Her Frozen Cry (Detective Amanda Steele)

She turned her head to look at him, the movement putting their faces to within a few inches of each other. “Thanks, Sherlock.”

He smiled. “I’m here for you.”

She turned her attention back to the monitor and played the interior video from the day Lopez’s threat had been sent. She forwarded to the time of the email and paused the playback, her eyes scanning the tables. “Are you seeing anything, anyone, who stands out?” She was searching for a person with a laptop but supposed it could just as easily be someone using a tablet or a phone.

“Nope.”

“Me eith— There.” She pointed to a figure seated at the table near the window. Their back was to them, but given the way their shoulders were curled forward… “Looks like they’re holding a tablet, but for all the good the camera does us. We can’t see their face.”

“Notice the white ball cap?” He put his finger next to Amanda’s, and they both pulled back when they grazed each other’s hand.

The hat, issued to Pixie Winks employees, was on the table, almost out of sight.

“Who are you?” Amanda mumbled. If only she could reach through the screen, grab this person, and turn them around.

“Let the video play out, and we’ll see if we can see their face. If that doesn’t work, we’ll go backwards.”

They did both, but it seemed the person knew exactly where the cameras were positioned and how to avoid them. They’d entered the coffee shop, head down, and beelined for the table. The outside camera didn’t give them much either. The person walked while looking at the sidewalk, never glancing up, and then went off camera.

“Huh.” Trent stood back. “Okay. Well, maybe we’re not completely out of luck. Go back to the point when they’re leaving. They walk out of the shop standing up straight. It’s only coming in that they’re all hunched over.”

“All right.” She wasn’t sure where he was going with this until she finally saw the answer right there on the screen. “The mystery person is about six feet tall,” she said.

“Yep.” He smiled and traced a finger down the monitor, highlighting the height chart decal on the doorframe. “You know, in case someone robs the place…”

So simple. Right in front of me.“I should have thought of that.”

“You should have.” He smirked. “But if you thought of everything, why would you need me?”

She had nothing to say to that. Best she just keep quiet on that subject. “Okay, well, not everything is lost, then. We have the height. This person is also the same shape as the one we saw on the video from Pixie Winks. The person who poisoned Eve? Now, this could be a shot in the dark, but what if this mystery person sent the other emailed threats from here too? If we go back and dig through the messages that Alicia Gordon and Eve Kelley received—ones we feel are similarly worded to Lopez’s—we can look at the video from those times too. Maybe this person slipped up?”

Trent’s eyes lit and widened. “We can hope. Great idea.”

“We’ll see. There’s also the less attractive option.”

“Which is?”

“Well, assuming the mystery figure in the Caffeine Café video is both the killer and the person who was stalking Eve Kelley—which we could assume, as they had a white ball cap—we could watch every weekday morning around the time Kelley gets her coffee. But we could be here all day and night if we do that.”

“We might end up being rewarded with the killer’s identity, though. It’s worth the sacrifice.”

She took a deep breath. If watching hours of video led them to the killer, then it would absolutely be worth it, but there was the chance they’d come away with nothing but lost time. “Fine. We’ll need to take the video footage with us from at least the last week, maybe two, just to cover it. That should be enough.” She asked and answered her own question.

“I’ll get Carla.”

“Thanks. We should see if there’s anything she can tell us about this mystery person.”

“All over it,” he said and left.

Amanda leaned back in her chair, breathing a little easier now that Trent was gone. What the heck was going on with her? Trent was her colleague, nothing more, and never would be. Any feelings she had for him were exaggerated and to be left unexplored. Besides, she had much more important things to keep her busy—starting with finding a killer.

Back at Central, Amanda took the threatening messages that had been sent to Alicia Gordon, and Trent took the ones to Eve Kelley. The manager from Caffeine Café had said she’d never seen the mystery person. Amanda had also shown her Tony’s photo, but she didn’t recognize him either. Her responses didn’t really mean much, though. Carla told them she was too busy to keep tabs on every customer. Amanda and Trent had spoken briefly with the other girls on staff at the time and the result was the same.

Amanda’s mind was on the threat sent to Alicia Gordon—the one that had originally made Eve Kelley sound like their killer.

How dare you sell what isn’t yours to sell? You’ll pay for this.

Amanda pulled the printed email threat from her folder, noticing again the crease in the page caused from the printer. She tried to smooth it out to no avail but noted the date. It had been sent the Friday before Alicia died.

She compared it to the email address used to send Lopez’s threat, and though it was different, that didn’t deter her. The killer could have set up multiple email accounts.

She set about looking at the other threats sent to Alicia, but there weren’t any others that really got the hairs up on the back of her neck. They read more generic and were a few months’ old. None of them were sent from the email address used to send the threat to Lopez.

While she concentrated on the ones sent to Alicia, Trent read the ones sent to Eve. They’d been studying these emails for a few hours when he looked at her over the divider.

“I’ve got something here.” Trent held up a piece of paper, drew it back, and read, “‘You are a liar and deserve nothing! Go back to school.’”

She was hoping for wording far more menacing than that. “Okay, how do you think it applies to what we’re looking for?”

“Eve Kelley says Alicia stole her serum. This person is claiming that is a lie and that Eve deserves nothing—as in, she shouldn’t have been paid off or compensated for something she had no claim to.”

“Or given the right to purchase New Belle,” Amanda added but wondered if they might not be stretching things a bit.

“Exactly. And the ‘go back to school’ part is a direct reference to where the lie had originated—a lie, in the sender’s point of view anyway.”

“Or they’re trying to draw our attention to that time period. Possibly a rabbit hole we could get lost exploring. Regardless, whoever sent this message might have known Alicia and Eve had gone to the same school. That’s also when Eve claims Alicia stole the serum formula,” she recapped.