“We won’t show that.” Francine looked at me. “We’ll stop before that and warn you.”
I also didn’t want to see anyone dying, but I knew there might be valuable information that could lead us to the killer. I pushed Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major into my mind. “How much footage is there?”
“It seems like your last three geocache hunts are there.” She hesitated, then looked at Caelan. “Explain the process you two used to find a cache.”
Caelan squeezed the stress balls. “Jace turns his glasses on when he’s at a point we arranged beforehand. The glasses connect to his phone’s internet, which then transmits the footage to me. I watch live where he’s going. As he goes along, we see the clues that are at the site. I process those hints and direct Jace to the next point.”
“Hmm.” Manny rubbed his stubbled jaw. “Tell me more about these glasses. Can they be hacked?”
“Essentially, anything that connects to the internet can be hacked.” Pink took a step away from Manny when the latter frowned at him. “Most smart glasses aren’t useful enough to be hacked. Not on their own.”
“I sense a ‘but’.” Manny looked from Pink to Francine.
“A defined butt.” Francine glanced at Manny’s backside, then winked at him when his scowl intensified. “If I hack Pink’s glasses and he’s transmitting or connected via Bluetooth or wifi, I can access his system. And wham! I’m all over GIPN’s business.”
“And because smart glasses are still newish tech, the security is not fantastic.” Daniel looked at Pink. “That’s why I still prefer button cams.”
Pink raised one eyebrow. “The firewalls and antivirus programmes I have on our stuff make it really hard for anyone to hack.”
“But not impossible,” Daniel said.
Francine asked Pink about the firewalls and soon they were discussing the specifications of the latest smart glasses and their software. Caelan was following the conversation. Vinnie and Manny quickly grew bored with Pink and Francine’s explanations of the technical aspects of the glasses, but the more they spoke the more Caelan relaxed. The facts were easier for his non-neurotypical mind to process.
“But the new button cams you guys got are great though.” Francine smiled at Daniel. “I even got us a few. These models are amazing. I tweaked ours a bit and now they connect via satellite, which means their transmission is much less limited than those relying on wifi.”
“They’re also much less obvious than the glasses,” Daniel said. “Easier to blend with the person’s outfit, they’re smaller and it would take a lot to slap them off.”
“For the love of all that is holy.” Manny’s fists tightened in his trouser pockets. “Can we stop talking tech and watch the footage?”
“Of course.” Francine looked at Caelan and relaxed when she saw him loosely holding the stress balls. “Are you ready, Caelan?”
“No.”
“Should I wait a bit longer?”
“No.” Caelan squeezed the stress balls once. Hard. “Go ahead.”
Francine gave him an encouraging smile and tapped on her tablet screen. “There’s quite a lot of footage here. Should I play all of it?”
I thought about this. “No. For now, only play the footage on the day Jace disappeared and died.”
“Okey-dokey.” Francine tapped the screen and four of the monitors in front of me came to life.
Since the monitors didn’t have frames and were positioned close to each other, it was convenient to view something on a larger scale by distributing it over four or even more monitors. At the moment, the image filling the four monitors showed the inside of a huge space.
“It looks like a warehouse,” Daniel said. “Where is this, Caelan?”
“It’s a self-storage space in the warehouse district.” Caelan pointed at a door to the left of the open space. “Jace will go out this door now.”
“You’re in the wrong place.” Caelan’s voice came over the sound system.
“It recorded your communication as well?” Colin asked.
“Yes.” Caelan stared at the monitor as two hands came into view and gestured in a familiar manner. “Jace used sign language to speak to me like this. But sometimes I had to remind him to lift his hands higher or look at them. He would sometimes sign out of view of the camera. He just said that he knows he’s in the wrong place and will go to the correct building.”
The image on the monitors changed as Jace opened the door and stepped outside. Three days ago, it had been sunny, but cold. Snow from the night before had been removed from the road between the buildings, but the roofs and footpaths all had a thick white layer.
Jace walked towards the building next to the one he’d exited, raised his hands and signed.
“You’re the one who insisted on going out today,” Caelan said on the recording.
“What did he say?” Vinnie asked.
“He said it’s very cold.”
“It might be best if you interpret every time Jace signs,” I said.
“Okay.”
Onscreen, Jace opened a red metal door and walked into the building. He was at one end of the building, looking down several aisles. Each aisle had numerous red doors, most of which looked like rolling garage doors. His hands came into view and he signed.
“Number six-one-eight,” Caelan said on the recording.
He shifted next to me. “We got that number from a clue in the previous cache.”
The image on the monitors moved down the aisle to the left as Jace walked past the doors, looking at the locker numbers. He walked past six-one-seven and raised his fist in victory when he stopped in front of six-one-eight. He signed.
“I don’t know.” Caelan’s recorded voice sounded agitated. “There wasn’t any clue about a code for the lock.”
“He asked what the code was,” Caelan said.
“We figured,” Manny said.
“Try four-eight-three-two-one-nine,” Caelan said online. “We don’t have any other numbers to go by.”
Jace raised his thumb and entered the six-digit number into the keypad. There was a slight click and again Jace raised his fist. He signed.
“He’s saying that using the locker’s GPS digits as the code is stupid.” Caelan paused as his voice on the recording said, “Yeah, but it made it easier for us. See what’s inside.”
Jace rolled up the door and jerked back. He signed something at the same moment as Caelan’s laughter sounded over the recording.
“I know. Of all the caches, this is the silliest. ‘E’. Hah.” Caelan continued laughing as Jace stepped into the locker to inspect a large lower-case letter ‘e’ hanging from the roof. There was nothing else in the room. Just this plastic letter with a small piece of white paper attached to it. Jace stepped closer and signed.
“I see the note,” Caelan said on the recording. “‘I start with the letter ‘e’, I end with the letter ‘e’. I contain only one letter, yet I am not the letter ‘e’. What am I?’ You’re right, Jace. This is stupid. Put the answer into the app and you can get out of here.”
“What did he say?” Manny asked.
Francine paused the recording and Caelan turned to look at Manny’s shoulder. “He said this was a stupid riddle. A stupid cache. The riddle wasn’t really a challenge, especially the last one. He also said he could create a much better cache.”
“Well, I don’t know what the answer is.” Vinnie didn’t appear embarrassed. Just puzzled.
“Let me guess,” Daniel said. “It’s ‘envelope’.”
“Hah!” Vinnie slapped his thigh. “I get it. Only one letter in an envelope.”
The corner of Caelan’s mouth twitched.
“Ready to watch the rest?” Francine waited for me to nod before she continued the recording. It moved as if Jace was shaking his head. He entered the word ‘envelope’ into the app, put his phone away and signed.
“He said he’s going home to upload everything and have lunch,” Caelan said before his recorded voice replied, “We’re registered as first to get to this cache. We’re on top, man.”
Jace signed.
“Me too. I’m going to have milk and white cookies. I’m too hungry to cook anything now. Maybe tonight for dinner.”