WhiteSpace: Season One (Episodes 1-6 of the sci-fi horror serial) (16 page)

Not now.
 

She had to help Emma first.
 

Cassidy turned from the window and caught her reflection in the glass door of Brady’s bookcase, and hoped she didn’t look half as ghostly, or a quarter as sweaty, as she appeared.

The door opened behind her and Brady entered the office. He sat in his desk and widened his eyes. “You okay?” he said. “You look worse than when I left.” He pulled three tissues from a pastel colored box, then handed them across the desk to Cassidy, along with her phone.

“Thank you,” she said, slipping her phone back into her purse. “I’m fine. Just upset, and worried.”
 

“I understand” Brady said. “We got the picture uploaded to our website, sent out to the local news, and the state’s missing child system.”

“Oh God, we’re gonna be all over TV?” she said.

“Maybe. But you want to find Emma, right?”

“Yeah,” Cassidy said, rubbing her wrist again, imagining the media spotlight shining brightly on her.

“Drug addict twin sister of slain teacher loses child!”

Shit, shit, shit.

Brady had been looking at Cassidy with kinder eyes than usual, but after he returned with her phone, he had a different look to him. A suspicious look reminding her a little of Benson.
 

“I promise we’ll make this our top priority, and I’ll call you immediately if anything comes up.” He handed her his card. “That’s my cell phone, Cassidy. Don’t be afraid to call for anything, okay?”
 

“What number I can reach you at?” he asked, handing her a pen and pad of paper. “Will you be home?”

“I’m going to meet up with Jon Conway,” she said, writing her number down and passing it back to Brady. “He’s going to help me look around the neighborhood, and make some calls and stuff.”

“Good. The Conways are very resourceful,” Brady said. “Like I said, we have limited resources, but I’ve got two officers on it. I also reached out to Paladin to pull CCTV footage from your street to see if we can find anything. Additionally, Paladin has harbor guards out searching the Sound. Paladin has also set up a task force at the port, searching the cars of anyone leaving the island. If someone has taken her, they’re not going to get off the island.”

“What if someone already took her off the island last night? Do you think we’ll find her?” Cassidy asked, afraid like hell that Brady would say no. Cops never promised things they couldn’t deliver, right? And yet, here she was, asking him to do just that.

“We will find her,” Brady said, meeting her eyes. “I promise.”

Cassidy left his office, hoping that this would be the one time she could count on the police. And then a new fear rose to the surface. Would the CCTV footage catch her in the lie that she’d stayed home?

* * * *

CHAPTER 6 — Liz Heller

Hamilton Island, Washington

Thursday
 

September 7

Afternoon…

Liz had to leave the house.
 

She couldn’t stand looking at Katie and feeling the overwhelming guilt, knowing her husband had planned to shoot the girl.
 

Before finding his list, which she hid in the bottom of her bathroom cabinet, she’d tried to tell herself that the shooting was some kind of freak accident. That something must’ve happened to Roger to cause him to snap and shoot his students. Maybe he’d been given drugs by someone or something. None of it made sense otherwise.
 

He didn’t even own a gun, so far as she knew. As much as she tried to think her husband was incapable of murdering anyone, much less the children he taught (he loved teaching, for Christ’s sake!), there was no denying what the list implied. A list that was in his handwriting. A list including the students he murdered. It was deliberate and, even more frightening, planned.

Since all the computers in her house had been confiscated, Liz had to find somewhere else to discover what was on Roger’s flash drive. And this wasn’t the kind of thing she could take to a friend’s house, if she even had any friends since Friday. Nobody had reached out to her. The only phone calls she got were from the media. So she had to find somewhere else to use a computer. Somewhere that wouldn’t attract attention.

She drove to the library, hoping she could use their computers to see, praying there wouldn't be anything on the flash drive which might raise the suspicions of anyone walking behind her.
 

She wasn’t yet sure what she’d do with the list, or the flash drive. She knew she should turn them over to the investigators, but some part of her, most of her, couldn’t. At least not until she knew what was on the flash drive.

Would it be evidence to clear Roger’s name or something to indict him?

Liz parked the car in front of the Hamilton Island Public Library and scanned the parking lot. There were maybe 20 cars, meaning there was a good chance she’d be seen by someone she knew inside. That was the last thing she wanted. She couldn’t handle seeing anyone now, whether they offered condemnation or sympathy. She just wanted to get to the computer station and see what was on the flash drive.

She stepped from the car, slipping the flash drive into her purse, and headed inside the library. As she walked toward the front doors, she took notice of the many Paladin closed circuit television cameras in the parking lot, and no doubt the library. She’d never really given much thought to the way the security firm had turned the island all Big Brother several years ago, until now, when she had something to hide.

She approached the front desk where you had to “rent” a computer by showing your library card. Behind the desk sat Nancy Altaire, an older woman who used to volunteer at her school. They’d never worked directly together, but there was no way Nancy didn’t recognize her immediately. As Liz said “hi,” Nancy looked like she’d just been caught saying a filthy or maybe racist word.

“Hi,” Nancy said with a big fake smile, as though she didn’t know exactly who Liz was, or what her husband had done. “How can I help you?”

“I’d like to use a computer,” Liz said passing her library card across the counter.

