“What can I do for you, son?”
“I was at Maiden’s Cliff just now. I looked over and saw the reflection of your camera lens.”
“Yes. Does this visit have anything to do with what happened to your wife?”
“Actually,” Jeremiah said with surprise, “yes. As you may or may not know, she died on that cliff.”
“I know all about it. She fell to her death there summer before last. Terrible thing.”
“No one has been able to give me an explanation as to what happened.”
“It’s mighty cold out there. Please, come inside and have a cup of coffee.” He beckoned and stepped back to allow Jeremiah to pass.
The interior was as rickety and filled with junk as the exterior. But it smelled great—like coffee and bacon.
Gil led him to a dining chair, then filled a yellow ceramic mug with steaming coffee and gave it to Jeremiah. He topped off his own mug and leaned against the tile counter. “I like time-lapse photography. You know those videos you see when a flower unfurls? That kind of thing?”
“Yes.”
“I set up my camera out there to capture the sunsets over Maiden’s Cliff on evenings when there’s no rain or snow in the forecast. Then I create a video from the photos, you see, and choose the best one of the week to put on my Instagram account. It’s quite a thing! I have a whole lot of followers. Fifteen hundred of them, do you believe?”
“I do.”
“They depend on me for those weekly videos.”
“Were you taking photos the night that Alexis died?”
Gil regarded him sadly. “I was, yes. The police, they came to see me the very same day she was found. They had records that listed all the residents on this hill, and they made the rounds, speaking to each of us about Alexis. Detective Holland sat right where you’re sitting now.” He motioned with his mug, which caused coffee to slop over the side. “I told him about the time lapse and made them a copy of the video from the night of her death. They were real hopeful about it. So was I.”
“But?”
“But, at the time of night when she died, it was full dark. My camera catches the light of sunset. But it’s not able to see in the dark any better than you or I could. I’ve watched the footage myself at least twenty times. It shows darkness and nothing else. The police called me a few days later and confirmed the same thing. I’m real sorry but the video won’t help you.”
“Do you still have the video?”
“Oh yes. I save the recordings that are extraordinary. That one qualifies because of what happened to your poor wife. You’re welcome to it. You can watch the sunset on that night, at least. Maybe there’ll be some comfort in that for you.”
Jeremiah had zero hope of finding comfort in the sunset on the night Alexis had died. But his heart was hammering, and his skin was raising with chills because hedidhave hope concerning the recording. “I’ll take the video footage, please.”
“You bet. Let me pull it up on my computer and copy it to a flash drive.” He disappeared into a room down the hall.
It wasn’t hard to believe that Gil and Groomsport’s small-town police force had determined the footage to be unusable.
But Jude worked for the FBI.
And the FBI employed some of the foremost video experts in the United States of America.
If anyone could manipulate the video in order to reveal events obscured by darkness, they could.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
After trying and failing to contact Jude on his cell phone, Jeremiah drove to Mom’s house, where Jude was staying for Thanksgiving weekend.
The house was dark and quiet, so he walked around and knocked softly on the window of the room where Jude slept. He wanted to be heard by Jude but didn’t want to alarm their mother. She was not one who enjoyed being awoken on a holiday morning and not one who’d react calmy to pounding and yelling. Also, she was nosy. He didn’t want her to know anything about this.
The bedroom curtains jerked to the side. Jude looked out at him grumpily, wearing pajama pants. It was rare to see Jude’s hair in this tangled state.
“I need your help,” Jeremiah said through the glass.
