Page 49 of Cyn
“Hold on,” Joe said, looking more closely at the picture. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nora and Cyn look his way.
“Did you find something?” Cyn asked.
He walked toward them, zooming in on the lower part of the image as he did. “Are these numbers?” he asked, pointing to something that looked like little more than dots but, on closer examination, seemed to form a “6.”
Cyn took his phone and studied it. After a beat, she handed it back and rose. “Let’s upload the pictures to my computer, then we can run it through the enhancement program and see what that gets us.”
He nodded, but Nora shook her head. “As much as I would like to stay, you two have this covered, and I need to get back to the puppies.” She rose as she spoke and started to replace the few items she’d removed from her bag.
“How are the puppies?” Cyn asked, gathering up the towels.
Nora smiled. “I think they’ll all make it,” she said. “We’re past the crisis point and they are all thriving so I’m optimistic.”
“Do you have fosters or homes for them yet?” Joe asked, assuming she wasn’t going to keep the full litter of puppies, especially since Cyn had told him she had four dogs of her own already.
Nora shook her head as she pulled on her coat. “Not yet, but it won’t be hard. I didn’t want to get the word out until I knew they were healthy. I’ll start looking next week, but they are ridiculously cute and sweet so, like I said, I don’t think it will be hard to find homes.” She pulled on her hat, then turned to look at him. Well, scrutinize him is more how it felt. Did he have pizza on his face?
Then she shook her head at some thought only she knew. “I’d offer you one, but your job isn’t suited for it. Maybe I can convince Cyn this time, though. She travels a lot, but Dan and Michaela are always around and really, it’s a travesty that she doesn’t have dogs gambling on her sprawling lawn.”
“Travesty? Really, Nora,” Cyn said, leading her friend to the door, “that’s a bit strong.”
Nora faux-sighed. “Someday, Cyn Steele, I will get you to embrace the fact that you are an animal person and that your life would be better if you had a dog.”
Joe chuckled.
“I like my life just fine, thank you. Especially in the past few weeks. I’m not sure a dog would improve it much,” Cyn countered.
Nora paused at the door and gave her friend a disappointed look. “I’ve told you on more than one occasion thateveryone’slife is better with a dog. Assuming of course, they have the means to take care of it.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Now, thank you for coming over and not teasing me about being knifed by some punk-ass kid with a superiority complex and bad aim.”
Nora leaned forward and kissed her friend on her cheek. “Since his bad aim saved you from something more serious, I think I’ll be grateful about that. However, the only reason I’m not teasing you is because Six is so much better at it, so I thought I’d leave it to her.”
Cyn groaned. “You’re going to tell her?”
Nora arched a brow. “I love you, but was there ever any question that both Devil and Six would hear about it by the time I get home?”
Cyn muttered something that sounded like, “Fucking fuckers,” but she wrapped her friend in a quick, tight hug. “Thank you, again. Now go drive safe and love up on those puppies.” Tulah bumped her leg, and Cyn sank to her haunches. “And you, my lovely, lovely girl. Take care of Nora and those puppies.” Tulah nudged her nose against Cyn and licked her cheek as if to tell her she’d do her best.
Joe stood beside Cyn and waved to Nora as she climbed into her car and drove away. Then without a word, they headed upstairs to the office and started uploading the pictures. Setting the enhancement program to run, they started with the diagram of the room. The image didn’t have a lot to it and ten minutes later, they were staring at what appeared to be numbers noting the dimensions of the room. At sixty feet by eighty feet, he’d bet money it was some sort of public space. Which meant it would have people in it, maybe a lot of people, and would be a good target for a bomb or two.
“What do you think these are?” Cyn asked, pointing to five dots. She’d reversed the image to be white lines on a black paper to see if that revealed anything else and it had, but what those extra dots were, he didn’t know.
“I don’t know,” Joe said, looking at them one by one. It was a futile exercise. They were only dots on the page. “But they do form an interesting pattern,” he said, once he pulled his focus from each individual dot to the collective. There were two placed at one end, one in the middle, then two at the other end.
“Hmm,” Cyn said, tilting her head and studying the image. “You’re right. If this is the target, those could be potential placement locations for whatever explosive devices they are planning. Any chance you can send this to your expert, too? I imagine that the placement of a bomb factors into its efficacy. This might help Fawkes get a better read on things.”
Joe nodded and asked her to email him the enhanced image so he could forward it on. It would be a needle in the haystack to find the building based on the drawing, but if they learned of a potential target, they could compare it to the drawing. Then again, since the three suspects knew someone had been in the apartment, it was possible that they’d completely change their plans.
There were so many loose ends, he was struggling to figure out how to deal with them all. They needed to prioritize, but they still needed all the answers.
“Maybe we need to sleep on this a little bit,” he suggested.
Cyn glanced over, then grinned. “Sleep?”
“Eventually,” he said. “You know what they say about a good workout clearing one’s head.”
She laughed, then started to shut the computer down, only to pause when an email came in.