“OK,” the woman said, directing Liz to a table with eight computers, four per side. The computer station was smack in the middle of the library, with a clear view of the front desk, and to the rear of the library where some people were sitting at long tables, studying or doing work.

Liz was surprised to see only one person on a computer, an older man who seemed focused on his work. She looked around, didn’t see anyone in the immediate area, and took a seat on the opposite side of the table. Liz was relieved to see privacy screens on the computers. She’d be able to work in relative privacy, assuming someone didn’t come right up behind her or sit too close. The security camera above her was at such an angle that she didn’t think it could see what was on the computer.
 

She looked around the library again, seeing familiar faces, but so far, none had noticed her . . . yet.
 

She reached into her purse, retrieved the flash drive, then slid it into the USB port on the front of the PC. After a moment, a folder icon popped up on the screen. She opened it.

Inside the folder there were more than 100 other folders, all with names and dates stretching back at least three years. A chill ran through her when considering that Roger had been up to something so secretive for three years.

What the hell? Three years?

She clicked on the first folder in the series, the earliest created and almost three years to the day. The folder prompted a password.

Shit.

She didn’t have time to guess at passwords, nor did she want to enter the wrong password and trigger any sort of auto delete procedure, though she wasn’t even sure if that was possible or just something from the movies.

She closed the password prompt and clicked on another folder, then another, each one asking for a password.

She kept going down the list, and started jumping around, skipping folders, clicking at random and hoping one would be unprotected.

A woman sat down two computers to the left of Liz, an older woman she didn’t recognize.
 

Liz edged herself closer to the computer screen, leaning a bit to her side to block the woman’s view without being too obvious, also trying to hide her face, considering it was all over the news. But as Liz leaned one way, Nancy passed by to her right, carrying a book toward the back of the library while glancing over at Liz suspiciously.

Liz turned her attention back to the computer, hoping Nancy wouldn’t come over. Nancy kept walking, but not without glancing back a few times. Liz wondered if the library had a way of recording what she was doing on the computer or the contents of the flash drive.
 

Liz watched as Nancy put the book on a shelf and then walked back to the front of the library and returned to her station.
 

Liz kept searching for an unprotected folder. Not having any luck, she decided to just click on the final folder, with a date of last Tuesday. She was surprised when it opened.

Inside the folder was a video file named “c-7913.mp4.”

She looked around to make sure nobody was paying attention, then pressed play.

The screen was black at first, and for a moment, Liz wondered if the video wasn’t working. She heard a loud shuffling sound, then reached out and turned the volume down on the speakers, looking around again. The woman to her left looked at her, then back at her computer.

As Liz turned back to the screen, she saw the reason the screen was dark, the video was being recorded in the woods.
 

What the?

She heard Roger’s voice, “Just inside this cave,” he said.

Caves?
 

The only caves she knew of on the island were on the north end, fenced off.

She kept watching, wondering what Roger was doing on the north side, and even more so, what he was doing in caves.

The screen went pitch black again for a moment, and then Liz was staring at the inside of the cave, lit by either camera flash or flashlight.
 

“Just ahead,” Roger whispered, as he navigated his way through a tunnel until he reached an opening.

“There they are,” he said, aiming the camera into the darkness. He must’ve realized he was too far away for the camera to capture the light. The screen went black again. When the picture returned, it was bright again and showed two nude bodies face down in the dirt. They looked like men, though one might have been a woman.

Corpses.

Her heart sped up as she looked around, praying no one had seen the screen. Nancy was staring at her from her station. Beside Nancy was a Paladin security guard. Nancy pointed at Liz and the guard looked over.

Oh shit.

Liz started to panic as the guard approached her. He was about 30 yards away.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

Her hand hovered next to the flash drive, ready to yank it out the moment the guard drew closer, but she wanted to see what was on the screen. Had to see what the hell Roger was filming in secret.

Roger’s face appeared in the video, “As I said in the last video, here’s the proof.”

Proof? Of what?

Roger reached down to turn one of the bodies over, the guard now 10 yards away and getting closer.

What is he trying to show?

The Paladin guard was now just a few seconds away.

The video footage bounced and shook as Roger fumbled with the camera and started to bring it back up to reveal whatever it was he was trying to show.

“Mrs. Heller?” the guard said, now just on the other side of the table and about to walk around to her side.

Liz yanked the flash drive from the computer and palmed it, clicking the browser window to restore as the guard rounded the table.

“Yes?” Liz said, smiling, her heart making a new home in her throat.

The guard, a thin and serious looking young man with cold blue eyes, looked down at the computer and then at her. “Ma’am, I need you to come with me.”

Liz tried to bury her rising panic, telling herself that everything was okay. There was no way Paladin knew she had a flash drive, much less what was on it. But she’d never been very good at lying to herself.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Please, come outside. There’s something you need to see.”

Her fear suddenly switched from being busted with the flash drive to something having happened to Alex or Aubrey. A knot formed in her throat at the thought of more tragedy.

She stood, grabbed her purse, and as the guard led the way, slipped the flash drive into her front pants pocket. As they approached the library exit, Liz could feel the eyes on her. Her anonymity was gone, taken by the guard at her side. There was no way she could return to the library today, or maybe even tomorrow, without attracting unwanted scrutiny.