Page 24 of Catch Him
There was a pause for a second. “Goodnight my Sinead.”
Sinead disconnected the call and headed to the station. A stupid smile on her face, she had no doubt. After checking in with the her sergeant, she took her patrol car out into the sleepy quiet streets of Mill Valley, ready to defend and protect its citizens from evil doers.
* * *
1:00 a.m., AT&T Park
It was a road game, so the team was away. All administration staff had long since left for the night. There was no twenty-four hour security. Simply locked gates that were easily unlocked with the right equipment. And he had the right equipment.
The park’s blueprints on record with the county, a copy easily obtained online, indicated where the administrative offices were. What he was looking for would be there on that level of the park.
The escalators were still, but there were no obstacles to the third floor where the storage facility rooms next to the admin offices held the heavy handheld cameras the staff used to capture people in the stands. Some people being goofy, some hot girls dancing, some people kissing.
No interest in the cameras, his only focus was on the computer that stored security images around the park, film of the game, and the outtakes from those handheld cameras.
Bypassing the OS to maneuver around the computer’s password was not an issue. People would be woefully upset to learn how little those passwords they depend on can protect information from people who know what they are doing. He studied the filing system for a minute, then accessed the right date and folder.
He inserted USB, downloaded the necessary footage. Then trashed it. Then erased it. Someone would have to go looking for it to know it was missing. Someone would have to know how thoroughly it was destroyed to understand a professional was responsible.
Office locked, he descended the still escalator and relocked the gates behind him. A quick look at his watch and he saw the time was 1:23 a.m.
Plenty of time to get back.
* * *
Sinead checked her watch. It was 2:23 a.m. and time for a break. The night had followed its typical patterns. She cruised the streets throughout the town. Checked in with the station a few times. No calls. No complaints.
Nothing to keep her attention occupied. Which meant she spent way too much time thinking about David and their night together. Thinking about what he would plan for them for tomorrow. Maybe a private jet to whisk them up to Seattle for some first class salmon.
Something she would of course have to say no to. Still, a smile played around her lips as she tried to imagine herself as Julia Roberts inPretty Woman. Except for the part about being the hooker. Nothing about being a hooker was pretty.
She pulled into the parking lot of the Denny’s she had told David about. She reported into the station, let them know she was taking her break and headed inside the nearly empty establishment.
“Hey, Cherise,” Sinead called to the waitress behind the counter.
Cherise, a middle-aged black woman with a big smile, greeted her with an unusually excited smile. “Hey there, girlie!”
Sinead questioned it, as it was hard to be excited about anything when you worked the overnight shift at a diner.
“You seem awfully chipper.”
Cherise leaned over the counter as if to whisper to Sinead, another anomaly as most times she and Cherise were alone in the restaurant. The cook and bus boy hung out in the kitchen.
“I am when I get a customer who looks like that,” she said and then made a discreet motion with her finger, suggesting the person in question was in a booth to the left of the counter. “And sounds like that.”
A niggling suspicion had Sinead turning her head in the direction of Cherise’s finger.
David was sitting in the booth with a cup of coffee in front of him and a rather arrogant smile on his face.
Looking exactly as Cherise had said…like that.
Sinead shook her head. He really was impossible.
Although she obviously didn’t mind, because she was smiling.
“Oh girl, look at that smile. Please tell me you know him.”
“I know him,” Sinead confirmed.
