Trina was confused. “Me?”
So was Reno. “Why would she need to see it?”
Hammer exhaled. “Because it exonerates you.”
There was a long pause. It was almost as if somebody wanted to askwhat you talking about, Hammer? But they didn’t. They could hardly believe it.
“It exonerates her?” Reno asked. He was stunned too.
But Trina knew better. “That’s not possible,” she said to Hammer. She was frowned. “It’s not possible!”
“I’m going to play it.”
“But I thought you said it was triple level encrypted?” Trina was panicking.
“My team can decipher any encryption,” said Hammer, who was head of Special Operation forces for the entire U.S. government. “We encrypted it.”
He handed the disk to Tommy. Tommy put it in, grabbed the remote, and turned on the large TV screen in Reno’s office. Then Hammer pulled out his own special remote.
And there was a very young Trina, on that big screen, pulling over to the side of the road in her Mustang. Latoya was there, just as they both said, urging her to stop. When Trina got out of her car with her gun in her hand, Latoya could be seen and heard telling Trina in a scared voice that they were going to kill them and that she had to do something. But then Latoya also told Trina the exact opposite a few moments later just as Trina was about to shoot.
But Trina was right. They all saw how she had ample time not to shoot when Latoya told her she was mistaken and that there was a family in that van.
Then the van pulled over and the man behind the steering wheel began to open the van door. And that was when Trina started shooting.
Trina turned away. She couldn’t bear to look at it. Reno cringed, but he watched it. Amelia, the only one in that room that had not been privy to that video, was shocked. “Trina!” she said when Trina ignored the cries of that young lady and began shooting anyway. She looked at her with total shock in her eyes.
“Katrina?”
Trina turned back around, shame all over her face, as she looked at Hammer.
“Did you see that?” Hammer asked her.
“Why are you doing this? I lived it. I don’t have to see it, Hammer!”
“I’m not talking about the video. I’m talking about what was on you,” Hammer said.
Trina didn’t understand. “On me?”
“What was on her?” an equally confused Reno asked.
“This was on her,” Hammer said as he pressed the remote and zoomed in on Trina’s jacket.
“I don’t see anything,” said Reno, who actually went up to the screen.
“That’s because it was hidden in her coat’s lining. When I first saw that video, I just couldn’t believe it. Katrina out-and-out murdering an entire family? It didn’t make sense!”
“That’s what I said,” said Reno.
“So I kept rewinding it. Over and over again. And that’s when I heard it first. And then, after I got my guys on it, I was able to see it. This is what was hidden,” Hammer said, and the others in the office yelled for Reno to get out of the way.
Reno went back over to Trina as they all looked at the screen. His heart was pounding. He was so hopeful that he took Trina’s hand and began squeezing it.
Hammer zoomed in even more with software that had x-ray capacities that allowed him to reveal the inner lining of Trina’s coat. And inside that lining they were able to see what looked like a small, round silver button.
“A button?” Sal asked.
“It looks like a button,” said Hammer. “It fooled us for a second there too. But it’s not a button. It’s a recording device.”
