Page 91 of Veiled in Brick

“Yello,” James called out.

“Just me, man,” Liam responded.

James let out an apparent, loud sigh. “Hi, Liam.”

His tone made me squirm in my seat, and Liam glanced to the ceiling briefly, awkward tension radiating from him at the sound of James’ annoyance.

Liam asked, “What, ah—what does this camera look like?”

“Like a…little cube. About an inch wide?”

“What about a name—brand name, whatever, any text on it?” Liam pressed.

“Liam,” James crooned his name sarcastically, “I’m not dumb. If there was a brand name on it, I would have googled it by now to get the manual on how to work this thing.”

Liam exhaled heavily. “Little buttons aside from the off switch?”

“A charging port, which I do not have the cord for, obviously, the thing was basically mounted on the wall.”

“Nothing else?” Liam voiced, “Something to click, an opening to pull it apart, anything?”

“You sell cameras for a living, Liam?” James retorted. “I thought you were going to school to teach…something-something save the children—”

I chastised, “Jay.”

“For the love of God,” James continued in a dramatic whisper, “won’t anyone think of the children?”

“James!”

“Fine, fine—sorry—there’s a little seam that I could try to pry open, but I don’t wanna break it. Why?”

“’Cause it sounds like a nanny cam,” Liam stated. “Took a class that went over security stuff, they were mentioned.”

James muttered, “And your expertise says…”

“That there could be an SD card in it.”

“So?” James responded. “I don’t have anything to plug an SD card into to read what’s on it…I could go to a store and find something for it, but—”

“I do,” Liam clarified.

“You do?” I asked with an eyebrow peaked high. “Why?”

Liam quickly told me, “Long story, school shit, stuff was on an old phone that had an SD card, didn’t want to lose anything.” He asked James, “You got a computer with a USB port?”

“That I do,” James replied.

“You know that light fixture in the hall?”

“The sconce?”

“Uh huh—I have an extra key to my apartment in there,” Liam noted. “Reach in and find it, go to my closet, there’s a blue duffel bag with a bunch of old school stuff in it, you’ll find the card reader in there.”

“Mmkay.” I heard James sit up once more, grunting as he pushed himself to his feet. “Going now—what’s it look like?”

“Like a flash drive,” Liam responded.

“On it. I’ll start looking through what’s been recorded to see if I can find anything on this thing.”

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