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“I don’t know... a mistake, maybe.”
Jackson shook his head. No, Diaz didn’t make mistakes like that. He did this for a reason.
“Anything else?” Jackson asked.
“Nope. Get some sleep.”
“Thanks,” Jackson said, ending the call.
He made a cup of coffee then sat at his desk, opening a desktop folder of images of Diaz. He enlarged them to the full size of his monitor and clicked through the photos slowly, checking the background of every image. Just when he was beginning to think Will had been right—that he’d imagined her—he saw her in the shadows. Half her face was visible, the other half was covered by one of Diaz’s men. Everyone was looking ahead, but she was looking to the left, away from the camera.
Who are you?
And what are you looking at?
“Will, is this Anna White?” Jackson asked, turning his monitor to the screen.
Will frowned, looking at the photograph for a long minute. “With the shadow covering her face, I can’t say with absolute certainty, but it definitely looks like her. Are yousurethat’s who you saw at the warehouse?”
Jackson wouldn’t bet his life on it, but the longer he looked at the image, the surer he was.
He picked up his phone and called Max, the IT guy—that was his official role, but computer hacker was more accurate.
“Hello,” Max answered after a few rings.
“Max, it’s Jackson. I’m the new lead on the Diaz case,” he said. He’d barely finished speaking when Max interrupted him.
“I know who you are,” he said, and a smile curved on Jackson’s lips. Of course Max did—he’d no doubt done all of the security checks on Jackson before he’d started this new role. Max probably knew more about Jackson than Jackson did.
“Good. I need your help with something. There was a woman in the warehouse tonight. I’ve found a photo of her in some files, but she’s looking away from the camera and her face is partially covered by shadows. Can you run facial recognition?”
“Sure,” Max said, but his voice wasn’t filled with certainty. “I can run it, but it’s unlikely we’ll get a match.”
“Will you do it anyway?” Jackson asked. “This is important. Will thinks it’s Diaz’s girlfriend, Anna White. I need that confirmed.”
It was important because she’d shot one of Diaz’s men; if there was a weakness in Diaz’s group, he needed to know about it. He needed to use her to take Diaz down, and if she was shooting his men, she might be a willing participant.
Or not.
Admittedly, she hadn’t seemed that friendly.
Her elbow to his still aching jaw hadn’t inspired friendship, but that was also in self-defense. If he could get close to her, he might be able to change her mind.
It was a wild idea. But not impossible.
“How do I send it to you?” Jackson asked.
“No need, I’m looking at it on your computer now,” he said.
“That’s comforting,” Jackson replied dryly.
Max chuckled. “Nothing is private—not in here. Use your computer wisely,” he said as if in jest, but Jackson didn’t think he was joking at all. “I’m running the recognition now, but it’s a crappy photo. The recognition might not give us an identity, but I’ll run it through a second system that will also match it to similar faces in photographs on our database. We rarely get a useful match, but it’s worth doing. These reports take a while to run though. As you can imagine, there are billions of photographs in our database. I’ll let you know the results either way, but don’t hold your breath.”
Jackson sighed. “I won’t. Thanks, Max.” He hung up and looked at the photo again, then rubbed his jaw where she’d hit him.
He wondered who’d taught her to fight like that.
Jackson shook his head. He needed to focus and, unless Max came back with something, he needed to use the intel he had to keep working this case.
