Nicholas leads us to the surveillance room, which is located in a discreet section of the estate, top floor along with the Mayor's study. The room serves as the central monitoring hub for the Reyes family's extensive security system.

The walls are lined with high-resolution monitors displaying feeds from over fifty cameras strategically placed throughout the estate. A large, sleek console in the center of the room houses the main control system and recording equipment. Comfortable chairs are around the control system for security personnel. In the other side of the room is a separate workstation for reviewing and enhancing recorded footage.

"The CCTV cameras have night vision, motion detection, and facial recognition capabilities," Nicholas explains. "The digital video recorder stores footage for thirty days before deleting, but the footage remains on the server. The network is secure, it prevents unauthorized access."

Focusing on the live feed of all the CCTV. "Camera 12 covers the east wing hallway, where Maggie's bedroom is located," he says, tapping the screen that's displaying an empty hallway. He moves to tap another camera. "Camera 23 monitors the garden and patio area, where Maggie often spends her time when she isn't in her room, and that focus on the main entrance and driveway."

"Is there a place cameras don't cover?" I ask as I study the monitors. It's showing everywhere, but I don't see the lake anywhere. Nicholas mentioned a lake.

"The back, sir. No one goes there," he answers. "Behind the fence is the woods, and we've checked, no sign of her."

No camera in the back because no one goes there? That is a fucking stupid excuse.

"We'll see," I murmur. "Can you show me Maggie on the day she went missing?"

Nicholas nods at the man we met inside in the room, sitting by the control center. "My team and I are responsible for monitoring the surveillance room, and we've managed to track her movement."

The man by the control center types on the keyboard. I walk to the center and stand close to the man, watching as the footage appears on the screen in front of him. My gaze shift to the corner of the screen where the time and date are displaying. The date is December 24, time ten minutes to six. The video shows a door open and a female steps out in black leggings, purple sweatshirt, white trainers. Her blonde hair packed in a ponytail. She turns around, the camera catching her face. The good man behind the screen pauses the video and zooms. It is indeed Maggie.

He plays it and continues.

"First sighting that morning," Nicholas says as she walks away. The next camera shows her leaving the house, jogging through the main entrance. Camera 12 goes forward, my eyes go to the time and date, same day but different time, ten to seven. "She goes on a jog every morning for exactly one hour."

She's time conscious.

"You'll show me the trails she passes every day," I tell Nicholas, who nods.

The camera goes forward to eight o'clock where another blonde, slim girl walks toward Maggie's room, she stops in front of Maggie's room and catches the doorknob, she hesitates for a moment before rapping her knuckle against the door.

"That's Irina, the housekeeper's daughter. She did Maggie's room that morning," Nicholas offers the information without me asking.

"Does Irina often do Maggie's room?" I ask him.

"She helps around the house, mostly the garden. Olga, her mom, wasn't feeling too well that morning."

I ask. "What is the relationship between Irina and Maggie?" as Maggie opens the door and steps out, she pauses for a few seconds and whispers something to Irina, her lips curls in a wicked smirk before walking past Irina, her shoulder bumping Irina's. Irina enters the room and closes the door.

"Go back two minutes," I order, and he does as I say. The video stops when Maggie steps out of the room and whispers something to Irina. I study the video and Irina's body language in reaction to what Maggie had said. Her fist clenches, and after Maggie bumps shoulder with her, her lips part in disbelief. "Go back again and play in slow motion."

He does as I say, I dip my hands into my pocket and lean closer to get a read on her lips to get what she's saying. "Go back again," I repeat, and move my lips with hers. "He's mine. I won the boy, you keep the man." My lips moves but my words aren't audible. I straighten my posture and say, "next sighting."

The camera shows Maggie walking to the dining room. She sits and eats: omelet with ketchup, toast and orange juice. I monitor the timestamp. She uses seventeen minutes. When she's done eating alone, she removes her phone from her pocket and presses for another twenty minutes before getting up and walking to her room. In all the forty-four minutes she spent out of her room, she didn't interact with anyone or see anyone except Irina.

Going back to the Camera 12 when Irina walks out of Maggie's room with a trash bag. She doesn't come out again until 3:47 in the afternoon, she's changed from her earlier outfit, now wearing a blue jean with lilac turtleneck and matching blue denim jacket, her hair down her shoulder.

We track her movement from her room to the main entrance, where the camera stops. The feed ends.

"That's it?" I ask Nicholas.

"Yes sir. No one knows if she came back in"

3:47.

