White Space Season 1

said, we have limited resources, but I’ve got two officers on it. I also reached out to Paladin to pull CCTV footage from your street to see if we can find anything. Additionally, Paladin has harbor guards out searching the Sound. Paladin has also set up a task force at the port, searching the cars of anyone leaving the island. If someone has taken her, they’re not going to get off the island.”
    “What if someone already took her off the island last night? Do you think we’ll find her?” Cassidy asked, afraid like hell that Brady would say no. Cops never promised things they couldn’t deliver, right? And yet, here she was, asking him to do just that.
    “We will find her,” Brady said, meeting her eyes. “I promise.”
    Cassidy left his office, hoping that this would be the one time she could count on the police. And then a new fear rose to the surface. Would the CCTV footage catch her in the lie that she’d stayed home?

    * * * *

CHAPTER 6 — Liz Heller

    Hamilton Island, Washington
    Thursday
    September 7
    Afternoon…

    Liz had to leave the house.
    She couldn’t stand looking at Katie and feeling the overwhelming guilt, knowing her husband had planned to shoot the girl.
    Before finding his list, which she hid in the bottom of her bathroom cabinet, she’d tried to tell herself that the shooting was some kind of freak accident. That something must’ve happened to Roger to cause him to snap and shoot his students. Maybe he’d been given drugs by someone or something. None of it made sense otherwise.
    He didn’t even own a gun, so far as she knew. As much as she tried to think her husband was incapable of murdering anyone, much less the children he taught (he loved teaching, for Christ’s sake!), there was no denying what the list implied. A list that was in his handwriting. A list including the students he murdered. It was deliberate and, even more frightening, planned.
    Since all the computers in her house had been confiscated, Liz had to find somewhere else to discover what was on Roger’s flash drive. And this wasn’t the kind of thing she could take to a friend’s house, if she even had any friends since Friday. Nobody had reached out to her. The only phone calls she got were from the media. So she had to find somewhere else to use a computer. Somewhere that wouldn’t attract attention.
    She drove to the library, hoping she could use their computers to see, praying there wouldn’t be anything on the flash drive which might raise the suspicions of anyone walking behind her.
    She wasn’t yet sure what she’d do with the list, or the flash drive. She knew she should turn them over to the investigators, but some part of her, most of her, couldn’t. At least not until she knew what was on the flash drive.
    Would it be evidence to clear Roger’s name or something to indict him?
    Liz parked the car in front of the Hamilton Island Public Library and scanned the parking lot. There were maybe 20 cars, meaning there was a good chance she’d be seen by someone she knew inside. That was the last thing she wanted. She couldn’t handle seeing anyone now, whether they offered condemnation or sympathy. She just wanted to get to the computer station and see what was on the flash drive.
    She stepped from the car, slipping the flash drive into her purse, and headed inside the library. As she walked toward the front doors, she took notice of the many Paladin closed circuit television cameras in the parking lot, and no doubt the library. She’d never really given much thought to the way the security firm had turned the island all Big Brother several years ago, until now, when she had something to hide.
    She approached the front desk where you had to “rent” a computer by showing your library card. Behind the desk sat Nancy Altaire, an older woman who used to volunteer at her school. They’d never worked directly together, but there was no way Nancy didn’t recognize her immediately. As Liz said “hi,” Nancy looked like she’d just been caught saying a filthy or maybe racist word.
    “Hi,” Nancy said with a big fake smile, as though she didn’t know exactly who Liz was, or what her husband had done. “How can I help you?”
    “I’d like to use a computer,” Liz said passing her library card across the counter.
    “OK,” the woman said, directing Liz to a table with eight computers, four per side. The computer station was smack in the middle of the library, with a clear view of the front