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This hadn’t gone the way he’d planned, though. The knock at the door had been a shock to him, Cami thought. He must have been surprised by the arrival of the delivery, as he surely couldn’t have known about it. And in a hurry, mistakes might have been made.
Now, she needed to find out what they were.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
As she and Connor put on foot covers and gloves, and hurried through the house to the back door, Cami’s mind was in a spin. She barely noticed the gurney set up in the living room, onto which the victim’s body was being carefully transferred.
“First thing first, let’s see if there’s any trace of his getaway,” Connor said.
Connor reached the back door and headed out. As Cami followed, she saw the beams of flashlights coming from the backyard. The cops on the scene had already begun the hunt. She hurried down the cool, dew-damp grass to the garden fence.
It was a low, wooden fence that backed onto a small park. Was that where he'd fled? Cami guessed he must have done. Were there any cameras that might have picked him up if it was a route he hadn't expected to take?
“Evening, agent,” one of the cops said. “He clearly went this way. Back door was open, we found traces of footprints in the grass, and a scuff mark on top of the fence. But there’s nothing in the park. We’ve combed it, and there’s no sign of him or his footprints.”
“What about cameras?” Connor asked.
The cop shrugged. “Seems like there are no cameras in the park. There are some on the main street beyond.” He pointed in the direction of faraway lights. “We’ll get that footage, but I think it’s a long shot.”
Cami agreed. The park was a wide stretch of treed, grassy terrain, and it seemed to provide a central point to the neighborhood, with numerous quiet roads, lanes and tracks feeding into it. If he'd got that far, then he could have left the park undetected and would have had time to lay low and plan his way. So that idea, though full of potential, was going to lead nowhere. He'd gotten lucky again.
No point in trying to track a killer who was long gone, and who'd had his choice of escape routes. Now, she needed to try to get into his mind and his thinking, and how exactly he'd used technology to help him with his deadly deeds. The first step in doing that was to look inside the house.
Turning around, she saw that the living room blinds were up, exposing the brightly lit room to the backyard. One of the blinds was tugged askew as if the victim had tried to close it manually after the automation had failed.
Cami knew what she expected to find. Another keypad, the same type as the others.
She was beginning to theorize that this man was targeting the homes. Maybe he was choosing homes where women lived because he perceived them as weaker or had a grudge against the female gender. But since a house sitter had been killed here, and not the home’s usual owner at all, she was sure that first and foremost, he was targeting the houses. Because he could access them.
But then, a thought occurred to her.
In the other homes, the killer would have had time to cover his tracks – not just physically, but electronically as well. He would have had time to completely deprogram that console, and to leave them with what they had seen at the other crime scenes – that flashing, blank keypad.
"He might not have had time to do it here," she said aloud, and now, she suddenly felt more hopeful. One small mistake might be all she needed. Maybe Connor's determined optimism was going to prove well-founded after all, and this crime scene would give them their breakthrough.
Now feeling intent on finding whatever there was to discover about this keypad, Cami headed back into the house. The other keypads had been located in the kitchen. Was this one there, too?
She took a look, but couldn’t find it there, so retraced her steps to the hallway.
There! There it was. Right in the hallway, next to the hall table. That was a bad spot for him. With a delivery man knocking on the front door, he would not have been able to get to it in time.
Sure enough, with a flash of hope, Cami saw the keypad was still active. It had not been wiped. Now, she could look back – as far as was possible – and see if the device carried any clues in its history that might help her.
“Okay. So someone was accessing it for the past few days,” she said, pressing the button with her gloved hand and going back into the control history. “I’m guessing remotely, because there are a whole bunch of override commands here.” She shook her head. Having the home behave this way would have been enough to make anyone mad, scared, and thoroughly jumpy.
“Override lights. Override front door lock. Override lights again. That might mean they flickered, or refused to work. Override stove. Override water heater.” So she’d come home to no hot water. “Boil kettle, activate heating.” Maybe that was Amber Timms herself, cooking, or heating up water. “Override front door lock, and override phone. Those are the most recent commands.” And those, she knew, would be the deadly ones that he’d put in to allow him to work.
Cami shivered. It was chilling to look at this console and realize what this man had been able to do, working remotely. But how had he been able to do it? The console was giving her some answers, but not enough of them. She'd seen his input, but she had not yet discovered how he'd been able to do it. She lowered her hand, trying not to let herself feel discouraged, but trying instead to think about what else this keypad could tell her.
Unless – how far back did this history go? When was the last time the master password was accessed? Could she see from here?
Maybe that would tell her something.
Cami flicked back through the history, switching from its current memory to its recorded memory, which she found on a chip within the system. Standing by the keypad, she scrolled back through days and weeks of commands, looking for what she needed – a moment in time when the master password had been accessed.
And she found it.
It was exactly six months ago. Six months ago, the console informed her, the master password had been accessed. Now, she could see what it was. She stared at the complex jumble of numbers and letters.
