Page 38 of Just Right

Pity.

She knew that it was ill advised to feel sorry for a suspect who was highly unstable, who had destroyed evidence, and who had no clear recollection of any of the times the murders had happened.

But she was starting to wonder what had caused him to go so badly off the rails. Had it been some other incident, had it been the gradual pressure of circumstances? Or had it been that video? Was the sight of it, and the timing, so terrible that it had mentally broken this man?

Cami decided there was only one way to find this out. While Connor was forging ahead with the questioning—his area of expertise and one where she couldn't interrupt—she could run through the footage and see if she could work out what had affected him so badly, if anything.

Unobtrusively, she glanced down at her laptop, and allowed this grainy, wavering video to play.

Frowning down at it, Cami couldn't see anything that would have been torturously scarring, even to a damaged man. It was horrible, that was for sure. The car was driving along and then it started to slide. Cami imagined there must have been a noise, a shrill scream of brakes or tires, that had alerted the person filming, and he or she had zoomed in and focused on the car.

It had spun. It had rolled one and a half times, in an explosion of glass and twisting metal, seeming almost to go in slow motion. And then, it had plummeted off the bridge, bursting through the railing with the force of its speed, and had twisted and somersaulted down to the icy waters below.

And then the video was still for a while. Feeling as confused as James was claiming to be, Cami replayed it.

She hadn't missed anything. There was the car losing control. Spinning off the bridge. Crashing into the waters below.

But then, something else. Near the start of the video. Something that was almost invisible given the poor footage.

It was no more than a pixel.

But as Cami stared at it, she realized that pixel might make a huge difference to what had happened next. Her eyes were not playing tricks. She really was seeing what was there.

And what was there might make all the difference in the world.

She touched Connor's elbow. Mid-question, he swung around to regard her impatiently.

"I need you to see something, now. Outside," she explained.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Cami got up and hurried out of the interview room with her laptop. Now that she'd interrupted Connor, she felt consumed by self-doubt. She sure hoped that what she'd seen was accurate and not just a trick of her vision or a fault in the video.

But there was something she could do about that. As she waited for Connor to wrap up inside, Cami went into a small office opposite the interview room. It contained two tables and chairs and was currently empty. Sitting at one, she looked up some online programs that could clean up grainy video. It was important that she showed Connor the clearest picture possible and that the pixel ended up being more than just a blur.

She was busy running the program when Connor barged out of the room, looking annoyed by the distraction.

"This had better be important," he said, heading straight into the office where she was.

"I'm sorry for interrupting," Cami said. "But I think it is. You have to see this."

"To see what?"

"I've just sharpened it. It's very visible now. Watch here, near the start of the video, while the car is rolling. Watch and see."

She played it again, feeling relieved that this time, the footage was sharp enough to make sense of what she'd seen.

And what she'd seen was important. Without a doubt.

The car spun, veering out of its lane. It rolled.

But as it rolled, as the car buckled and smashed, just before its final, plummeting flight off that high bridge, a small figure tumbled out. Whether it was through a broken window or the ripped windshield, Cami wasn't sure. Without a doubt, though, that figure was there.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Connor sounded incredulous.

"Yes. One of the family members was thrown out. And it looks to be the son. I'm guessing, anyway, because of what has happened now. He would have been twenty at the time, the article said. He'd be about twenty-five now. And maybe, being the sole survivor of that accident was so traumatic to him that he never got over it. Maybe it scarred him. And that's why he's looking for his family now. But when he doesn't find them, he kills them."

Connor was silent for a long, shocked moment.

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