MARCUS~
06:42 AM
I arrived at the precinct's forensic multimedia lab, my jaw tight and my eyes burning from exhaustion. The hall outside still smelled faintly of cordite from Interrogation Room B.
"Play it again," I told Jude, the lead digital analyst, resting both hands on the back of his chair.
On the high-definition monitor, Jude pulled up the archived CCTV footage from the safehouse arson along Flinton Highway just a few days ago—around the exact time I noticed I'd stopped being followed.
Back then, it was treated as a localized property fire. But with Chris waking up and talking about a laptop hidden in the basement, we were dragging every pixel back into the light.
"We re-ran the perimeter feeds through high-contrast filters," Jude said, scrubbing through the grainy night vision. "It's pitch black, no streetlights on that block. Look here."
