“I didn’t tell him at first. I just told him I needed him to come over to the house right away.”
Standing back, Moretti widened his stance, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I thought you told him everything, that he was your ‘right-hand man’? If he’s your sole confidant, why didn’t you confide in him immediately? Wouldn’t you want him to do everything he could to help find your daughter? Why did you keep that information from him all the time it took him to drive over here?”
“Because!” Alexander slammed his fist on the desk, his face flaming. All his training to remain calm and focused during interrogation-type settings had been forgotten. This wasn’t just him keeping information out of the hands of the enemy. This was so much bigger. His entire world was at risk and this agent was doing nothing, except making everyone seem like a suspect when the real culprit was out there somewhere with his daughter. With each breath Alexander took, he feared Melanie could be taking her last, and the lack of action on Agent Moretti’s part frustrated him to no end.
“Because saying it out loud would make it seem real! Because I should have been home last night instead of chasing down a theory on a case that may turn out to be completely pointless! Because I know it’s my fault Melanie’s gone! So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to look through these camera feeds to see if we can find something!”
Alexander’s voice rang out in the room for what seemed like an eternity, then a heavy silence settled between the two men. Agent Moretti remained standing over his shoulder as Alexander continued scanning through the camera feeds. He tried to unclench his jaw and relax his shoulders, but he couldn’t.
“My apologies, Mr. Burnham. I didn’t mean anything by—”
“Yes, you did,” Alexander shot back. “I don’t need you reminding me of what I already know.”
He kept his eyes glued to the laptop screen, watching the time code on the camera feeds race by. He had scanned through hours of footage with no sign of anything suspicious. Every so often, a raccoon would scurry across the cobblestone driveway. The only sound in the room was that of Moretti’s heavy breathing, coupled with the occasional throat clearing that grated on Alexander’s nerves. Each one was a little louder, a little more obnoxious. Just as Alexander was about to lose it and kick him out of the room, there was a subtle knock on the door.
“Come in!” Moretti called out, as if it were his office.
Alexander turned to glare at him, then something on the screen caught his attention. If he hadn’t paused the video when he heard the knock, he probably never would have noticed it. He had been focused solely on looking for some dark figure approaching one of the entrances. What he failed to take into account was the probability that this was a very well-thought-out plan requiring months of preparation.
A man wearing an FBI jacket, jeans, and glasses peeked into the room. “Agent Moretti.”
Alexander looked up briefly before returning his attention to the screen in front of him, trying to hide his interest. He caught his lip between his teeth, rewinding the camera feeds in slow motion to see if his hunch was right.
“Yes. What is it?” Alexander overheard Moretti inquire in the background. His attention remained fixed to the laptop screen, continuing to rewind and fast forward through the camera feed, jotting down the time code displayed. 00:12:36. 00:17:50. 00:23:04. 00:28:18.
“Five minutes and fourteen seconds,” he whispered.
Starting at just before midnight, there was a skip in the video every five minutes and fourteen seconds. During each of those five minute intervals, a raccoon ran across the driveway at the same exact place. He didn’t think it possible, but someone was able to manipulate the video feed to set it on a loop. There were only two or three people who could even log on and access the server.
“We’ve been in touch with the tech team at Mr. Burnham’s security firm,” the agent told Moretti. “They’ve granted our team access to the system information from last night to see if we can find anything suspicious.”
“I already checked the system myself,” Alexander interrupted. “There were no entries at all. The system logs every time someone uses their unique code and fingerprint to enter.”
“In cases like these, where the victim usually knows the suspect, we like to control everything,” Moretti explained. “Someone may have been able to pull this off because they had access to your system and were able to manipulate it.” He turned back to the agent. “What did you come up with?”
“It took a bit of digging. There were a few entries over the past twenty-four hours, but nothing after eighteen hundred hours last night, which is about the same time Mrs. Burnham confirmed she arrived home with her daughter after taking her ice skating. We looked into the database that logs all these entries to see if there were any irregularities.”
“And were there?”
“At first glance, no.”
“But you found something, didn’t you?”
The FBI agent looked at Alexander, hesitating briefly, then back to Moretti. “Yes. We found evidence that an entry into the house had been deleted from the system. At approximately thirty-three minutes past midnight this morning, someone gained access to the house through the front door. The code and fingerprint used belonged to one Leroy Martin.”
Chapter Twelve
December 19
10:15 AM
IN A DAZE, ALEXANDER walked calmly and deliberately down the long corridor to the living room. He wanted to believe it was just someone trying to point the finger at Martin, but how could he argue with the fact that his code and thumbprint were used to gain entry, then deleted?
His footsteps seemed to thunder in his head, the sound of hurried voices in the living room like crashing waves against the shore. Agent Moretti’s words echoed in his mind as he struggled to think clearly. What if he was right? What if Martin was bitter when Alexander left the navy to take over the company? Did Martin really view everything Alexander had as something that should have been his? For the past several years, he had encouraged Alexander to spend more time with his family and away from the office, saying he didn’t want his work to consume his life like it had his father. Alexander had refused over and over again, thinking he was needed. Maybe this was Martin’s final play in getting Alexander to step down.