Committed by E. H. Reinhard Page A

Beth said.
    “I should have it up for you in just a moment,” the man said.
    “It sounds like we’re going to be looking for a white Toyota Prius. I’d roll the footage from about two hours back,” I said.
    “Prius?” Bill asked.
    “A trucker in the lot saw them. It sounds like they might have commandeered someone’s vehicle.” I paused and rubbed my knuckle under my nose. “And the someone who it belongs to as well. The truck driver said there was an older man with them.”
    “Shit,” Beth said.
    Bill let out a breath and shook his head. He rubbed one eye with his hand. “It keeps getting better,” he said.
    “Okay. This is about two hours back,” the security guy said. “We have camera angles at both parking-lot entry points, an overview of both lots themselves, and again facing the exits.”
    “Sure.” I said.
    “We’ll start on the entry angles.”
    The man clicked a few buttons on the keyboard, and the footage began to roll, split down the center of the screen. He moved the pointer on the computer monitor over the icon to fast forward and held his finger down on the mouse. A few minutes in, we saw the RV pull into the parking lot and past that camera’s angle. The security guard pulled up the camera angle that was an overview of the lot at the same time. We watched the RV park in the same spot it currently resided and the couple step out.
    “Definitely them,” Bill said. “No third person.”
    The couple walked toward the building but veered right before the restrooms and vending area. They went off view from the camera.
    “Let me get a view of the other lot,” the security guard said. He pulled it up.
    “There’s our Prius,” I said, pointing at the right edge of the screen, where the car was parked. The car being so far from the camera prevented us from getting a good look at the tag number.
    “Can you zoom in on that at all?” Bill asked.
    “Sorry. What you see is what you get, unfortunately. We just had these cameras put in about a year or so ago—a program that the state put together, called Safe Stops. Aside from the cameras, we rotate manned security as well. It just so happens that no one was on duty here until this evening. Anyway, the cameras are pretty good quality, but we don’t have zoom and can’t really do anything fancy with the recorded footage.”
    “Well, let’s just see what we got,” Beth said. “We can search and see if we can get a better angle on it later.”
    “Yeah, we might be able to get a look at the tag when it leaves. If not, we can look back to when this vehicle arrived.”
    We watched a man step from the car and remove a dog from inside—still no signs of Nick Frane or Molly McCoy. The man walked his dog back and forth at the edge of the screen. He stopped for a moment and then headed back toward his vehicle.
    “There she is,” Beth said.
    Molly approached the man and handed him something. A moment later, we realized it was a map when the guy spread it out on his car’s hood. Nick entered the frame next, first at Molly’s side, and then he went to the man. It appeared that some words were exchanged, and then Nick was holding a gun. The couple entered the man’s car and pulled away. We watched the car pass by the front of the rest-area building and go off screen toward the exit.
    “Let’s see if we can get them leaving on the exit cam and get you a tag number,” the security guard said.
    “They’re not leaving yet,” I said. “The truck driver saw the vehicle at the RV.”
    He clicked a few keys on the keyboard and brought up the final camera angle for the side dedicated to passenger cars. We watched as the Toyota made a hard left back into the lot dedicated to buses, semis, and larger vehicles.
    “Get the exit camera angle on that side,” Bill said.
    The guard pulled it up. We had a crystal-clear shot of the front of the car entering the exit, as well as an equally clear tag number on the screen.
    “Pause that,” I said. I pulled