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“Jesus, Mia, you’re hotwiring it?”
“You wanna wait for the manufacturer to send us a replacement key?”
“No, but…” Ella had no good argument. A car repair was better than another dead body. “Alright go ahead.”
Ripley pulled out the channel and cut through the plastic covering with her knife. She isolated the wires she needed. Green, blue, yellow. Then she stripped the plastic coatings off them too.
“Do you know what you’re doing? Modern cars have come a long way since your days of joyriding around Ohio.”
“You ever forget how to swim?”
“That is in no way comparable.”
“It’s exactly the same,” Ripley said as she pulled the copper wires down off each strip. “Here. Watch out. Sparks might fly.”
Ella opened the door and leaned outside, bracing herself for a mini explosion. Ripley struck the wires together, igniting a few sparks.
Then the car rumbled to life.
“Got you.” Ripley tied the wires together and let them hang from the steering column. “Easy. Now let’s see if we can see this piece of shit for ourselves.”
Ella turned the menu on and scrolled through the options. Audio. Radio. GPS. Places Near Me. Bluetooth.
Dash Cam.
She clicked into the cam and found rows of entries, each entitled with a different date and the length of the journey.
The most recent one had yesterday’s date and a journey time of 47 seconds.
“47 seconds? He must have rushed her,” Ripley said. “Can you play that one?”
Ella dug into the file and clicked play. Grainy footage popped up on the screen, footage of the same road they were sitting on. The camera only caught the front view.
The car’s lights turned on, then a few seconds later there was a thud. Ella heard Clara get out of the car while she left the engine running, then a few curses.
But then silence.
“Listen. You hear that?” Ripley asked. “Can you turn this up?”
Ella fiddled with the volume control. She heard it too. “She’s talking to someone.”
Something about a flat tire. A mad girlfriend. Flowers. Putting them in the back of the van.
“The tire ruse.”
“Like Bundy. And he owns a van,” Ripley said. “Come on. Get into the shot. We want to see your face.”
Ella prayed this man would make a mistake. Even the briefest glimpse of his profile would give them a million things to work with.
The camera bobbed up and down in the wake of the car’s movement. Clara’s charlatan hero seemed to be messing with the rear of the vehicle. “We need forensics to check this whole thing for prints.”
If I got them dirty, Charlotte would be even more pissed. That’s the last thing I need.
I’ll need to kill the engine too.
The footage reached its 47-second limit. It jumped back to the main menu.
“Dammit!” Ripley shouted. “He knew there might be a camera so he stayed out of sight. Damn this place to hell.”
