Tanner walked away from Bree as soon as she sat down in front of the computer system. She wouldn’t be aware of him—wouldn’t be aware of almost anything—while she worked.
Whitaker caught his eye and motioned him over.
“Bree wasn’t offended by Jeremy, was she? He’s IT, not a cop, and he’s pretty damn knowledgeable about computers. Dude can be a jerk, but in this case it’s mostly frustration. Like Penelope said, for twelve hours we’ve been watching this poor girl lying in that damned box, terrified. The water’s getting higher.”
“How long do we have before it’s critical?”
“In every single piece of footage that’s been sent to us the water has been dripping at the exact same rate. Slightly faster than one drop per second. That means it’s filling up at a rate of about one gallon every three hours.”
Tanner did some quick math in his head. “So, around two and a half days before she drowns?”
“Could be closer to only two.”
Tanner ran a hand over his eyes. “And your friend Shelby? Are you sure this was the same guy? There was no video of her, right?”
“No, thank God. I’m not sure I could’ve handled it. But the box was the same for her, as well as for the other dead woman. The general consensus right now is that they were some sort of warm-up.”
“Or escalation,” Tanner said. “Maybe he got bored killing them just for himself, decided to make it into a broadcast sport.”
Whitaker grimaced. “Yeah, that’s possible too.”
Over his shoulder he could hear Bree demanding people move so she could work on two different computers at once. A few seconds later he turned around and she had all the different video segments up on the multiple monitors, playing in repeat, some two or more to a screen.
Even with no sound, it was jarring to watch the woman in the box. Bree stood for a long time, just staring at the monitors, taking it all in.
Penelope walked over to them and turned to the screens herself. “You guys have any idea what she’s doing? We don’t need her watching the footage—we need her figuring out where it’s coming from.”
Tanner gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Bree rarely does anything without a purpose. If she’s studying the footage, it’s because she thinks it will help her.”
Penelope crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine. But we’ve got less than forty-five minutes until the next live stream. She needs to be ready.”
Tanner turned away from the monitor. “Believe me. Bree will be ready. That clock you have running the countdown? She won’t need it. Her brain is already keeping completely accurate track of the time without her even trying.”
Because that’s how Bree’s brain worked. The things most people had to put conscious effort into, it did automatically.
Like a computer.
Penelope nodded. “Good, because like Jeremy said, our team thinks this guy can’t be traced.”
“If it’s possible, Bree will do it,” Whitaker said.
“And she’ll do it faster than anyone,” Tanner finished for him.
Penelope didn’t look convinced, and Tanner couldn’t blame her. Bree was young, not very polished, and most people were going to underestimate her for that.
“I can’t help with computer stuff, but I’d be happy to be an extra set of eyes and ears for anything else, if you don’t mind my involvement.” Tanner didn’t want to step on any toes. Some departments liked to keep investigations as close to the vest as possible.
Evidently Penelope wasn’t one of those types of leaders. She nodded. “I’ll take every eye on this we can get. Maybe you’ll see something we’re missing. Because I’m damn tired of sitting here waiting for the top of each hour to come by just for us to be toyed with again.”
They sat down at the conference table and Whitaker pulled up a link.
“These are the twelve live streams in the order in which we received them. All in all, it’s a little bit less than fifteen minutes of footage.”
Tanner played each one so he could get an understanding of the full scope, then immediately started watching again, this time pausing whenever he needed to in order to study details.
The killer never showed up in a single shot. The camera never panned or zoomed—never moved at all.
“The room isn’t very big,” Tanner said. “I would think the camera is mounted over the door.”
