Page 104 of Love Undecided
Chapter 46
Kat
Due to the insanely early hour of the morning, there is not a lot of traffic on the road, I put the top down on my car and blare “Good Day” by Nappy Roots, happily singing along.
“‘Cause ain't nobody gonna die today. You can save that trouble for another day.”
It’s my favorite song since getting cancer.
I get to the precinct in just under ten minutes, leaving me ten minutes to spare from when Bauer wanted me there.
I blow past the intake desk, yelling a good morning to the agent on duty, and head up the stairs to the little conference room. He is on the phone when I walk in the room but still manages to give me a dirty look and point repeatedly at his watch. Who still wears a watch these days anyway? Doesn’t everyone just look at their phone to see what time it is? Plus, I’m early.
He ends his call just as Sherman pokes his head in the room. “Got anything?” he asks, looking at Bauer.
Bauer shakes his head.
“All right, the profiler will be here soon. I’d already sent him the file, just in case. The rest of the guys are in con room two.”
Bauer then lets me know that they discovered a hidden camera inside a teddy bear at Makayla Jones’ house last night.
“Oh God, was he recording the little girl?” I ask. “I can’t believe it. How did he do it? How did it work?"
“It doesn’t look like the camera records, just streams. So he would have to grab a screenshot if he wanted a still of anything. But, when he broke into the house as The Shower Stealer, he planted a remote activated nanny cam with an internet feed so he was able to watch Makayla whenever he wanted to." He continues with some additional tech speak about USB power sources, radio frequencies, and VPNs that I kind of tune out.
“So basically, the shower stealing thing was just a front for planting the cameras, because of course we always assume something was taken when there's a break-in and not something left—”
I interrupt to ask him the only thing I'm really wondering about now. “So was there a camera at Sofia's house and Madison’s house too?"
"We sent units to check. I haven't heard back yet, but I'm going to assume the answer is yes. We still hesitate to disable them until we are able to track the signal. But Sherman has sent guys to personally warn the remaining two families, Kendall Martin’s and Addie Shaw’s, about what they should and should not allow their daughters to do in the privacy of their bedrooms until he is caught. We are having someone rearrange the stuffed animals a bit in each girls’ room so that his visibility is reduced, but not enough to make him suspicious.”
"So, is the camera at Makayla’s similar to the camera at my house?"
"They are similar, though yours is a bit more robust. The cameras hidden in the teddy bears are about the size of a quarter and the camera at your balcony is about the size of a lemon. They aren't super high-tech, you can get them online for forty dollars, but they were definitely easy to hide."
Sherman knocks on the door frame as he walks by to get our attention.
“He’s heading in, let’s go.”
Bauer and I head to conference room two. It’s a room usually used for lectures and presentations. Instead of tables and chairs, it’s got those little chairs with attached desktops for everyone to sit at. The desktop tips up and you can fold it down to the side when not in use.
“I love these chairs! I haven’t seen these since high school,” I say.
I grab a seat and start tipping my desktop up and over my lap, then up and over to the side. Sometimes it’s the little things that are entertaining.
The rest of the task force is clearly not as amused as I am. In fact some of the guys can barely fit their beefy frames in the desks. Their folded up and contorted body frames remind me of caricatures.
Sherman enters the room. “The profiler is here. He’ll be in soon. You will listen and give him respect. He knows his shit. Don’t waste his time. He’s here as a personal favor.”
“I thought that’s what we had her for,” one of the guys says, pointing at me.
“You a profiler?” Sherman asks looking at me.
“Me? No, not a profiler.”
“That answer your question?” Sherman asks looking back at the officer. Then shuts the door without waiting for a response.
Everyone looks at me, I’m sure wondering what my role in all this is then. I have to be honest at this point with so little to go on, so am I.
