Everyone got quiet. Tanner just smiled.
Chapter Seven
The bastard was smart, Bree would give him that. She walked toward Tanner, frowning when she saw him talking to the beautiful blonde woman whose name she couldn’t remember, even though she’d said it when they’d met, however many hours ago. The detective in charge.
Blondie looked excited. “You located the victim?”
Bree shook her head. “Not yet.”
She looked around and realized everyone was staring at her and grimaced. She never liked to be the center of attention. She felt better when Tanner slipped his arm around her.
Talking to Tanner was easier, so Bree focused on him. “The guy is using multiple VPNs and proxy servers to hide the actual location of where he’s streaming from. Bouncing it around all over the place but keeping it local enough that I wouldn’t question it or eliminate it completely.”
Jeremy walked over, nodding. “That’s what I was trying to tell you from the beginning.”
Bree looked over at him. “And you were right. There’s no way to track the killer that way.”
“Then what exactly is your breakthrough?” Blondie asked.
“I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”
“Penelope.” She arched an eyebrow. “I am the detective in charge of the case.”
Bree nodded. “Right. Penelope. I know. I’m sorry, I’m not very good with names. It was actually the victim herself who got me thinking in the right direction.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “I didn’t think you were even aware there was a victim given how little you paid attention to her.”
Bree winced.
“Enough, Jeremy,” Whitaker said from the conference table.
Tanner’s arm tightened around her, but Jeremy was right. Bree hadn’t been even remotely as focused on the victim as she had been the computer side of things. She could’ve at least been a little more sympathetic.
“You’re doing fine,” Tanner whispered in her ear. “Everybody here has a job, and yours was to focus on the transmissions.”
Everybody else had a job also, and yet had somehow managed to be sympathetic to the plight of the woman. Everyone except Bree. She rubbed her fingers over her eyes. “Right. Well, the woman started talking about the water.”
“And?” Penelope said. “You got something from that?”
“My brain just picked out that she seemed to be talking about it every fourth set of footage.”
Penelope looked at Whitaker and then over at Tanner. “Is that right?”
Jeremy pulled up the footage and played the last twelve transmissions.
“I’ll be damned,” Penelope muttered. “She does talk about the water every fourth one. Do you think she’s trying to signal us?”
Bree shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea what she’s doing. I can’t even imagine what goes through someone’s mind if they’re trapped like that. The pattern of it just got me thinking in a different way.”
“So, her mentioning the water didn’t have anything to do with whatever it is you’ve come up with?” Whitaker asked.
Bree shook her head. “No, not at all. It just got me started on looking for patterns, rather than taking all the footage holistically.”
Penelope rubbed her hand over her eyes. “Can somebody please tell me what she’s talking about?”
They didn’t understand. Bree turned to Tanner instead. “I found a fractal pattern in the transmissions.”
He probably didn’t understand either, but at least Tanner nodded. “How does that help us?”
