The Girl They Couldn’t See (Blind Spot #1) (Blind Spot Series)

by Laurence Dahners

  They’d be able to figure out who she was!

  After a moment’s dithering, she turned resolutely toward the security guard’s office. She peered in and saw that the little office only had a chair for one person. With him out in the store, the room was empty. Willing that no one should notice the movement of the door, she pulled it open and stepped inside. Sure enough, she could see a couple of big screens chopped up into multiple smaller segments, each watching different parts of the store. None of the screens were focused on places where there weren’t any people. Presumably each camera had a motion detector to turn it on.

  She shook her head, she didn’t need to figure out the whole set up, just where they were recording their video. Sitting down, she started searching through the computer that looked like it was running the video system. Though it was only a few minutes, she felt like it took an agonizingly long time to find the folders where the video files were stored. It had subfolders labeled by date. Each of those had subfolders by the hour. She started copying the file from the same hour on a day the week before into the folder for the current hour that was being recorded. She checked to be sure it was going onto the same location on the hard drive so that the video from today got overwritten.

  The wait for the video to get over-recorded was the hardest part. At any moment, she expected the guard to pull open the door and step into the little office. There wasn’t really room enough in there for her to avoid bumping into him. She didn’t know whether she’d be able to force him to ignore that kind of firm contact or not.

  Finally, the file was copied over. She shut down the computer. Praying that the video wasn’t also being recorded onto another disk somewhere else, she stepped back out of the security office. Three guards were approaching. For a moment she thought they were coming for her. But they entered the office, and from their conversation she could tell they were planning to watch the recording to figure out what’d happened.

  Letting out a shaky breath, Roni headed for the back door. Realizing that, until they rebooted the computer, the store was probably the one place where she could be fairly certain she wouldn’t be recorded, she pulled off the sheet and balaclava as she exited. Wadding it up, she stuffed it in her backpack and walked around the block to the street that Nick was currently working.

  While she waited for Nick to come back out of whatever store he was currently extorting, she sat on a bench, trying to figure out how to modify her plan. This is crazy, she thought. No one’s going to go back through all this video to figure out who I am! No matter how much she tried to convince herself that was true, she kept coming back to the fact that if she was wrong, if Nick really did track back through video after video, there was a good chance it’d be a fatal mistake.

  Perhaps a deadly mistake for her entire family.

  And Nick was just the kind of obsessive son of a bitch who would go around terrorizing storeowners and watching their videos until he’d tracked back far enough to catch her changing. I’ve got to come up with a program that’ll let me easily erase people’s computers when they record me somehow, she thought.

  Nick came out of one store and went into the next one.

  Roni let her eyes wander the street, picking out the various security cameras and looking for a gap in their coverage. She wondered if Ravinder was mad that she wasn’t home.

  She’d just decided to give up and go home when the bus pulled up. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, the bench she was sitting on had been put there for people who were waiting for the bus. Doors at the front and the back opened, disgorging passengers. By the time people started getting on, she’d gotten up and joined them.

  Once on the bus, she reinforced her thoughts that people should ignore her, then sat down in an empty pair of seats. For a moment she worried that someone else would try to sit there also, but they didn’t, almost as if they were ignoring the seats because she was in them. She pulled out her sheet poncho and struggled into it.

  She stopped, let out a sigh of frustration and looked around the bus for any security cameras that might be monitoring. She couldn’t see any and, taking in the graffiti sprayed on the back of the driver’s station, she decided there either weren’t any cameras or the people monitoring them had to be ignoring local hoodlums. She pulled on her balaclava and got off at the next stop. Turning she walked back to where Nick had been. By the time she got back there, Nick and Mario were working the next block.

  She stood for a moment, wondering whether this was far enough from where Nick had seen her. She told herself to stop hesitating. After all Roni Buchry was probably the last person that Nick would suspect of robbing him. If I don’t get on with this, it’s never going to get done!

