My heart was hammering and I had to take little gulps of air to get my breathing back to normal. The sheer horror of death on Sven’s face triggered myrun now, run nowinstincts.
I didn’t know how Myra remained so calm.
“Sure, sure,” he said. “Where do you want me to send it?”
“Here. Let me do it.” She took over the keyboard and sent the file to our secure server, then erased the video from his hard drive. “Are there any back up copies?”
He shook his head. “Just the computer.”
“Okay. Since this could be admitted as evidence, we’ll hold the copy. We’ll try to get it back to you if you want it after this investigation is over.”
Stan looked a little pale. “That’s okay. I don’t need to see it again.”
“Thank you for this,” I said. “I know that was hard to see. If you need someone to talk to, I could refer you to a couple of good counselors who work with the police and other emergency responders in the area.”
“No,” he said, his voice a little thin. Then, stronger: “No, that’s fine. I’m just sad for him. For his family. For the Rossis. You’re going to catch whoever did that to him, aren’t you?”
“Damn right we are.”
“Good. Thank you. Both of you. I sure miss having your dad in town, but he’d be real proud of you girls.”
We mumbled our good-byes and left with our squeegees, Myra crowding into the front of my Jeep with me.
Doors shut, rain pattering down. We both sat there just trying to get sea legs on reality again.
“Okay,” I said. “Pull it up. Let’s see it.”
She took a tablet out of the inside pocket of her coat—trust Myra to be prepared for anything—and pulled up the video.
We watched a super-slow motion Sven get dragged in front of the camera, face toward the lens like they knew he was being recorded. Like they knew we would find the tape.
An invitation, just like Rossi had said.
Neither of us spoke as we watched the rest of the scene scroll out.
A hand reached out of the darkness behind Sven. From the angle, the other person was shorter than Sven, supporting him under the arms, sleeves plain and dark. The hand wrapped around Sven’s head and clamped down tight on his mouth.
It was a man’s hand. Wide, thick. In the crappy light and downpour it was hard to make out any distinguishing features.
Even though the picture was blurred by rain, there was a sort of haze of light radiating from Sven’s chest. From the ichor techne painted there.
The video feed cut, sputtered, picked back up. The time stamp was five minutes later. The screen showed nothing but darkness, rain, and the watery shape of the shed, door open, the darkness beyond it a gaping maw.
I couldn’t tell if there were any footprints in the mud and gravel and grass that separated the shed from the mini-mart. Didn’t see tire tracks.
“Well, hell,” Myra said. “I’ll get Jean on this. See if we can enhance the video. That looked like a man’s hand to me.”
I nodded. “Have her check the fingers. I thought I saw something, maybe a ring.”
She rewound the video, then started it forward in tiny, slow skips.
We watched the hand arc up, forward and just before it curled toward Sven’s mouth, Myra paused.
We stared at the fingers. “Maybe?” I asked.
“Maybe.” She turned off the video and then touched my arm. “Who did you think was going to be on this video, Delaney?”
“No one.”
