Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

in-room checkout feature on her TV. She didn’t have to stop at the desk at all when she left.”
    Queenan took the printout. Flipping through the pages, he read aloud all the charges. “Room tax. Restaurant. Internet. Restaurant. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary here.”
    “If it was an in-room checkout,” Jane said, “how do we know she actually did it herself?”
    Queenan didn’t even bother to suppress a snort. “Are you suggesting that someone broke into her room? Packed up her stuff and checked out
for
her?”
    “I’m just pointing out that we don’t have proof she was actually here on Saturday morning, the day she supposedly left.”
    “What kind of proof do you need?”
    Jane turned to the manager. “You have a security camera mounted over the reception desk. How long do you keep the recordings?”
    “We’d still have the video from last week. But you’re talking about hours and hours of recordings. Hundreds of people walking through the lobby. You’d be here all week watching those.”
    “What time did she check out, according to the bill?”
    Queenan looked at the printout. “It was seven fifty-four AM.”
    “Then let’s start there. If she walked out of this hotel on her own two feet, we should be able to spot her.”
    T HERE WAS NOTHING in life so mind numbing as reviewing a surveillance video. After only thirty minutes, Jane’s neck and shoulders were sore from craning forward, trying to catch every passing figure on the monitor. It did not help matters that Queenan kept sighing and fidgeting in his chair, making it clear to everyone else in the room that he thought this was a fool’s errand. And maybe it is, thought Jane as she watched figures twitch across the screen, groups gathering and dispersing. As the time stamp moved toward eight AM, and dozens of hotel guests converged on the reception desk for checkout, her attention was pulled in too many directions at once.
    It was Daniel who spotted her. “There!” he said.
    Gabriel froze the recording. Jane counted at least two dozen people captured in that freeze-frame of the lobby, most of them standing near the desk. Others were caught in the background, clustered near the lobby chairs. Two men stood talking on their cell phones, and both were simultaneously looking at their watches. Welcome to the era of the compulsive multitasker.
    Queenan said: “I don’t see her.”
    “Go back,” said Daniel. “I’m sure it was her.”
    Gabriel reversed the sequence, frame by frame. They watched as people walked backward, as groups broke apart and new clusters formed. One of the cell phone talkers twitched this way and that, as though dancing to some erratic beat coming through his receiver.
    “That’s her,” Daniel said softly.
    The dark-haired woman was at the very edge of the screen, her face caught in profile. No wonder Jane had missed seeing it the first time: Maura was weaving through the lobby with half a dozen people standing between her and the camera. Only at that instant, as she walked past a gap in the crowd, did the lens capture her image.
    “Not a very clear shot,” said Queenan.
    “I know it’s her,” said Daniel, staring at Maura with undisguised yearning. “It’s her face, her haircut. And I recognize the parka.”
    “Let’s see if we can get any other views,” said Gabriel. He moved the recording forward, frame by frame. Maura’s dark hair reappeared, bobbing in and out of view as she moved past. Only at the very edge of the screen did she emerge again from the crowd. She was wearing dark pants and a white ski parka with a furred hood. Gabriel advanced one more image, and Maura’s head moved beyond the frame, but half her torso was still visible.
    “Well, look at that,” said Queenan, pointing. “She’s wheeling a suitcase.” He looked at Jane. “I think that settles the issue, doesn’t it? She packed her own bag and checked out. She wasn’t dragged from the building. As of Saturday, eight oh five, she was alive and well and leaving the hotel on her own steam.” He glanced at his watch and stood. “Call me if you see anything else worth noting.”
    “You’re not staying?”
    “Ma’am, we’ve sent her photo to every newspaper and TV station in the state of Wyoming. We’re fielding every call that comes in. The problem is, she—or someone who looks like her—has been sighted just about everywhere.”
    “Where, exactly?” asked Jane.
    “You name it, she’s been seen there.