I dragged first one file and then the other to the trash icon. My hand hovered over the menu option to empty it.
My attention snagged on the files left behind in the list. All the documents were still listed by size, large files at the top, and now that I’d pulled away the files I’d stowed, there was another king-file sitting atop the hill. Another video. I double-clicked on it to start it playing.
It was another file from the security system, the camera pointed down the street as always, the sidewalks empty. I checked the date. Friday. Today.
I navigated over and opened the security app. Sure, it was working just fine. Of course it was. The cameras weren’t really flakey at all, and Alex hadn’t shut down the system. He’d only dumped the backlog to delete Wednesday’s footage sometime yesterday, before I found Joey.
Now there was something to think about. He’d thrown out the files before Joey had been found. What did that mean?
When I thought about it, I realized that the video placed Joey withAlex at the alley on Wednesday—but Joey hadn’t been lying in the alley all that time. I would have found him Thursdaymorningwhen I walked the dogs. I’d searched, specifically, checking on the guy with the grocery cart. The alley had been clear.
That was a point in Alex’s favor, right? That Joey had been off somewhere in between?
Of course, I didn’t know with one hundred percent confidence where Joey had been up until Wednesday. And that Thursday video, which would have given us a lot of useful comings and goings, was gone, baby, gone. Alex had dumped all of it—unwittingly deleting the file that might have shown precisely who had hurt Joey.
I was the one holding on to a file that could raise questions. Did it matter that Alex was pushing Joeyawayfrom where he’d been found? Not in the slightest.
I pulled one of the copies of my stashed video out of the trash and started it running. Real time, paying attention.
Except the comings and goings were almost rote by now. If it had been mildly boring on second watch, now it was a real snooze. I sped it up a tick, then another. I couldn’t watch the entire day. It would take forever.
Technically, yes, it would take an entire day. Thanks. I know.
Here we went again: cars moving in and out of view, the bumper, the beer truck, the guy yelling about the beer truck, the meathead in the flat cap avoiding the guy yelling. Kyler. McPhee’s door opening and closing, familiar profiles coming and going.
Quin came out, hooking a left out of the camera’s view.
Now where was he off to? I paused the video, checked the time stamp, rewound it, watched again.
I opened up the only file the system had captured since Alex had dumped the queue—the video for today, and cranked it quad-speed to get to the daylight hours, past the morning commuters passing on the way to the L station, travel mugs of coffee in hands.
At about mid-morning, I let the video play regular time again,but of course nothing much would have happened at McPhee’s until I’d accidentally opened it. It was just a Friday. People came and went along Milwaukee Avenue, walking down the street, holding hands or swinging a kid between them toward school, or tugging on their business backpack on their way to the Blue Line, headphones in, tugging at wedgies. Going about their tired, basic lives.
What was myproblem? I would kill for a normal life right now, no worries, no—
On the screen, Alex suddenly appeared.
I checked the time stamp again. Too early for opening the pub, but then he hadn’t opened today, anyway. I tried to time out his arrival with my departure. I would have already talked to Oona about finding Joey dead and seen her off on her dog walk. About the time Alex was coming into the pub, I was already in Sicily’s SUV on the way to see how my life should have gone, but hadn’t.
And to have a gun stuck in my face. Today really had been a rather full day.
On the screen, Alex came back out and locked the door behind him but just stood there, looking toward the alley. A small movement there turned out to be police tape fluttering in the wind.
So he’d called to give the kitchen the day off, but he’d come into the pub anyway. But not to do any work. Not to catch up onbills. I flicked the stack of unopened mail. Not to delete more footage, because here I was watching it.
Alex turned his head south, quickly, in reaction to something. Someone was coming. I didn’t like the look on his face. Alex’s expressions had a narrow range, and I could usually read them down to the milli-twitch.
I waited, holding my breath.
Someone hoping the pub was open? No—it was the police.
Not Detective Aycock, though. These were uniformed dudes, two of them. I watched Alex’s shoulders tighten as they spoke. What were they saying to him? Finally, he reopened the pub and let them inside.
Video of the empty street played for a few minutes, then I hit fast-forward and scanned for something, anything moving. The door swung open again and the two officers appeared. I slowed the footage and watched Alex follow them out and lock the door behind him.
I was relieved he was not in cuffs, at least.
A few more words were exchanged and then Alex watched them walk away. I was just about to stop the video when Bear and Lemon were suddenly in the frame, bouncing off Alex with abandon. Dogs really knew how to make an entrance, didn’t they? Bear and Lemon wound their leash around Alex’s legs, Lemon grinning up at him. Nearby, Bear went into high, pointy-eared alert at something outside of the frame. Then Oona appeared and untangled everyone.
