Sophie nodded. “I think that’s a good assumption.”
“Great, that only narrows our search down to one of a few million people,” I muttered, dejectedly.
“It depends,” Charlotte said. “Where did she park?”
“Right out in front of the clinic,” I replied. “I guess she didn’t want to walk a giraffe around town, either.”
“Had Jason already been by to install the new security cameras he bought last night?” she asked, and my eyes widened.
“Of course! Charlotte, you’re a genius!” I exclaimed, grabbing my phone and asking Jason to come over as soon as he could, and to bring his laptop or whatever he needed to see the security footage from my store.
Chapter 6
While I waited for Jason to show up I took over Sophie’s role of chopping up vegetables while she went to the bathroom. A moment later, I heard a small meow coming from my feet.
Looking down, I saw a little cream kitten with gorgeous, deep blue eyes staring back up at me. It was Butters, one of the kittens Bee had rescued a few weeks earlier. She meowed at me again, this time raising a little paw and placing it back down on the floor. My heart melted as I looked at those adorable kitty cat eyes, looking up at me with such sadness, like I could make her the happiest cat in the world if only I’d just feed her something.
“Awwww, you’re so cute!” I told Butters, eliciting another little meow from her. “I bet you want a treat, don’t you? Come on, let’s go over here and get you a little something.”
I made my way to the cupboard where I kept the cat treats, when suddenly I noticed a flash of black disappearing down the hallway. Everything suddenly clicked.
“Bee,” I said threateningly. “Come here, I saw you.”
I stood there with my arms crossed for a full ninety seconds before my cat slowly sauntered into the kitchen. Of course she was going to take her time obeying me. “Yes? You wanted something?” Bee asked casually.
I raised my eyebrows. “Do you want to explain to me why you were watching Butters trying to beg a treat out of me?”
“Oh, I wasn’t doing that at all,” Bee told me, licking her paw.
“Gee, that’s funny, because I could have sworn I saw you watching us, then as soon as you noticed me coming toward the hallway you ran off as fast as you could. You’re training your minions to get treats out of the humans, aren’t you?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“I’m teaching them essential life skills. I know you. You’re going to take my children from me. I’m going to make sure the Bee-hive knows how to survive without me when you finally take them.”
I rolled my eyes. “You do realize Beyoncé has already claimed the name Bee-hive for her fans, right?”
“Yes, and everyone believes Edison invented the lightbulb. History will show that it is the one with the greater marketing strategy who will go down as the most famous user of the name.”
“And that’s definitely going to be you, not Beyoncé, right?”
“Seeing as I don’t even know who that is, yes.”
I laughed to myself. Bee was so haughtily confident, so perfectly certain of her own role as the queen of this household.
“Well, tell the Bee-hive that they had better start Bee-having so I can find homes for them in a few weeks. Besides, you should be glad. They’re cute and cuddly now, but soon the kittens are going to be the cat equivalent of teenagers: moody and annoying. You get to skip that phase entirely.”
“I don’t want them taken from me. You’re a thief. I haven’t yet had the time to teach them everything I know, to show them how to be cats in this human-run world. They need more time under my tutelage before I can send them out into the world and have them begin my plan to… never mind.”
“Your plan to what?” I asked in my ‘warning voice’.
“Nothing,” Bee replied, casually flicking her tail from side to side.
I rolled my eyes. Knowing Bee, her plan was to get the kittens to take over the homes they were adopted into, and to wreak as much havoc as possible. I made a mental note to make sure the cats got adopted into homes who had experience with cats before, and preferably even already had adult cats.
Just then, Jason walked through the front door.
“What about Butters’ treat?” Bee called out to me as I made my way over there to greet him. Butters’ treat could wait, especially since I was now well aware that the attempt at manipulation had been a test from Bee. Jason leaned down and gave me a quick kiss before pulling his laptop from his bag.
“What happened today that you needed the security footage for?” he asked. “I figured Matt Smith was killed before I installed it.”
“Oh yeah, he probably was,” I replied. “It’s not for anything like that. Someone brought in a juvenile giraffe that was smuggled to the states from Tanzania and I’m trying to find the smugglers, but I need to find out where her dad lives before I can do that.”
Jason’s eyebrows rose. “You know, for someone who keeps telling me how nothing interesting ever happens in this town, you certainly have your share of adventures.”
“Well, it’s not like she was from Willow Bay. She just drove here so that the local vets couldn’t track her down.” I felt a pang of guilt at not being able to tell Jason everything. We were so close, and I loved him. I wanted to be able to tell him about my magic, which was such a major part of my life, but I knew I couldn’t. That fact had been gnawing away at me for a few months now.
“Ok, so you’re thinking that there will be something on the security footage that will show her?” Jason asked as he opened his laptop on the dining table.
“Exactly,” I nodded as Sophie, Charlotte and I all huddled around him to have a look.
Jason logged into an online portal that immediately showed the footage from the three cameras. “I’ll give you a better lesson on how this works later. But basically, the website stores seven days’ worth of data; after that if you don’t save it, it automatically deletes it. What time do you want to look at?”
“How about just before ten? That had to be around when she came in. And we need the camera looking out the front of the clinic.”
Jason tapped a few things on the screen and the three cameras’ footage was replaced with a single screen showing the outside of the vet clinic. The timestamp on the bottom showed that it was taken at 9:55. Tapping the fast forward button, the time-stamp changed as the people on the screen began walking in fast-motion. Then suddenly, at 10:08, a truck stopped directly in front of the clinic.
“There!” I exclaimed as the camera showed the girl getting out of the driver’s seat, looking around furtively, then taking Lucy out of the back trailer and making her way into the clinic.”
“Shoot, you can’t see the license plate from this angle,” Sophie complained.
“What about when she leaves?” Charlotte asks. “The back of the truck should be in the camera’s frame then.”
Jason did some more manoeuvring with the mouse and we waited for the ten minutes to pass before the girl came back out. As soon as the truck drove away, Jason paused the video. Sure enough, we had the perfect view of the license plate.
“Those are definitely Oregon plates,” Sophie said.
“Agreed,” I nodded. “You can make out the tree in the middle.”
“And there’s the number,” Charlotte said, writing it out on a post-it note. “Now we just need to find out who the car is registered to, and we can find out where the girl’s father lives and go from there.”
“I thought you didn’t approve,” Sophie told Charlotte.
“I don’t approve. I never approve of these schemes you hatch up. But since you and Angela are obviously going to do them anyway, and Jason isn’t on my side in these things either, I figure I might as well do what I can to stop you all from getting arrested.”
I grinned to myself. “And it definitely has nothing to do with the fact that you want this giraffe to be sent back home to be with her mother,” I said.