Page 15 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

I texted Summerly back and asked him what brand of camera had captured the footage he’d sent. I waited. No answer. I texted again, asked him where the camera was located, told him I wanted to speak to the owner about the device. Still no answer.

I took a screenshot of the footage and opened a blank message to my security guy, Jamie. The kid was a local in Koreatown who had been sourcing spy gear for me and Baby ever since we’d started the agency. He had sold me the tracker that was on Troy Hansen’s truck.

Maybe I’m deliriously optimistic,I texted Jamie.But you can’t tell the brand of a security camera just by looking at the footage, can you?

Jamie wrote back right away. Tech people. They’re always online.

Sure can,he said.But not for free.

I rolled my eyes. Jamie was a student, putting himself through school to earn some kind of technology degree. He was always hustling. The one time I’d asked Baby to pay him for his services, she’d been three days late with the check. Jamie hadn’t forgotten that and never would.

Sending funds and footage now,I said.

Jamie got back to me in two minutes.That’s a Jettno,he wrote.Numbers are always yellow. Not the best res but they have a good battery life. If you’re looking to buy — don’t. I can get you better, cheaper cams.

I’m not looking to buy,I texted.I want to know HOW those cameras know what the time and date are. Do they just do it automatically, like your iPhone? Or could those numbers at the bottom of the screen be inaccurate?

Jamie sent me a link to Google. I groaned. Tech humor.

Twenty-one minutes later, I finally found an online user manual for a Jettno home-security camera. It took another three minutes of googling to discover that the camera’s time and date settings were set by the user and were not automatic. I sent a text to Dave Summerly explaining what I’d learned, and then asked:

Are you absolutely certain the date and time attached to this footage are correct?

After seven minutes — I watched them go by on the clock — he finally replied.

I’ll check,Summerly wrote.

I could feel his frustration and embarrassment in those words. That made me give a mean little chuckle, which disturbed the people around me.

Now who’s wasting time?I thought.

CHAPTER17

“WHAT IN THE HOLYgoddamn hell!” said Arthur.

Baby woke up on the kitchen floor several feet from where she’d been standing. Some inexplicable instinct told her she’d been out for only a second or two, but it was still an effort to claw her way back to reality and figure out where she was and what had happened.

Baby sat up and looked at her left palm, which felt like it was burning. A red streak was seared across the flesh. Her head throbbed.

“What, what, what — ” Arthur went to her and hovered uncertainly at her side. “What the hell happened?”

“The sink.” Baby shook her tingling hand and got to her feet. “Don’t touch it. Don’t touch anything.”

“I don’t understand.” Arthur followed Baby to the sink. She examined the faucet without touching it, then bent down and opened the wooden doors under the sink. She noted the copper pipe that disappeared behind the cleaning products into the cabinet base. She shut the cabinet, straightened up, turned, grabbed her phone from her purse, and walked out the front door.

Arthur stayed at her heels as Baby walked through the waist-high weeds at the side of the house. She located the kitchen window, then looked down and spied the weather-worn lattice covering the crawl space beneath the house. She slid her phone in her back pocket, gripped the lattice, and tried to yank it back. The rusted nails groaned.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Arthur pleaded.

“Your kitchen sink is electrified,” Baby said.

“It’swhat?”

“When I grabbed the faucet, the electric charge went into my hand.” Baby bent and yanked hard at the lattice, threw her back into it. It came away from the side of the house. She set it in the long grass. “I saw a kid get shocked like that once at camp. The idiot stuck his finger in an electric outlet.”

Baby crawled under the house, looked up, and followed the copper pipe that emerged from the kitchen floorboards and ran horizontally along the brickwork.

“What you’re saying doesn’t make sense.” Arthur’s voice reached her from the yard. “I used the kitchen sink last night. I — I set up the coffee maker.”

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