It didn’t look so good to Pike. The camera was parallel to the street to focus on visitors who were in a small alcove at Laine’s front door. This left its field of view limited. The right third of the screen was the steel door. The center third was the alcove wall directly opposite the camera where a visitor would stand when they pressed the bell. The left third of the screen showed a narrow wedge of street in the camera’s peripheral background. If they were going to see anything useful, it would be in this narrow wedge.

Pike said, “Murky. It’s hard to see anything past the wall.”

“Think positive. This was shot at about eleven-fifteen last night with infrared light. The background will brighten up during the day.”

Cole crossed his arms and glanced over again.

“You want to look for the killer?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, think about it. Seven days means we have one hundred sixty-eight hours here. Fast-forward runs about eight times the real-time speed, so it will take us twenty-four hours to watch what’s here if we go back to the beginning. You really want to spend that much time looking for a guy we won’t recognize?”

Pike thought he could narrow the time.

“We can start smaller. The day they went missing, I checked their house around ten and you were there about one. Whoever jimmied the window did it during those three hours. Three hours isn’t so bad.”

Cole nodded, but it was a slow nod, and Pike knew he was thinking. Cole thinking was a good thing because he came up with good ideas.

“Tell you what, let’s start earlier that morning. If you’re right about the killer casing their place, he might have made two or three passes before he entered the property. He also might have followed Wilson home from his shop, so we might catch him on the follow. You see?”

Pike nodded. Good ideas.

“Also, if we get a glimpse of the abduction, we might see what kind of vehicles were involved and get an idea what condition Dru and Wilson were in when they were taken. This might help us find them even though Mendoza and Gomer are dead.”

“Start whenever you want.”

Pike wanted to get on with it.

Cole used the skip-reverse button to jump back through the recording in one-hour increments until the morning of the abduction. As the still images moved backward in time from night into day, Pike was relieved to see the images gained clarity, depth, and color.

When the time counter showed AM05: 13:42 on the morning of the abduction, Cole clicked the play button, then increased the playback speed. Though dim in the early-morning light, the real-time image now grew sharper. The landscape remained frozen, but the ambient light changed and colors grew richer as the time counter advanced.