The PowWow

The apartment was quiet when I stepped out.

Jacob hadn’t moved, he’d been praying for hours. Still barefoot. Still kneeling. Still somewhere I couldn’t reach right now.

I stood there a second longer than I needed to, keys in my hand. “I’m heading out.”

Nothing.

I nodded anyway, like that meant something, and pulled the door shut behind me.

Rachel picked up on the second ring.

“You still at the station?” I asked.

“No,” she said. A small pause. “I’ve got the footage pulled up at home if you want to take another look.”

I glanced back at the apartment door, then out toward the street.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll swing by.”

She gave me an address and I tried not to have a coronary.

I told myself I was thinking about the case when I pulled up.

I wasn’t.

I knocked once. The door opened, and for a second I forgot what I’d planned to say.

Rachel wasn’t in uniform, wasn’t behind a desk, wasn’t framed by fluorescent lights and paperwork. She looked… off-duty. Comfortable. Like the job had slid off her shoulders for a few hours. A glass of wine in one hand, the other on the door.

I’d imagined it once or twice. Turns out I hadn’t been wrong.

“Are you gonna stand there or come in?” she asked.

My mouth went dry as Sahara sand.

I cleared my throat. “Working on it.”

She stepped aside, and I walked in, trying not to overthink how walking worked.

“Sit,” she said, nodding toward the couch. “I’ve got it queued up.”

I dropped onto the couch in front of her laptop on the coffee table.

“Wine?” she asked over her shoulder as she headed toward the kitchen.

I hesitated a beat. “Yeah.”

Closet wine taster. Not something I advertised.

“Red okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s fine.”

She came back a moment later and handed me a glass, then sat down next to me, close enough that our shoulders nearly touched. We both leaned toward the laptop.

Her leg brushed mine, and then stayed there.

I focused on the screen like it was the most important thing in the room. It suddenly was.

She hit play. And I was quietly, profoundly grateful.

The footage rolled. Warehouse exterior. Time stamp ticking. Nothing out of place. Exactly the same thing we’d seen a thousand times.

There.

It hit immediately this time.

Not a glitch. Not random. It was too clean. Too precise. A jump, not a stutter. No snow of squiggly lines. How had I missed that?

“There,” I said, leaning forward.

Rachel glanced at me. “What?”

I scrubbed back and played it again, slower. The distortion came in.

“See that?” I said.

“It’s a dropout,” she replied. “We’ve been over this.”

I shook my head. “No. Not like that.”

The car was there, then the car was gone. Distortion was the wrong word, it was like the feed was cut for thirty seconds.

Rachel leaned in closer now, shoulder pressing lightly into mine.

“That’s not a glitch,” I said, trying not to be distracted.

She frowned at the screen. “System hiccup—”

“He knew the cameras were there,” I cut in. “He wouldn’t walk out blind. He’d make sure they couldn’t see him.”

She looked at me then, really looked. Her eyes spoke encouragement, wanting me to follow the hunch I was having.”

“There was something,” I said slowly. “In his office.”

She didn’t interrupt.

“Small. Didn’t belong. But it wasn’t out of place either.”

Rachel’s expression shifted as she thought it through. “If it’s an emitter… something localized…something intentional…”

I nodded, eyes still on the screen. “It kills the camera long enough to move.”

Silence settled in. We were both seeing it now.

Rachel leaned back slightly, studying me instead of the footage.

“You really think it’s him.”

“Yeah.”

“And you walked into his office.”

I took a sip of wine, buying myself a second. “Yeah.”

Her expression tightened just a little. “What happened to no heroics?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “…Yeah, about that.”

I glanced at her. “Sorry.”

It came out quieter than I meant it to.

She held my gaze for a second, then looked back at the screen. “Try not to make it a habit.”

I nodded. “Working on that too.”

We ran the footage again, slower, tighter, confirming what we already knew.

Not a glitch. A gap.

Deliberate.

When I stood to leave, the room felt smaller than when I’d walked in.

Rachel followed me to the door, arms crossing as she leaned against the frame.

“You don’t have enough yet,” she said.

I slipped back into something more familiar.

“No,” I said. “You don’t have enough.”

I tilted my head slightly. “I’ve got enough to proceed.”

Her arms tightened across her chest. I noticed. It was… kind of adorable.

“No heroics this time,” she said. “I mean it.”

I let out a small chuckle, hand already on the door. “Where’s the fun in that?”

I stepped out before she could answer. The door clicked shut behind me. I let out a long breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Then another realization hit.

And for the first time since the gym, it felt like we weren’t just chasing something anymore. We were getting closer.