Mollie had stopped trying to scream now and was watching the video with large, terrified, broken eyes.
Predator.
Prey.
The game.
Astrid tapped the space bar to pause the video, then said to Brad, “All right. Let’s send that message to the FBI.”
He went to the duffel bag to pull out the items he would need.
On the way to the control center, I asked Doehring if he’d interviewed anyone named Aria Petic, and he mentally clicked through his list of names. “No, I don’t think so.”
We arrived, and I immediately noted that the hotel had a better security surveillance system than most FBI field offices. Six attendants monitored an array of video screens stretching across the wall, each person’s eyes flickering from one screen to the next as the images changed to show different angles and hallways of the hotel.
Twenty-eight screens.
State of the art.
Adrian Lees introduced us to his head of security. “This is Marianne Keye-Wallace. Used to work for the NSA. She’ll help you. With anything you want.” Platinum blonde. Careful, steady eyes. She couldn’t have been more than thirty, but high-tech security positions rely more on brains and adaptability than either brawn or experience.
Without waiting for our names, she told Lees, “We’ll call you if we need you.” Then she promptly took a seat beside one of the computers turned to us. “Talk to me.”
“Are there any guests here by the name of Aria Petic, Twana Summie, or Mollie Fischer?” I said.
Marianne’s fingers were light and spidery on the keyboard. Lees hovered for a moment, then disappeared. “No,” she said. “What are we looking for here?”
It would take too long to explain. I pulled up the video of Aria Petic that Ralph had just sent me. “Do you have facial recognition on your video surveillance system?”
“Of course. Facial, audio, video.”
I handed her the phone. “Upload this picture. I need to know if this woman is in this hotel.”
The folded-up wheelchair leaned against the wall beside the room door, the duffel bag next to it. The suitcases that Astrid had brought into the hotel last night sat beside that.
Brad was busy with Mollie.
Astrid made the call to the front desk.
No footage of Aria Petic.
“You gotta be kidding me.” Doehring smacked the wall.
“What else?” Marianne asked, fingers poised at the keyboard.
Come on, come on, come on.
“We’re looking for…” I began, but my thoughts distracted me.
The key is Mollie. Everything revolves around her.
“Yes?” Marianne asked.
“Go online. Pull up the AP photo of Mollie Fischer.”
It took seconds.
“Do a search. If she’s here, I want to know what room she’s in. Pull up any video of her entering or leaving the hotel since 7:00 last night.” I figured we’d start there and work backward, if necessary to 4:00, when she was last seen.
A few minutes later Marianne found footage of Mollie in a wheelchair, being pushed into the hotel by an unidentified man wearing a baseball cap that completely hid his face from the camera, which told me he knew the camera’s angle and location before he even approached the building.
Follow up on that. If he knows where the cameras are, he’s likely to have been here before, scouting out the site.
Later, later, later.
Because, for now, we also had footage of them entering a service elevator inside the hotel. “Where do they exit the elevator?” I asked. “Which floor?”
“There’s no way to know. We only have surveillance cameras covering the guest elevators on each floor, not the service elevators.”
“Have they left the building?” Doehring said.
“Let me find out.” Marianne let her fingers loose on the keyboard.
She did another facial recognition search, then shook her head. “Unless they found a way to get past our cameras, they’re still inside.”
But that was enough for Doehring. He was on his radio calling for backup to set up a perimeter around the hotel; in less than five minutes, we would have the area secured.
“Have security seal off all the exit doors,” I said to her. “The suspect transported Mollie into the hotel in a wheelchair, so look for a handicapped-accessible vehicle outside. And go back to the footage of him entering the elevator. I’ve got an idea.”
31
The video revealed that after the man entered the elevator, he reached out to press one of the floor’s buttons before the doors closed and the two of them were gone.
“Back it up.”
She did.
“Pause it.”
The image froze.
I pointed. “There. Which button is he pressing? Which floor?”
“Hang on.” Marianne slid the cursor, zoomed in, then cursed. “I can’t tell. The angle is wrong.”
“Download that to my phone.”
She connected my cell to her system, tapped at her keyboard, then seconds later handed back the phone, the image frozen on the screen.
“He might have changed clothes, but circulate this image to security,” I said. “Let’s see if we can get an ID. And call every room, leave a recorded message that security’s looking for a missing wheelchair. Let’s see who tries to sneak away. And no one leaves this hotel.” I started for the door. “Where’s the service elevator he used?”
“Take a left out the door, at the end of the hall go through housekeeping. The elevator will be on your right.”
Doehring and I took off.
Everything had been arranged.
Mollie was not going to be a problem for them.
Astrid glanced at her watch.
“We need to move,” she said to Brad, who was taking care of the room.
“Almost done.”
We made it to the elevators.
I studied the video on my phone, the height of the man’s hand in relationship to the floor numbers… the angle of the camera in the hall… then I stood in the same place he had, raised my hand to the same level as his, and played the video again.
It was possible the suspect pressed a second button after the elevator doors closed, but we had to start somewhere.
Doehring and I scrutinized the video. “What do you think?” I said. “Floor eight or nine?”
He shook his head. “I can’t tell.”
“Send security to both floors, sweep the rooms. You take nine. I’ll get eight.” I sprinted for the stairwell at the end of the hall.
Astrid and Brad were just about to leave the room when the phone rang.
Both of them stared at it.
Another ring.
Then, ever so faintly, they heard simultaneously ringing phones in the adjoining rooms.
“They know,” Brad said. “Somehow they know.”
She shook her head. “That’s impossible. You took care of the cameras, right?”
“Yes.”
But as the phones continued to ring, Astrid felt, for the first time since they’d started their games, a small nervous twitch of anxiety. She hesitated for a moment, then, with a gloved hand, picked up the room phone, listened to the message. Hung it up. “We need to leave.”
Brad said nothing, went to the door, peered out the peephole, then eased the door open a crack. Checked the hallway. “It’s clear.”
She picked up the laptop.
“Careful,” he said. “You don’t want to-”
“Drop it. I know.” She nodded toward the door, where their things were sitting. “Get those.”
He did.
They slipped into the hall.
Eighth floor.
Legs screaming from the sprint up the stairs.
My. 357 SIG P229 in hand, I threw open the door to the hallway.
Two maids, a few kids in swimming suits running down the hall to their room, a bellhop pulling a luggage cart, two security personnel knocking on doors.
They’d gotten here fast. Good.
Good.
No sign of the suspect.
I flashed my creds. “Anything?” I called to the guards.