Then he came into view.

“Oh, my God.”

“You see?”

She saw.

“It doesn’t mean anything. Just that he was there. You can’t think he…”

No. She didn’t. She couldn’t even begin to fathom that he’d had anything to do with the kidnapping and murder of that teenage salesclerk.

But her brother was on that tape. He had been in that mall, a few doors down from the store where the victim worked, only days before the last murder.

“Have you called him?”

Her father shook his head, though the agony in his eyes revealed just how much that had cost him. He loved his son. It must have taken every bit of willpower he had to remain the lawman and not the father.

“I need to call Dean.”

“No!”

“Dad, look, neither of us believes for one minute that Tim had anything to do with this. And I am sure we can prove it. There’s a lot you don’t know about the case. A whole lot. One short search of his apartment and they’ll see that he doesn’t even own a computer.” She hesitated. “Right?”

He shook his head. “Not while he lived here. And not as of the last time I visited him at his place a few weeks ago.” More proof that would help her brother. Because whoever the Reaper was, he had a whole lot of Internet knowledge and the time and equipment to use it. Her brother didn’t fit that description.

“What’s a computer got to do with anything?” her father asked.

“It doesn’t matter. The point is, he’s not techno-savvy. He’s not the man they’re looking for. But his being at that mall might mean something, and the FBI needs to know about it. Maybe someone sent him there.” She swallowed. “A friend. Maybe someone told him about this girl and asked him to look in on her. It could be just about anything, but we have to find out.”

Her father’s eyes filled. She’d only ever seen him really cry twice, once when telling Stacey how much she looked like her late mother, and when they’d first visited Tim at the vet hospital after he’d been shipped back from Iraq. Now he was crying again. “Please. Just wait. Give your brother a day to figure out what this means before you bring in the FBI.”

“You don’t understand,” she said as gently as she could, her own heart breaking as she realized what she had to do. “There’s a little boy’s life at stake. A child is going to die this weekend if this perpetrator isn’t found.”

He fell back into his chair, his gnarled hands rising to his face, wiping away his tears. “All right.”

Stacey took his hand in hers carefully, lovingly. “He didn’t do this. I have no doubt about it. Which makes it a lot easier for me to pick up that phone and call someone who is a very good agent. And a very good, decent man.”

Dad looked up, hope in his expression. “You trust him?”

She nodded. “I do. Completely.”

Maybe that was nuts, but it was true. She hadn’t known Dean long, but she had already opened herself up to him more than she’d ever opened up to another person in her life. And hadn’t regretted it for one moment.

“I’m going to make the call. Then you and I are going to back up and watch every second of every camera angle in that mall. There’s more to find. Now let’s try to find it.”

With Stacey unavailable, Dean had hooked back up with Stokes and Mulrooney, who’d been unable to reach Randy Covey. The late afternoon and evening had proved frustratingly futile. They had gone down the list of registered trucks, cross-referencing it with men who’d been at the club, any who had a violent history, any who’d known Lisa.

The list had still been too damned long.

Despite knowing Stacey didn’t want them to, they tried to see Warren Lee. They’d pulled up to the gate at the end of his long driveway and had been greeted by the man’s voice through a call box. He’d refused to let them enter. He’d refused to come out. They could do nothing more without a warrant, unless Stacey could talk the man into town, as she’d suggested.

By the end of the day, the frustration was wearing on all of them. He, Stokes, and Mulrooney shared that frustration equally and didn’t take it out on one another. There were no egos here; he saw no competition, like he’d sometimes experienced in other agencies. They were completely united in their desire to save some unknown child’s life.

Maybe they really were becoming a tight-knit team-something he hadn’t been sure would happen when he’d first met his new coworkers a month and a half ago and had realized just how different they all were.

Even the CATs who weren’t in town remained active in the investigation. Wyatt had been in constant contact. Lily had apparently discovered something about the way the money was moved and felt sure she’d have new information when the banks opened in the morning.

But they didn’t even know that they had until morning.

There was one more interesting development involving Stacey’s brother’s friend, Mr. Covey. Not hard evidence, but something to keep in mind. Dean was anxious to share it with her. So when he got her call asking him to come alone to her father’s house right away, he wasted no time.

She answered the door immediately. “We’ve got something.”

Her voice sounded different. On the phone twenty minutes ago, she’d sounded exhausted, resigned even. Now, despite the paleness of her face and the circles under her eyes, she looked energetic. Keyed up. As though whatever she had, it was big.

“Come in here.” She dashed down the short hallway into her father’s kitchen, beckoning him to the laptop. Mr. Rhodes stood by the counter, nodding in welcome but saying nothing.

“You’ve spotted someone on the surveillance video?”

“It’s my brother,” Stacey explained.

She said it so matter-of-factly, he didn’t really have time to process it at first. When the words did hit his brain and sink in, he felt an explosion of emotion. Elation that they might have found their unsub. Desolation at what this could mean for Stacey.

Stacey was clicking the keyboard. “See? There he is. He was in the mall, but he wasn’t stalking her.”

“Stacey, I know he’s your brother…”

She threw a hand up, stopping him from speaking. “No, listen, please. Tim told me something a few days ago that explains this.” She clicked a window on the surveillance video, splitting the screen to show two camera views. “We’d been looking at the interior, the closest entrance, and the parking lot. We weren’t looking behind the store.” She tapped the tip of her finger on one side of the screen. “Watch!”

He watched. A semi truck was backed up to a loading ramp, two young men wheeling big, TV-size boxes up it. While they made their second trip, a man rounded the cab from the passenger side.

It was Tim, the brother of the woman he’d come to care so much about. “I see.”

“Shh.”

Tim, easily identifiable because of his scars, walked to the driver’s-side door and waited for the driver to hop down.

That driver was Randy Covey.

“Tim told me he’d been doing a couple of ride-alongs with Randy lately. That’s why he was in that mall. He was just a passenger with no say in the destination.”

She cued the video ahead a minute, fast-forwarding through the two men having a brief conversation, then Randy pointing toward the mall entrance. Tim went in, appearing a few moments later on the other side of the screen: the interior camera. Wandering to the food court, he ordered something from a fast-food shop. He appeared completely oblivious to everything except grabbing some takeout.

Dean focused on the other half of the screen.

While Tim conducted the errand Randy had sent him on, his good buddy watched the workers finish unloading. When they were done, he shoved a clipboard over to be signed, then waved at them as they disappeared inside. Once the rolling door was closed, he quietly stalked the rear parking lot, peeking into Dumpsters, easing closer to the back employees-only entrances of the stores closest to his rig.