Detective Sam

Lance Crawford still hasn't contacted me; he's not been in his office, and the four times that I stopped by his home, he wasn't there. I put his place under forty-eight-hour surveillance.

While packing up for the day, my computer dings with a message. It's been four days since I dropped off the items I collected from Double Faced Advertising's office, where the intern they knew as Travis Johns worked.

I pulled up the email, and his fingerprints were not in IAFIS (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System). Damn it! I lean back in my chair. If I had a photo of him, I could run it through the facial recognition software.

It's been four days since I requested the video feed from traffic cameras around the location of Miss Henson's office and home. They said it could take up to five days to get it to me. I'm hitting a wall every which way I turn, and it's starting to piss me off.

Officers went door to door at the office building and Miss Henson's neighborhood. No one saw or heard a damn thing. This fucking case is going cold quick. I'm bound and determined not to let that happen. Someone knows something; I need to find them.

While closing my laptop, I get another ding indicating I have another message. I pull up the message. It's from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). I quickly open it and see that several video clips are attached. I had given them a considerable timeframe of 24 hours of video for the day that Miss Henson went missing. I have my work cut out for me.

Finally closing my laptop, I go home, stopping to get takeout, knowing there's a long night ahead of me. I walk into my home, put my dinner on my table in the kitchen, and leave my computer there. I head into my room to change out of my suit and into gym shorts and a tee shirt.

I returned to my kitchen to start a pot of coffee for my long night, set up my laptop, and began downloading the videos I received from Caltrans. While the videos download, I eat my burger and fries dinner. It's not the healthiest food choice, but I allow myself this treat occasionally. Tonight, my dinner is my reward for all of the time that I'll spend on this laptop tonight.

Surprisingly, the Caltrans's camera is in the perfect position to see the front of Henson's home since they're on the corner. The rest of my night is going over every inch of footage that I can until my eyes stop working and the video starts to be blurry. I finally give up and go to bed, hoping that tomorrow will bring me that lead to break this case wide open.

***

I slept for about four hours and was up, ready to go through the video feed again. Last night, I went through Miss Henson's home footage since that was where the incident occurred. So far, I only saw Miss Henson going into her home around 10:15 a.m., which makes sense since she left the office around 9:30 a.m. I reviewed the footage time-stamped to 6:15 p.m. with no one going in or out of her home. That's the point my eyes gave up.

This morning I began to check out the office footage. I hope to get a good shot of Johns leaving the office to run through the facial recognition program. I waited until this morning because I wanted fresh eyes, and no one could run the software program until this morning.

With my coffee in one hand and my plate of toast in the other, I open up the video close to the office. I should be able to get the image as the person is walking to his vehicle. I fast forward to the time frame that Miss Graham said that Miss Henson had left the office and that Johns was not far behind. My only hope is that I see him walking in the direction that the camera is.

I set it to play beginning at 9:00 a.m. There's a glimpse Benson Easton, and I assume it's Faith Henson with him entering a black limo. Half an hour later, I see Grace Henson leaving, and sure enough, a young man leaves the office fifteen minutes later. I begin taking screenshots of his face.

My plan is to send Faith Henson the best shot of the young man to verify that this man is indeed Travis Johns. Only a moment later, she sent back the verification that I needed. I then forward it to the station for them to run it through the facial recognition database.

Picking up where I left off the night, I searched for someone who invaded the Henson home and took Grace Henson. I fast forward to 6:15 p.m., nothing, 7:00, nothing, 8:00, nothing, 9:20; I notice someone park their car down the block and watch as this person walks up to Henson's door. I see who I assume is Grace; since Faith stayed with Easton, open the door.

I'm literally on the edge of my kitchen chair as I slowly scan through the footage, waiting to see if this person leaves by themselves. Ten nothing, eleven nothing, midnight, I see the front door opening. There's no sign of Miss Henson.

I watched as this person walked back to their vehicle. I then see them returning to the Henson home with a large piece of luggage. Fifteen minutes later, I noticed that person leave the house again, struggling with the luggage. Well, I'll be damned. They stuffed Grace into a piece of fucking luggage!

Now, I'm beginning to question whether Miss Henson is even still alive. Shit, I don't like where this investigation is heading. My goal now is to find out who the hell this person is in this video. I need to see if I can get anything on the vehicle this person is coming from and where they took the suitcase, which I assume holds Grace Henson.

One thing that I know for sure is that I'm going to need help cleaning up this video to give us a better look at the unsub and the vehicle they are using. I decide to pack up and head to the station. I shut down my computer, cleaned my breakfast dishes, and showered.

I arrive at the office and grab a cup of coffee before heading into my office. I open up my computer and send the video clip that concerns me to the forensic video unit. I ask them to focus on the vehicle and unsub. I want to know the unsub's height because I know that Lance Crawford is 6'2", and I need them to get Johns' height information from the office video clip.

The Video Forensic team will hopefully give me a much-needed lead to bring Grace Henson home.

*****