ejected the card from the portable device attached to the laptop. “See if you can find a video closer to the time she died. Maybe late the night before.”
Paradise flipped through the container of SD cards, each one carefully printed by date and time. “Here’s one. It’s 10:00 p.m. on February 14, the night before her death.”
He took it from her and put it in the laptop, then hit Play. The video was surprisingly clear. “Looks like Mason used a night-vision camera.”
The recorded scenes showed Raj walking through the enclosure to the steps leading up to the zip line platform. The big tiger urinated on the stairs before padding over to plop down beside a tree and pond. The drone hovered over the big cat for a few seconds before panning over toward the barn where the tiger took shelter in bad weather.
Paradise studied the lock on the inner gate and touched it on the screen. “Look, Blake, is that gate standing ajar? I don’t think it’s locked.”
He froze the video in place, then zoomed in. “You’re right. It’s standing open about two inches. Either someone forgot to lock it or left it unlatched on purpose. Is there a video just before this one?”
Paradise checked and handed him one. “This was taken at eight p.m.” Her pulse accelerated and her breath quickened. Were they about to find out who had murdered Ivy? The elusive answers had to be out there.
The video flickered by quickly as Blake fast-forwarded through scenes of animals sleeping or roaming about. He stopped once when a figure leaped from the barn, but it was just a tiger wandering over to get a drink at the pond. Paradise glanced at the time: 9:44 with only another fifteen minutes of footage left.
A figure on a bicycle came into view from the left side of the screen. That same hoodie covered the person’s head. The hands on the bike’s handlebars appeared male. Strong fingers squeezed the brakes, and then the guy dismounted, lowered the kickstand, and walked with purposeful steps to the first lock.
He inserted a key and was inside the first enclosure, then went to the next and unlocked it as well. He left it standing ajar and hurriedly turned back when a female tiger rose and padded toward him to investigate. As he slipped through the outer gateand locked it, he looked up to the sky, and the drone captured his face.
Paradise often saw that face in her nightmares, and at first her mind refused to believe it. She gasped at the same time as Blake when Mr. Adams’s features came into sharp focus. The foster dad who’d tried to molest her had been handsome once, but though the years had slackened his jaw and softened his neck, she’d never forget that face.
Lloyd Adams should not be in town. As far as Blake knew, the family had left under a cloud of shame and scandal over his treatment of Paradise. “The last I heard, they moved to Birmingham.” Blake had followed them for a while, and it had upset him that Adams had gotten a good job as if it didn’t matter that he’d nearly ruined Paradise’s life.
