“We should have her going in and out in the same file. What time did she come in? Just after seven thirty? I’ll speed it up.”

Frost saw a steady stream of cars entering the ramp in fast motion. When the on-screen clock approached the time at which Christie Parke entered the ramp, Arne slowed the video down to normal speed. Frost watched two more cars turn into the garage, and then, after a gap of about ninety seconds, he recognized Christie’s burgundy Honda Civic and matched the license plate. The car stopped at the ticket machine, and he saw a woman’s slim bare arm reach from the window to take a ticket.

“Freeze it,” Frost said.

The video motion stopped.

“Can you zoom in?”

“A little, but this isn’t high-def.”

Arne was right. By the time he’d enlarged the video to make out the front window, the features of the driver were unrecognizable. Even so, the woman’s general look was consistent with the photographs Frost had seen of Christie Parke.

“Okay, keep going,” Frost said.

He watched the car disappear. There was another minute-long gap before the next vehicle entered the ramp. He waited to see a few more cars turn into the garage, and then he asked Arne to fast-forward the video to Christie’s departure time. At that time of the morning, the exit lane was mostly unused. The only departing vehicle he saw was Christie’s Civic, which pulled up to the payment machine at 7:49 a.m.

“Maybe she forgot something,” Arne suggested. And then he whistled. “Whoa.”

“Freeze it!” Frost said.

Arne wasn’t fast enough, and he had to back up the video. Then he stopped the playback just as an arm reached from the window of the Civic to insert the ticket in the payment machine. It was the same car—Christie’s car. But Christie wasn’t driving. The arm they saw was covered by the sleeve of a black sweatshirt, and the hand with the ticket was protected by a surgical glove.

“That don’t look like her,” Arne muttered.

“No, it sure doesn’t. What other cameras do you have in the ramp?”

“We’ve got a camera on each aisle on each floor.”

“I need to see where she parked,” Frost said.

“Yeah, sure, let’s take a look.”

Arne went back to the archives and selected a camera focused on the first aisle on the next level down. Only seconds after she arrived in the garage, Christie’s Civic drove into view on the down ramp and passed a full slate of parked cars and disappeared. Arne tracked her back up the next aisle and down another level.

“There,” Frost said.