Beach Blanket Homicide (Lucy McGuffin, Psychic Amateur Detective 1)

Cindy pulls an empty chair up to her desk. I place Paco on my lap, and we both look on as she taps on her computer screen. “It should come up any minute.”

A series of black and white images appear. “See,” she says, pointing to the top of the screen, “here’s the date and time.” The date reads November 3 and the time is set at 11:55 pm. We watch for the next five minutes as nothing happens. Then there’s a shot of Abby walking along the side of the building. She stops at the door, jiggles the lock and walks in.

“So the door was already open,” I say to myself.

Cindy fast-forwards to twelve thirty, when Sebastian shows up. He stands in front of the door, and even though the camera angle doesn’t show his face clearly, I can tell by his body language that he’s hesitant to walk inside. But after a few seconds, he opens the door and enters the building.

Nothing else happens for the next few minutes or so. At precisely twelve thirty-five, Sebastian walks out the building through the same door.

“That’s all there is to see,” Cindy says.

Something here isn’t right. Only I’m not sure what it is.

“What about earlier? How far back has anyone looked?”

“I just told you. That’s all there is.”

I still. “You mean, that’s all the security footage that’s available? From any of the doors?”

Cindy nods. “The system was getting revamped, and the cameras weren’t fully operational until just a few days ago.”

I remember now that during the rec center celebration Gus said something along those lines.

“So there could be lots of people who came and went at some other time or through other doors, but they weren’t caught on camera?”

“Sure. I mean, yeah, who knows?”

Except the footage doesn’t show anyone else entering or leaving the building. Which means that Sebastian is the last person who saw Abby alive.

Ha! No wonder I thought Travis was lying to me. He purposely misled me about the security footage because he wanted me to get Sebastian to tell him what he and Abby were doing in the building. That sneaky little…

I begrudgingly have to admire his tactics.

“Can I see the footage one more time?”

We rewatch the film. This time I’m on super alert for any little thing. Only nothing stands out.

Paco nudges me with his nose.

“Not now, sweetie.”

He nudges harder.

“Paco, what do you—” I glance down at him. He looks back at me with those sweet brown eyes, and I swear he’s trying to tell me something. If I’ve learned anything over the past week, it’s that I should listen to this little dog. “Do you mind if we watch it again?”

Cindy shrugs. “Why not?” She sets the recording back. Five minutes later, we watch once more as Abby goes through the motion of trying the lock and walking through the door.

“Holy wow,” I mutter. “Can you freeze that?”

“What? Do you see something?” Cindy pushes the pause button.

I turn to look at her. “When I found Abby, Paco was with her.”

“Poor tyke. It must have been traumatic for him.”

“Yeah, but don’t you see? According to the footage, Abby goes into the rec center, but she’s alone. The dog wasn’t with her. Which means Paco must have already been in the rec center when she got there.”

“Are you sure about that?”