Brett sighed again. “I feel like all we’re doing right now is talking about loose threads that aren’t connecting. There has to be something that connects it all, and to be honest, the only answer I have is Venus.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “It all leads back to me, but I don’t getwhy. That’s what’s pissing me off.”
He wanted to go to him and wrap him in his arms, but he refrained. “We’ll figure it out. We will.” He gave a small smileand headed over to Sam, who was already watching the wedding video over again. “Any luck?”
“Not yet. Can you show me your trick?”
“Sure.”
They spent the next hour going through every frame of the video, even though they didn’t necessarily need to do it from the beginning. When they got to the part where the guest jumped, Felix rewound it and then zoomed in and covered the part of the screen that showed the guest.
“Now we watch it again, but we don’t know exactly when the guest jumps, so we need to look at anything that happens from here.”
They watched it, and Felix saw it, but he waited to see if Sam did.
“Again,” Sam said, leaning closer.
Felix took it back and started it again.
“There,” Sam said, pointing to the corner of the screen where Felix had seen the change in the image.
“Exactly.” There was a metal bowl on the shelf one minute, but it was nudged and fell, only to disappear a second later. “Using that as a guide, we might be able to figure out how big the frame of this thing is.”
“Do you think it was a blanket or something more solid?” Sam asked.
“If we slow this down…” He did so as he spoke. “You can see here, just as the bowl begins to disappear, there is a straight line. I think it’s a frame. It’s damn good,” he muttered. “And it would definitely hide anyone behind it.”
“But then, if it shows what is directly behind it, why could no one see the grave being placed?”
Felix tilted his head. “I’m assuming it’s so clever—or the user is—that it can be used to take a video of the background and use that instead. It’s the only way I can think they could get it done.”He shrugged. “Well, we’ve figured that out now, so let’s get onto these traces. Do you want to help, or do you need to get going?”
“I can help. Thanks for this, by the way. I enjoy computers, but I’m not completely confident with them yet. I was struggling when you weren’t here, I’ll admit. Even with your dad’s friend helping.”
Felix grinned. “I’ll get you up to speed in no time. We can never have too many tech whizzes.”
They spent several hours tracing the calls and listening to the audio. Neither of them recognised the voices, but when the locations came back, Felix bit back a curse. Either someone knew how to reroute locations—which was highly likely because of all the other tech they had use of—or someone in Felix’s house sold him out.
“They’re too fucking good!” Felix shouted, pushing away from the desk and pacing across the room, his hands raking through his hair.
The creaking of Brett’s chair preceded him. “What’s wrong?” Brett asked, coming to stand near him, and it took all his focus to keep himself from launching at him.
“All the calls trace back to my house.” Felix stared at him. “I doubt very much they actually did. I have the program working to debug the location in case it was rerouted from somewhere else, but it’s going to take ages.”
“Talk to me about all this technology they’re using. What is it? Where does it come from? Who has it? Like, is it easy for people to get hold of or expensive?” Brett said, leaning against the table.
“It’s all super expensive. In all honesty, the only people likely to have this are billionaires or…the military,” Felix reluctantly admitted.
Brett nodded. “And are there specific areas within the military that are likely to have it more than others?”
Felix paused, thinking through the question. “Technically, anyone within the military would have access to it because it belongs to them, but I doubt anyone below a certain clearance would have access touseit.” He knew where Brett was going with the questions, and he sighed. “Yes, a Lieutenant Colonel would have that access, and not only that, the department would have access, too.”
Brett nodded, staring at the floor. “Another checkmark in the box leading to Venus,” he muttered. “Okay, anything else?”
Felix’s phone rang before he could answer, and he checked who it was before answering. “Austin? Everything okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. Why is there some guy here asking to take my laptop?”
Felix sighed. “Because we have evidence that a photo you had on there was sent to someone else—with or without your knowledge—and we need to figure out if anything else was done on it.”
Austin was silent for a moment. “Fuck. I have everything on there, Felix.Everything. I’ll let him take it, but only you can have access to it. Got it?”