After several minutes, during which he paused at the magazine rack, he put back the latest issue of Sports Illustrated and sauntered over to the register to request a pack of cigarettes. His voice sounded normal, as Kaylene had said, no accent. But he had a mark or bruise or something on the web of his hand between his fingers and thumb.

Amarok had Garret stop the playback. “What’s that?”

“A tattoo. But there wasn’t much to it, just some dots. Pretty stupid, if you ask me.”

Now that he could see it close up, he knew what it was. “It’s a prison tattoo.”

Garrett stroked his beard thoughtfully. “How do you know?”

“They’re common enough. It signifies that he’s served time. The four dots on the outside represent the walls of the prison and the dot inside represents the prisoner.” Impatient to get on with it, he gestured for Garrett to hit Play and watched as the van guy handed Garrett the money for the cigarettes, put the change in the small dish near the register and walked out. The date stamp on that video segment read 1:05 p.m. “Didn’t you say you have an outdoor camera in the eaves?”

“I do.”

“Can you switch to that?”

“Sure. Just a sec.” After a few keystrokes and some time spent searching for the appropriate segment, Amarok was looking at the carpet-cleaning van Kaylene had described. The unknown man climbed inside, took out a cigarette and sat in the driver’s seat to smoke it. When he was done, he tossed the butt onto the pavement and backed out.

Amarok grabbed Garrett’s arm, which caused Makita, ever watchful that it might be time to work, to come to his feet. “Freeze it there.”

“What do you see?” he asked.

“The license plate.”

“But isn’t it too small to read?”

It was. Amarok couldn’t make out a single letter or digit. “Can’t you zoom in?”

“I haven’t used this program enough to know how to do much more than click on it if I get an alert. But there’s got to be a way.”

Amarok certainly hoped so. He could use a break. Problem was … blowing up the freeze-frame could make it too pixelated to read even after he spent the time to make it happen.

But what else could he do? Without this, he had nothing.

Anchorage, AK—Wednesday, 12:15 a.m. AKDT

The television droned in the background as Emmett Virtanen did fifty push-ups, then a hundred burpees, in sets of twenty-five since those were so grueling, and fifty squats. He was stronger than ever. He’d relapsed when it came to smoking, but he wasn’t going to be too hard on himself over that. He’d only picked up cigarettes again since accepting this shitty job. Regardless of the damage the nicotine did to his lungs, it helped take the edge off his nerves and, without that, he didn’t think he could get through the interminable wait.

It wasn’t that he minded breaking the law. But harming a defenseless woman? Especially a pregnant woman? That was beneath him. That fell under the slimy bastard category of pedophiles, wife-beaters and rapists—the kind of men he’d targeted in prison. He’d actually killed a dude who’d fondled and raped the young boys he coached, and he was proud of it. As far as he was concerned, he’d done the world a favor.