I face Vera, who's giving me a knowing look. "Can we have the room?"

Nicholas nods and faces the other man in the room and tilts his head to the side, gesturing they leave. After they've gone and close the door behind them. Vera is quick to remove her backpack and takes out her tablet. She moves to the control center and connects her tablet to it before taking a seat.

Vera is my tech expert. She has mad hacking skills that have helped us in the past. "Are we about to commit felony?" She asks as she sets up her work space.

Hacking into the city surveillance system can lead to legal repercussion such as felony charges. "Wilcox said everything is at our disposal, as long as we find Maggie," I remind and assure her, watching her head bobs as she gets ready. "And don't get caught."

She tsks and rolls her eyes. "One time." She holds a finger up. That makes me chuckle.

The control center is also surrounded with screens and cables. Vera begins to work her magic, using her advanced tools and techniques to breach the city's surveillance system.

I shift behind her and watch her finger types away on the keyboard, my gaze shifts to the screen to see random letters and words popping up, scrunching my nose as I pretend to understand what's happening.

At one point, she scoffs. "Secured network, my ass," she murmurs. "You should tell the Commissioner and mayor that they need to improve their network connection. The system's firmware is flawed and vulnerable." Using her specialized software to exploit the vulnerability she mentioned, the password cracks, letting her gain access. "I'm in."

The first thing she does is gain administrative access to avoid being caught on the system. This way we can sweep through it without anyone ever detecting we were here. Vera starts navigating the system, locating the specific cameras and feeds she needs to track Maggie's movement. She downloads and encrypts the footage before disconnecting her tablet from the system and returning it to the way it was.

She gets up and comes to stand beside me, her fingers typing her tablet. "I'm running her image through the facial recognition software and inputting it on the system." The systems begin to load with Maggie's image with her picture at the corner of the screen.

When it finishes loading, the screen is displaying video. In which we see Maggie walking along the iconic Shadowbrook Bridge. From the position of the camera, we can't see her face, just her side view with her arms hugging herself. The video stops when she gets to the middle.

"This is the only video of Maggie that day," Vera mentions. "Nicholas said she knows how to evade being caught on camera. Someone with that skill ran away, I'm telling you."

The timestamp on the video before it stops is 4:30p.m. Which means she went straight to the bridge directly from home.

"Let's go," I tell Vera and swivel toward the door.

We find Nicholas and the man in charge of the control center outside waiting. "Shadowbrook Bridge. How are the cameras there?"

"A heavy storm took them out. It's being repaired," he answers.

There's noway to know where she went from there because the surveillance only has that footage of her. Did she take that path on purpose because she knows the camera won't catch her or is it something else?

"The back."

Nicholas nods and extends his hand in the direction of the staircase, gesturing for us to come with. Vera slings her backpack on her shoulder and follows Nicholas down the stair back to the first floor. We go out the front door, my sight sweeps the area as we go, getting to the backyard, the place I believe was once as beautiful as the front now shows signs of neglect. The lush green grass is overgrown, and weeds sprout from the cracks in the pavement.

A brick fence encloses the yard. It's standing approximately six feet tall. While the structure is intact, it bears scars of wear and tear. The scattered gaps, like missing teeth, mar the fence's otherwise uniform surface. About a dozen bricks are missing, leaving rectangular voids that allow glimpses into the world beyond the estate.

Despite the missing bricks, the fence remains standing, its foundation seemingly sturdy. Ivy and vines have begun to claim the gaps, weaving a natural repair. Or at least that what it seems like.

The fence surrounds the entire property and since I've been walking in this directing and getting a glimpse of the fence from the entrance, this section is the only part with missing brick, and the way the missing spots are, it's easy for someone to climb up. Almost like someone deliberately removes those bricks.

Releasing a small sigh, I walk towards the brick fence and place my hand on the warm reddish-brown brick. I move my hand up the hole in front of my face before lifting my leg and sticking it in the hole, then I climb up. Once reaching the top, I balance, taking a sit on it and giving the backyard another look. Seeing things from a new perspective.

The yard features a large oak tree that shade the northwest corner. A rusty garden bench sits near the fence. Overgrown bushes conceal a small garden, and a weathered wooden gate that hangs crookedly. The yard is abandoned and I don't get why.

Turning my head to the other side of the forest. The dense foliage with towering trees, underbrush thick with thorny shrubs and vines. The sound of bird chirping, winding singing as they carry the leaves reaches me.