  She waited till Nick came back out of the store, then followed him down the street toward the next one. And the next. Around a corner and on to the next store. And on to another one. Finally, she saw his car. There weren’t any stores between their present location and his vehicle so she ran a few steps to catch up to him, once again reinforcing her thought that no one—especially Nick or Mario—should notice her.

  Slipping her hand into his pocket, she pulled out a sheaf of envelopes. Shaking with reaction, she turned and walked back to the street with the bus line. She’d virtually never ridden a bus because she didn’t like wasting money on fares. Now she just got on. Feeling a little guilty about not paying, she pulled off the balaclava and sheet, folding them neatly and stuffing them back in her pack.

  She was pretty late getting home, though not as late as she would’ve been if she hadn’t taken the bus. Ravinder was mad, but since he had been planning to have her do data entry, he didn’t care that she was late as long as she got it done that evening.

  She waited until she’d finished her homework before she pulled out the envelopes to see what was in them…

  Sitting back, Roni took a deep, shaky breath as she stared at the stacks of fives, tens, twenties, and fifties. Then at the really thick stack of hundreds. Nick had been carrying $22,350 in his pocket! There’d been nineteen envelopes so, on average each business was kicking in nearly $1,200. The Buchry’s monthly payment was $1,250 so she shouldn’t have been surprised.

  But, she was.

  I should be euphoric, she thought. This is a windfall and could significantly help solve our money problems. Instead, she was anxious. Worried she’d get caught by the Castanos.

  Where are they spending all that money?! she wondered. She assumed it was going for bribes and payroll, but it just seemed like so much. She felt pretty sure she’d only taken part of Nick’s daily take. Even if it were the take for the whole day, if Nick collected similar amounts twenty days out of each month, he and Mario alone would be bringing in almost a half million dollars a month!

  Over six million dollars a year!

  The Castanos probably had other collection teams out there leaning on other merchants around the city.

  No wonder they can pay off all kinds of people to ignore what they’re doing, she thought disgustedly.

  She wondered whether she and her family could spend the money—safely.

  ***

  Nick and Mario stood rigid. It was cold in the warehouse, but Nick’s scalp prickled with sweat. His father had just been walking around them, not saying anything. Nick kept remembering how his dad said you shouldn’t talk to somebody you were going to kill. “Gloating is for the movies,” he said. “They’re gonna be dead so there ain’t no point in tellin’ ‘em stuff. Just kill ‘em and get it over with.”

  His dad’s silent treatment put Nick on edge, but he kept reminding himself that every time he’d seen his dad kill someone it’d happened instantly. There hadn’t been any silent period of walking around like this. Besides, he wouldn’t kill his own son, would he?

  His dad stopped in front of them. “So, you’re getting into your car when you notice that your jacket pocket seems… light. You check, and it’s empty.” The old man’s eyes searched both of theirs. “Twenty-two grand… vanished.”<
br />
  Nick nodded, too scared to actually say anything.

  “And this happened between Dino’s pizza place—where you put the last envelope in your pocket and felt the rest of them in there—and your car, about forty feet. Is that right?”

  Nick nodded again.

  “And nobody came near you in that last forty feet. That’s what you’re saying?”

  Nick nodded, “Not that we saw, right Mario?”

  Mario nodded jerkily. The guy was so big it was hard to imagine him being afraid, but everybody was afraid of Joe Castano.

  Everybody.

  Joe stepped up close to Mario. Really close, then he said, “What’s this I hear about you holdin’ some kid so Vito could beat the crap out of him?”

  Nick turned enough to see Mario giving him a wide-eyed glance. It being obvious that Mario didn’t know how to respond, Nick interjected, “Just trying to take care of the family dad.”

  “I didn’t ask you, son, I asked Mario here.”

  Mario, normally so talkative, didn’t say anything for a moment, then he blurted, “Vito asked. Nick said it’d be okay.” Mario didn’t sound frightened, but Nick knew him well enough to tell he was scared shitless that any answer he gave would be wrong.

