“No. We just gave them three cards. You said the wife claimed to have left the condo at three? So she must be the one who came in at 2:16 p.m. She must have card 2.”
“So card 3 could be Finley, the guy staying there?”
“Sure. But we don’t have to guess. We can check the lobby video.”
“Show me the 2:16 p.m. arrival first, Hans.”
On the screen in front of them, security footage plays in grainy black-and-white, time-stamped in the lower right-hand corner. Hans plays the video at double speed to move it along. The building lobby is an attempt at something, Louise isn’t sure what—sharp angles and steel and glass with a black marble floor and loud, modern artwork on the walls.
“There’s Mrs. Brice, I think. Only met her once or twice.”
“That’s her,” says Louise. Allison Brice enters the lobby in a wool coat, purse over her shoulder, giving a polite wave to the security desk before slapping her card for elevator access.
“Do you record them by key card coming back down?”
“No. Only going up. But we’ll have video of her in the lobby. She left around three?”
Louise chuckles. “That’s what she claimed.”
Hans moves the tape at double speed again. Right around three, he stops it. Allison Brice leaves the elevator and walks, eyes down, all business, to the exit.
“She spent about forty minutes up there,” says Hans.
“Last visitor,” says Louise. “At 6:44 p.m.”
“Roger that.” Hans moves the security footage forward at a high speed. He slows it to normal a few minutes before the relevant time.
“There,” says Louise. “Pause that.”
Hans taps the keyboard. The video freezes on a still image of a man heading straight to the elevator, not checking in, arm extended, about to place the key card on the elevator sensor. He is wearing a gray hoodie unzipped, a sports jersey beneath it.
The athletic frame and curly dark hair give him away.
“Someone we know,” Louise murmurs. “Hans, let me know when he returns to the lobby.” She dials her phone and waits for Cutty to answer. “Cutty, you get the warrants yet?”
“Just in the judge’s chambers right now,” he says.
“We need one more,” says Louise.
They ring the doorbell and wait. A curtain flutters at the side window, so someone is home. They press the bell a second time, hear the chime ringing on the other side of the door.
Finally, Allison Brice answers, wearing headphones. “Yes, Detectives?”
“A warrant to seize and search your phone.” Louise hands Allison the warrant. “And a warrant to seize and search the phone of Grayson Brice.”
Allison takes that warrant, too. She can’t be surprised. “What else you got there?”
Louise holds up the last document. “Warrant for DNA and fingerprint testing,” she says.
“You already have my DNA and my prints, Detective.”
“Not yours,” says Louise. “Your son’s.”
Allison blinks hard. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous at all, Mrs. Brice, and you know it. When you filed that missing-persons report, you forgot to mention that your son, Grayson, was inside that condo with his father on the night of April first, for over two hours. Or maybe you were hoping we wouldn’t find that out.”
Allison’s eyes drop, a chink in her armor.