"Mr. Specks. Do you have idea if Maggie comes here?" I ask before facing him. "You said she jogs every morning for an hour. Does her distance reach here?"

"No, sir." His voice carries the same tone as his facial expression and body language. "Maggie never comes here."

Interesting.

"I'm going down," I announce, and swing my leg to the other side and jump down, landing on my feet with a bend of my body. Rising up to my full length, my eyes glue on the narrow, winding muddy path.

Scanning the area around, my lands on the half smoked cigarette on the ground near the fence. "Vera, get me forensics," I shout.

Hearing a scoff in response before the low thud sounds beside me, I glance to see Vera's backpack, then the tip of her converse comes to the view in the lowest missing hole as she climbs up and jump over the fence landing on her feet.

"You just like saying that, don't you? Get me forensics," she mimics my tone as she gets on one knee in front of her backpack, opens and produces a pair of blue latex gloves and the transparent evidence bag. "You're welcome," she says.

Taking the things from her, she reaches into her backpack again and takes out a digital camera.

I slip the glove into my hand and remove the cigarette from the ground, bringing it close to my face to inspect, sniffing with my nose. Pushing my hand in Vera's direction. "Tell me what you see and smell."

Vera and I began working almost seven years ago, and it was by chance. She'd just left the FBI where she worked as a consultant in the tech department, a role she wasn't good at. She prefers being in on the action rather than advice from the sidelines. We're partners but she rarely inspect the crime scene because it isn't her job, but she's been showing interest in how I do what I do, and if she's going to make a great Private Investigator like I know she would, she needs to starts seeing through the illusion instead of telling me what she thinks because assumption based on uncertain fact is dangerous, it can ruin the case before getting to the truth.

She tilts her head to inspect the cigarette, tucking her lips inward like she does when she's nervous. "I see a half-smoked cigarette and-" she scrunches her nose. "smell something musty." She looks at me, her brown eyes shining with hope. "Did I do well?"

"Three out of ten points." I shift closer to her and lower my hand to keep the cigarette between us. "You see, the butt." Showing her the butt of the cigarette and graving my other hand over it, "It's brittle due to dryness. The paper color has faded, it's yellowish due to oxidation, and you can see it starting to disintegrate, you can see the nicotine inside even though you can't really smell it because it's weak." I pull back and open the evidence bag to put the cigarette. "The estimating age of this, if I'm to make an educated guess, is a week."

I stand up and fold the evidence bag in six, and tuck in my pocket of my black trench coat before taking off the gloves and stuffing it in with the bag while she takes a picture of the sight, including the first missing holes where there are signs of burns from a cigarette on the brick. Vera gets up and moves with me as I turn along and begin trailing the winding path, my head down, eyes searching frantically for clues or anything.

"Stop!" I tell Vera, holding my hand out beside me to stop her from moving forward. "Look, footprints," I say and points at it.

"Two sets," she adds.

She's right. Two different sets of prints comes from the right direction of the forest. Just come, no sign of the print going.

Vera takes pictures of the print while I do the estimation of the size. "Size ten all-star converse and size seven and half boot." Maggie was wearing a boot when she left the house. Could it be possible she came back through here? Or is this someone else?

"We need to be sure," Vera says and hands me her camera while she rummages through her backpack for her tablet. She swipes it unlock and clicks on the Footprint Measure. she bends her back and takes a picture of prints. She rises and comes to stand beside me, bringing the tablet between to let us see the result together.

The image of the first print, which is the predicted size 10 converse, is displayed, the result beside it. Length: 11.5 inches. Width: 4.25 inches. Heel-to-Toe length: 10.5 inches. Ball-to-Heel length: 7.5 inches. Pattern: Converse's distinctive circular pattern with 33% spacing. Size 10 All Star Converse (Male).

Vera scoffs when she can see I'm right, she swipes her finger on the screen and the other image comes on. Length: 9.5 inches. Width: 3.5 inches. Ball-to-Heel length: 6.25 inches. Pattern: Lug sole with 20% spacing and rectangular tread.

"Are we assuming one belongs to Maggie?"

"What do I always say about assumption?"

She rolls her eyes. "Let's go back." She clicks her tablet and returns it to her backpack, then takes the camera back, putting it inside.

We return to the house, going the same way we came to see Nicholas still standing in his earlier spot.

"Mayor Reyes is ready for you now," he informs us.

It's about damn time.

******

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hello!

How are you doing? Thank you for reading this chapter.

Two questions.

Are you ready to meet Maggie Reyes?

What do you think: did she run away or...?