“It wasn’t obvious,” she continued.“You guys were focused on timestamps, body placement, crowds, exits.This wasn’t something you’d notice unless you were specifically tracking faces.”
Pearl leaned closer over Anchor’s shoulder.“He’s definitely the same guy.”
“Yeah,” McKayla said.“Same height.Same build.Same walk.”
Cross frowned.“Can we get a better shot of his face?”
McKayla clicked through more footage.“Not yet.He keeps his head angled down near cameras.”
“Which means he knows where they are,” Vin muttered.
Anchor’s expression darkened further because that meant one thing.Inside knowledge.
Pearl looked around the room slowly.“Okay… now what?”
Nobody answered for a beat.Then Anchor answered.“We figure out who the fuck this guy is.”
Everyone nodded.
Even Prime looked energized again for the first time in days.
McKayla looked down at the screen thoughtfully.“I can figure out who he is.”
Every head turned toward her.
Anchor crossed his arms.“How?”
She looked up slowly, confidence replacing the earlier excitement.
“People don’t realize how much information they leave behind when they move through the world repeatedly.”She pointed at the paused image.“Height, posture, gait, dominant side, movement patterns, routine.Maybe he’s avoiding cameras, but he’s still leaving behavior behind.”
Vin blinked.“That sounded creepy as shit.”
McKayla shrugged slightly.“I’m a private investigator.Creepy observation is kind of the job description.”
One corner of Pearl’s mouth lifted.
Anchor studied McKayla hard for a second, then nodded once.“What do you need?”
Her eyes flicked toward the laptop again.“Time.”
Chapter Eight
McKayla
The buzz wore off slowly.
For a while, finding the guy in the footage had felt like cracking open a door I’d been throwing my shoulder against for weeks.My blood had been up, my brain had been moving faster than my headache appreciated, and for the first time since Erin vanished, I’d felt like I had something solid in my hands.
Not an answer.
Not even close, but a thread.
And sometimes, in an investigation, a thread was enough.
The problem was, after everyone cleared out of my room and the excitement settled, I still had no idea who the hell the guy was.
I replayed the same footage for what had to be the hundredth time and leaned closer to the laptop, squinting at the grainy image of a man in a gray hoodie and ball cap moving through the haunted house crowd like he belonged there.
