It was almost 10:00 p.m. when they called it a night.
*
Wednesday
Kate and Rodneyresumed their second day of going through Ken’s pervert videos. It made for a soul-crushing day. Meanwhile, Andy, Lilliana, and Owen were set up in another boardroom, going through the first batch of tapes that Kate and Rodney had scoured yesterday. Maybe the other team members would find something they had missed.
Hours later, Kate frowned, looked at Rodney, and said, “Well, we have the DVDs yet too, and those would likely be newer.” Shaking her head, she swore. “Fuck! I’ll stay here and go through them. I don’t want to get up and have to see this shit tomorrow. If we can use anything here, we need to find it now. Leonard, if he’s part of this same vicious group, is out of time.”
“Hell, you’re right,” Rodney said. “Come on then. Let’s get through them.”
*
Thursday, Wee Hours of the Morning
It was aftermidnight by the time Kate and Rodney got to the third-to-last DVD; she had shut down inside, almost numb to the abuse going on in front of her.
From the crying children of every age, barely crawling to about ten years old. And she wouldn’t count on that age being correct either. Some of the children appeared to be fairly stunted. Also mostly a blend of Asian and Caucasian children. What she wasn’t seeing was too many other ethnic groups, but the old black-and-white videos didn’t help.
“Stop!” Rodney said. “Look at that.”
She hit the Stop button, turned to him. “What is it?”
“Back up,” he said, “About thirty seconds.”
While she’d been too numb to notice, he’d caught sight of something. She leaned forward, as she replayed the last thirty seconds. “What is it?”
“That,” he said, “is a different room, in a different house.”
“Sure, and what does that mean?”
“I’m thinking that either he moved, or this is his and that child’s home.”
They quickly went through the video again and then once more. On the third time through, she stopped and said, “That’s a living room.” She got up, walked over to the large screen and tapped at the corner. “Can we get a close-up on this? A street sign is there, which means the house is on a corner.”
“We’ll send this to Forensics and see if they can get it blown up a little more.”
Kate said, “Just use the controls on that and see if we can get anything now.”
They managed to get it blown up enough to see the RD forroadon the sign.
“Can you make out anything else beside it?” she murmured.
“It ends in anE, and I see either aTor anLright before it,” Rodney said.
“Well, that’s something,” she said. “Let’s get somebody from Forensics on this, and we’ll work this angle.”
Feeling better after having found something, they quickly went through the last two videos. When they finally got to the last one, she gasped. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
“It’s our little princess, Candice Ferguson,” she said. “That bastard Ken had her.”
“Are you sure?” Rodney leaned forward and shook his head slowly. “I think you’re wrong. I think it’s a different one.”
She turned and stared at him. “Seriously?”
“I hope so,” he said. “This DVD file is dated more than four months ago.”