“So there’s someone in this room at all times?” Rocky asked.
“Yes, sir,” the manager assured him. “And if he blinks, we’re still covered, because everything’s recorded. We cover all three elevators and every hallway, along with the lobby and the entryway.”
“What about the side entry?” Rocky asked.
Hogan pointed to another screen.
“We’ll need all the footage from 4.00 a.m. till five minutes ago,” Rocky told him.
“Yes, sir,” Hogan assured him. “Bobby,” he told the guard, “set up a computer station for the agent, please.”
Bobby jumped on it, glad to show them the system. But when he went to play back the surveillance video, the screen came up empty.
Hogan was baffled and had Bobby run diagnostics that revealed every bit of the footage from 3:00 a.m. on was nonexistent.
“It’s impossible,” Hogan said.
“We’ll get the police computer expert on it,” Rocky said.
Within the hour, not only had Jack and Sam arrived, the department’s computer technicians were working, crime scene techs were at work in Devin’s room and both staff and guests were being questioned.
But despite all their efforts, they ended up with nothing. Whoever had hacked the surveillance system had known what he was doing and so far they hadn’t found a thing to lead them to him. No one remembered seeing anyone enter Devin’s room, and there were no suspicious fingerprints in the room or on the pendant. And all Bobby could tell them was that he hadn’t seen anything unusual; everyone who’d entered a room had used a key, though if their intruder was good enough to remotely erase security footage, hacking a key card was probably child’s play to him.
Rocky was frustrated, but he tried to keep his feelings in check.
“We’ll leave someone working on the computer system,” Jack told them. “Jonah Smith is the best man I’ve seen with a computer, so fingers crossed he can come up with something.”
Just then Rocky heard Devin gasp and turned to see what had upset her.
She was looking at a local late-edition newspaper, which someone had brought in earlier and left lying around.
He saw the headline that had disturbed her. The Devil’s Afoot in Massachusetts Again.
Devin picked up the paper, scanned it quickly and looked at Rocky. “Facts and just the facts with a sensational headline.”
He took the paper from her. The ridiculous headline went with a report on the fire that had been set in Devin’s yard. It mentioned that the house had belonged to Mina Lyle, a Wiccan, card reader and practicing medium in Salem from the days long before modern witchcraft had come to the city, and a woman descended from the original settlers of the town. The article went on to state that the house was now owned by Devin Lyle, author of the popular Auntie Pim series of children’s books. Police, the article read, suspected a prankster or perhaps someone frightened by the current murders into drawing parallels with the witchcraft trials.
“What does any of that have to do with the devil?” Devin asked, clearly irritated.
“Nothing, but headlines sell papers,” Rocky said.
“Freedom of the press,” Jack said. “Don’t let it frighten you, Devin.”
She turned to look at Jack. “I’m not frightened, I’m angry. It’s almost as if someone is starting a war against anyone who’s Wiccan.”
“But you’re not Wiccan,” Jack said.
“My aunt was,” she said. “And she was the most giving person I ever knew. She never did one nasty thing to anyone. I just feel she’s being maligned.”
Jack looked over at Rocky. “These attacks on Devin—if they actually are attacks and not just sick pranks of some sort—may have nothing at all to do with the murders.”
“How can that be?” Devin demanded. “I thought no one knew about the pentagrams the killer leaves on the victims’ bodies?”
“It’s not as simple as that, Devin,” Jack said. “For one thing, we don’t know that the killer works alone, For another, leaks happen. Someone could have heard about the pentagrams, someone with a grudge against you for whatever reason, and now he’s using that knowledge to freak you out.”
“But—” She started to protest, but he cut her off.
“But that said, I’m inclined—for a number of reasons—to think your friend Brent isn’t our guy, even if I can’t rule him out entirely.”
“So...what?” Rocky asked. “Do we cut him loose and just keep an eye on him?”
Jack was thoughtful for a moment, then he said, “Yeah. We cut him loose.”
Rocky nodded, but he couldn’t help asking himself, what if Brent was guilty but working with someone else?
“Task force meeting,” he suggested quietly. “I want all the crime scene techs, forensic people, everyone involved—my people, your people, everyone. There has to be something out there that we’ve missed.”