“And how are we going to prove that?”
“The first thing we need to do is identify the women in these videos.”
Jacob and Amanda groaned in unison. It was the first time they’d been on the same page about anything all day long.
“That means we’re going to have to watch them?” Amanda asked.
“All of them?” Jacob chimed in.
“Unfortunately, so,” Spenser replied. “At least long enough to get a clear still of the woman’s face so we can run it through a facial rec program.”
“I take it you won’t be joining us in this little endeavor?” Jacob asked.
“Oh, no. I think you two are more than capable of handling it all.”
“Well, that hardly seems fair. If we suffer, shouldn’t you?” Amanda chirped.
“Sorry. But rank does have its privileges,” Spenser said with a grin.
“Oh, you suck,” Jacob said.
Spenser turned back to the monitor and looked at the thumbnails again, searching the faces of the women featured in each video. Despite the look of disgust on her face, Amanda stepped up beside her. Together, they stared at the faces in silence.
“I’ve seen some of these women around town, but I couldn’t tell you who they are,” Spenser said, then tapped one of the thumbnails on the screen. “Except her. That’s Dina.”
Amanda pointed to a few of the thumbnail photos. “That’s Kelly Harper. That’s Gina Overshaw. And that is Betsy McManus.”
“Okay, four down, and what, two dozen more to go?” Spenser asked.
“At least we’ve got a place to start,” Amanda offered.
“That’s true.”
“Hey, I found something else in another file,” Jacob said.
“Dear God. Is there no end to this man’s deviancy?” Spenser asked.
“No, it’s not that. It’s from exterior cameras,” he said. “It looks like security footage.”
“We didn’t see any cameras outside of the house,” Amanda said.
“Given his penchant for hidden cameras, I’d say that’s not surprising,” Spenser replied.
“That’s fair.”
The thumbnails for his sex videos disappeared, and Spenser watched as Jacob’s cursor moved to another file. He double-clicked, and it opened. Inside the file, a series of thumbnails with a view around the exterior of Hamill’s home dotted the screen. The files were sorted by month, and Jacob opened the one for the current month then scrolled to the fourteenth and clicked on it.
“Okay, we’ll see if the original theory holds water,” Jacob said. “This is the day we think Hamill’s steroids were laced. Let’s see who paid him a visit.”
Each file was split into four frames, each camera surveilling a different part of his house—the front, each side, and one in the back with a view of the front of his garage-slash-gym. Starting at six in the morning, Jacob fast-forwarded through the footage. At one point, they saw Hamill leave the house, locking the front door behind him.
“What time is that?” Spenser asked.
Jacob paused the footage. “That is 9:38 in the a.m., boss.”
Spenser picked up a pad and jotted down a quick note. “Good. Okay. Continue.”
They all watched in silence as Jacob fast-forwarded through the footage again. For hours’ worth of footage time, nothing happened. Nothing moved. And nobody entered Hamill’s home. She was starting to have doubts about her theory and immediately pivoted, trying to figure out how the tetrahydrozoline got into his steroids. Or more accurately, when. The good thing was that they had the security footage, but it was going to be tedious and incredibly time-consuming to go through every single file to find when exactly—
“Wait,” Spenser said. “Stop. There.”
Jacob hit a key, and the recording stopped. Spenser pointed to the lower right-hand screen.
“Can you blow that up?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
He typed in a series of commands, and the screen filled with just the image she wanted.
“Roll it back a couple of minutes, then let it play,” she said.
“On it.”
The clip scrolled backward then began to play. The view was from the camera on the side of the house closest to the gate that led into the space between the house and the garage. A figure in a dark hoodie stepped into the frame. The hood was pulled low, keeping Spenser from seeing their face and it was baggy enough that trying to determine their gender was impossible. About all she could tell about the person was that they were about five-five or five-six.
They watched as the figure in black stood on their tiptoes, reached over the fence, and unlatched the gate. The figure slipped through the gate as it swung open and closed it behind them. They paused as if listening. A moment later, apparently not hearing anything, the figure stepped out of the frame and disappeared.
“Jacob, pull up the quad view again,” Spenser said.
