They were still in the research department of HSS, where they’d been poring over the surveillance footage that Jamil had collected for them.So far, they’d had no success.That is until Kat gasped softly at a grainy image on the screen in front of her.
“What is it?”Hannah asked.
“This is footage from a travel plaza just south of Big Pine, California, which is about four hours north of us in the Inyo National Forest.The place typically only submits its security footage upon request and even then, in weekly batches.This just came in, covering the window from a week ago Monday through this last Sunday.Check it out.”
She re-wound the footage, which was shot from an overhead black and white camera and was, to put it mildly, not high definition.At first Hannah wasn’t even sure what person she was supposed to be focusing on as folks passed through the spot where the camera was fixed.But then she saw it.
A woman with dark hair had stopped in front of a sunglasses rack and appeared to study herself in the mirror.Then, she raised her hand to her hair and adjusted it.Until that second, Hannah hadn’t noticed that the hair was off kilter.But as the woman maneuvered it, she understood what Kat had realized immediately.It was a wig.Moments after that, the woman looked up, seemed to notice the camera, and hurriedly moved away.It was definitely suspicious.
“Can you try to run facial recognition on this woman?”Kat asked Jamil, who glanced over from his own screen.
“I can try, but from that angle and with the poor quality of the image, I can’t guarantee anything.”
“It looks like her, right?”Kat said uncertainly to Hannah.
“I mean, kind of, yeah.It’s hard to gauge height from this angle, but the build looks right.She’s pretty pale, like Pierce is.But why wear a black wig when her own real hair is black too?Wouldn’t that draw more attention to her?”
“I can only think of one reason,” Kat said rewinding the footage again.“Whoever she’s impersonating—the woman found in that shallow grave outside Tahoe—had dark hair too.We couldn’t determine hair color because the lye degraded everything.But it makes sense that she wants to look as much like her as possible.”
“I have something,” Beth said from the other workstation, where she had multiple images in a quad box on her screen.“I’ve been watching where that woman went after moving away from the sunglasses rack.She went to the checkout counter and bought several snacks using some kind of card.”
“Can we use the timestamp to lock down the purchases and determine her identity?”Kat asked.
“Eventually, yes, but we may not need to,” Beth said, pointing to a different screen.This is the car she got into, a gray Toyota Camry.I think I can blow up the license plate.”
She proceeded to make several adjustments.The plate was almost legible when Jamil spoke up.
“The facial recognition program has done the best it can but I’m afraid it’s not definitive,” he said, frustrated.“It’s only a 73% match.”
“Jamil,” Hannah said, making sure she understood correctly.“Are you saying that the woman at the sunglasses rack is a 73% match with Ash Pierce?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that pretty high?”she pressed.
“I like matches of at least 90% to feel confident.”
Hannah thought his expectations were way too high.
“But this is a random travel plaza outside a tiny town in an isolated part of a national forest along the route we think Pierce traveled.What are the chances that it’snother?”
“27%,” Jamil replied without sarcasm.
“I’ll take that chance,” she told him.
“I think I’ve got a hit on the owner of the Camry,” Beth told them all.“It’s registered to a Linda Crewes.”
Her driver’s license appeared on the screen.There was a collective gasp.She looked stunningly like Ash Pierce, so much so that it seemed likely that the hitwoman might have sought her out.
“I’m pulling up her credit card receipts now,” Beth said.
Hannah and Kat hovered over her shoulder as the transactions piled in.They scrolled down from the start of August until they got to the date in question.Sure enough, it showed multiple purchases at the travel plaza, including several protein bars and a tank of gas.
Scroll back up a bit,” Kat said.“I want to see if she was in Tahoe prior to that.”
She was.There were multiple days’ worth of purchases there, including for several nights at a local hotel.Beth punched in the website address for the place.The homepage appeared with a banner halfway down, thanking all the participants who attended the recent realty conference held there.Beth looked over her shoulder at them.
“Linda Crewes is a real estate agent,” she said.“It all fits.”
