They hustled through to the back offices. Cami felt pleased and proud that her untoward idea might have been helpful, even if Connor was shocked by it.
“Read the numbers out to me and I’ll run them through the system,” Connor said.
“I also have bank transactions. Does anyone want to check those? And crypto transactions?” Cami asked. Since every minute counted, she guessed the more personnel that could work on them, the better.
“Yes. Forward those videos to this number.” Connor read it out. “That’s going back to the office. To Ethan, who’s there now.
Cami pricked up her ears, feeling pleased that the likable Ethan would also be working on this pressured assignment. She sent the video through and then began reading out the numbers to Connor, who keyed them into the database, checking each one.
“There’s nothing coming up in the calls. They all seem legitimate,” he said, once she’d finished reading through the two-week record. “And let’s see about the payments.”
He got on the phone to Ethan.
“Anything stand out for you?” he asked. He raised his eyebrows. “Ah. Okay. Great.”
Quickly, he disconnected.
“Nothing that raises alarm bells. A couple of strip clubs. A debt collection agency. But no large payments of the kind that indicate a hit has been paid for. So, I think we can rule him out. I’ll hand him over to the local police. They can process the assault charges, so we can move on.”
Cami let out a deep breath. After such an intensive search, after the fight to bring this suspect in, the answer wasn’t here? It felt disappointing. It felt like a catastrophe. She’d thought she might have cracked the case by her sneaky capturing of the records.
It had all been for nothing, though. But Connor seemed to take it in his stride.
“We keep on looking, and keep on thinking,” he said. “We go back to the case files. We review the information all over again.”
Cami nodded. She guessed that was going to be the only way. And, as she thought back, another idea occurred to her.
“Perhaps this killer found the women via their IP addresses,” she suggested. “Perhaps the IP addresses were visible to him, and he was able to access them in some way.”
“What would that mean?” Connor asked her.
“Knowing an IP address would have allowed him to have gotten close by, if he was lucky and clever. But he would still have needed to search around for their exact location.”
“He would have?” Connor asked, frowning.
“Yes. Maybe that would mean we could see him looking. Track his car license plate, or even catch sight of him, if there were cameras nearby any of the victims’ homes.”
Connor stared at her.
“What do you mean by all of that? What do you need?”
“Firstly, I’ll need to check the case files of the earlier victims, to check if their IP addresses were visible and recorded while they played. I imagine that information would be in the case report, surely? I know the IP addresses themselves were there,” she said. “Also, I don’t know if I can do all this research on my phone. I’ll need to use a laptop, to have multiple windows open.”
Immediately, she saw Connor’s face darken.
“I can’t let you do that,” he said. “Not now.”
Anger flared inside her. This was her idea!
“Why not?” she asked. “Don’t you trust me? There are lives at stake here. Please, trust me.”
There was a long moment when he stared at her. Cami felt surprisingly anxious because Connor’s reply meant a lot to her. Had his opinion of her changed?
She waited to see what his answer would be.