Whitaker leaned over his shoulder to look at the footage.
“I agree.” Penelope sat down next to him. “We can’t see the woman’s face, but we think that there’s some sort of light on the camera that switches on when it’s transmitting.”
Tanner nodded, skipping to footage number four and pointing to the screen. “Yes. Because she’s inactive for a few moments and then sees whatever she sees, and that’s when she starts begging for help. So she’s probably not blindfolded.”
He skipped ahead to the other footage, pointing out where she did the same thing.
“Right,” Penelope said. “And sometimes she doesn’t seem to see anything at all. Maybe she’s sleeping?”
Tanner and Whitaker both nodded. “There are no windows in the room,” Whitaker said. “The light is always constant. She probably has no idea if it’s day or night.”
Tanner nodded. “And who knows how long this bastard held her before he even started sending the footage.”
“She’s definitely more hysterical in some of the recordings than others.” Penelope put her hand over Tanner’s on the mouse, then glanced at him. “Do you mind if I...”
He moved his hand. “Be my guest.”
She clicked so that five different images took up the screen. “These were when she was most hysterical. Already sobbing before the live stream even came through.”
Tanner watched each separate clip. Penelope was definitely right. The woman was already crying when the footage started, not because she realized the camera was on.
Listening to her—fear and desperation so close to the surface—was agonizing.
Tanner muttered a curse. “Is there any pattern that we see? Are there clips where she’s upset longer? Is he hurting her and wanting us to see it? I don’t see any markings on her body to indicate he’s hurt her.”
“No,” Whitaker said. “When it first happened we thought maybe he was escalating. That the clips would get longer as he got more violent, or show her harmed, but that hasn’t happened. And there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to how long the clips run.”
“She’ll be hysterical one hour then much better the next, thank God.” Penelope rubbed her eyes with her fingers. “I’vewatched these clips over a hundred times. Whit has also. But we haven’t found anything that helps at all.”
“Just makes me pretty damn furious,” Whitaker said.
Jeremy walked over to them. “We’re up in less than three minutes, boss.”
Penelope nodded. “Any progress over there?”
“Bree isn’t saying very much, but she seems to know her stuff, which isn’t surprising, given who she is. This will be the first time she’s seeing what’s happening behind the scenes as the footage comes in. No offense, but I don’t think she’ll be quite so quick to sayno such thing as impossibleafter she really understands what’s going on.”
“Give her a chance,” Penelope said.
Jeremy shrugged. “At this point I’m willing to give anybody a chance. I just don’t want us putting all our eggs in one basket. Plus, she’s not making any friends over there.”
“Why? What happened?” Penelope asked, as they all stood.
“One of the first things she did was set up a program so it records what’s happening on everyone’s computer screen. Bree said she wanted to be able to look over what everyone was doing in case they missed anything.”
Whitaker looked over at Tanner and they both winced. People who didn’t know Bree wouldn’t understand the kindness and gentleness that resided under her sometimes-abrupt exterior. Her actions would seem like she thought herself superior to everyone else.
They walked over to the monitor screens to prepare for the next transmission. Bree had made herself a little command center and was typing on one keyboard as her eyes darted back and forth between three screens.
Tanner walked over to stand right behind her.
“I don’t have anything yet,” she said without looking at him. “There’s something weird going on that I haven’t been able to put my finger on.”
He rubbed the back of her shoulders. “Nobody expected you to come in and solve this in an hour. Let’s give it a little more time.”
Her disgusted grunt told him she had in fact expected to be able to solve this in an hour.
Just a few seconds later, the countdown clock began to beep. Bree didn’t even look up from her monitor.
