Page 18 of Sebastian

“Honey, we’re human. We’re going to make mistakes and do stupid shit. Probably me before you. I’ll say or do something that will piss you off or make you cry, and I’ll feel like shit for it. The key to it all is knowing that we have to talk it out, not walk away. That’s the terrible thing that Maddie almost did. Walk away.”

“She might not know it,” said Leif, “but Forrest was thinking about going away for a while to clear his head. He couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong.”

“No!” she gasped. “She would have been crushed.”

“And it would have been her fault,” said Chief. “Your sister is brilliant, but she often reacts too quickly to things. If Forrest had left Belle Fleur for a while, she would have been sitting in her own tears trying to raise four babies alone.”

“Such a stupid mistake. A stupid, stupid…”

They all stared at Em as she looked around the room.

“Mistake?” finished Leif.

“Yes. I mean, no. When I left yesterday, Helen actually told me to get a crab cake at the wharf. She didn’t know where I was going. She had no clue what the address of the home was. There were three locations, and Frank handed them to us randomly.”

“Maybe it wasn’t randomly,” said Leif.

“No, it was. She knew where I was headed. I told her I was headed to Maryland, but there wasn’t an address or area mentioned. She knew the addresses because she knew that Frank had found the masks.

“When I came in, she said he’d been there since 0600, and she knew that because she was there before then. She was going through his computer, his notes. Something tipped her off to what he was going to do that day.”

“We still need to know how they disarm the alarm systems, get the money out of there, go undetected by the cameras, all of it,” said Major.

“I think we need to look at the video evidence again. I think we might have missed something.”

Seated in the largest meeting room available at the bureau, they ran through all of the camera footage available. It was frustrating because they could see the vehicle pull up, a man stepping out of the car and then the video would cut off.

“Someone spliced this footage,” said Brix. “You can tell. This isn’t someone who has a passing knowledge of this shit. It’s not as clean as it would be if our team did it, but it’s pretty damn good. I’m surprised someone didn’t notice it before.”

“Hiro? Are you seeing what we’re seeing?” asked Chief.

“I am but I’m not.”

“What the hell does that mean?” asked Sebastian.

“They did splice the videos, but they did it after receiving them at the bureau. I have the original footage.”

“Wait. Are you saying someone altered those here?” asked Emelia.

“That’s what I’m saying. The videos were sent in their entirety, but what you have was altered before you guys saw them. Let me show you the difference.” He brought up a separate screen with the video they were currently looking at on one side and another of the same bank on the right.

“This is the first robbery in D.C. The car pulls up, the man gets out on the left and then nothing. On the right, watch what happens. The man pulls up, he gets out of the car, and then three others get out of the car. They all put on masks, pull their hoods up, and go inside. A few moments later, they come out of the bank, pull the masks off, and put them inside a large tote bag. They remove the jackets and hoodies and walk casually, arm in arm, down the street.”

“It’s two men and two women,” said Emelia, staring at the screen.

“It is,” said Hiro. “Here, we see them further down the street, arm in arm, walking casually. No one suspects four old people as bank robbers. They look comfortable and casual. I think they’ve also found a way to alter their attire. When they go into the bank, they’re all wearing pants, but when we see them down the street, the women in are in long skirts.”

“I’ve seen this trick before,” said Major. “There’s a string they pull that brings the pant legs up and drops the skirt down. It’s pretty clever.”

“Clever and makes it almost impossible for anyone to identify them,” said Emelia. “I only met the man and woman at the house. I didn’t see these other two, and the woman isn’t Helen. That means we have at least five people involved.”

“Maybe we should get the Gray Wolf team involved,” smirked Hex. Emelia looked at him, then back at the screen with Hiro.

“No, but we could ask them some questions.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“I’m not sure whether to be offended or flattered by this conversation,” smirked Ghost.