  Joe reached out and patted Mario reassuringly on the shoulder, “If Nick told you to do it, then you done right Mario.”

  Mario sagged microscopically. Nick had begun to relax too, but then Joe stepped over to him. “Mario’s an employee, Nick,” he said in a disgusted tone. “What’re you doing, getting him mixed up in some schoolyard fight?! That’s not his job!”

  Nick leaned back away from his father’s furious face, thinking of all the other shit jobs his dad had their employees do, but smart enough not to say anything about them. Instead, he ventured, “That kid beat Vito’s ass in a fight at school. I thought…”

  “You thought! You thought! I’m not sure what you thought with. Your ass? The fact that your little brother’s such a pussy that little boys are kicking his ass in school is my problem, not yours.”

  “Yes sir,” Nick said, leaning even a little farther back away from his dad and worrying that he was about to overbalance. “I won’t get involved again.”

  “And you won’t use our employees either, right?”

  “No sir,” Nick said. The way his dad was acting, Nick was starting to feel for his little brother.

  His dad leaned away and stared at him, “Now, about that twenty-two grand.”

  Nick was back to worrying about himself. “Yes sir?”

  “Has your dim little brain figured out what to do yet?”

  “No sir,” Nick said, even though he knew it wasn’t the answer his dad wanted.

  Joe stepped forward and slapped him openhanded up the side of his head. Hard. “How about now?” Joe asked, sounding like he was curious whether the blow had made Nick think better.

  Nick felt dazed and certainly not any wiser. He gave a minute shake of his head, “No sir.”

  Joe slapped him with the other hand, he leaned in close and said quietly but menacingly, “I’ll bet that one didn’t help either, did it?”

  Nick shook his head again, a sense of dread rising up in him.

  “Well, I’m just gonna have to deduct that twenty-two grand from your pay. So, you can see that you don’t want that to happen again, right?”

  Nick’s stomach cramped, he had some expenses that counted on his monthly pay. But he knew far better than to complain, so he said, “No sir.”

  “So, you’d better be figuring out what happened, right?” After Nick had nodded, his dad reached up and patted his cheek in a parody of affection, “‘Cause you’re a dumb shit like your mama, I’m gonna give you a clue. Supposing you thought your pocket got picked in Dino’s pizza place. What would you do?”

  “I’d check the security video, but I remember havin’ my hand in my pocket when we left Dino’s. The money was still there.”

  Joe cupped a hand behind his ear, “What was that first thing you said?”

  A light went on, “Yes sir.” Nick said, “I’ll check the security videos at Dino’s… and any other cameras that can see the street. We’ll see if we can spot the bastard that picked my pocket.”

  “That’s my boy,” Joe said insincerely. “And when you figure out who the son of a bitch is, you’re going to find him and bring him to me, right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Because, if he’s that talented, maybe we can make some use of him. And if we can’t use him for his skills, at the very least, he can serve as an example to other people about how they don’t steal from the Castanos, right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Okay,” Joe said, suddenly putting on his kindly uncle voice, “you boys mosey on home now.”

  Nick and Mario started to move away. Nick feeling pretty good about the possibility that some security cam might have caught video of the person that stole his money.

  But then his dad said, “Oh, and Nick, Mario?”

  They stopped and turned around, dread rising again.

  “I’m really hoping you find out who stole my money… ‘cause I’m still a little concerned that it might have been one of you two.” He shook his head, “And if that’s the case… I’d hate to be one of you two sons of bitches.”

  Joe turned and walked off into the darkness as Nick’s stomach heaved.

  He managed to choke it back down without spewing.

  Chapter 4

  Dean, the owner of Dino’s Pizza, turned and looked over his shoulder when he heard the door chime. They opened the pizzeria when they got there in the morning at 10:30, but they rarely had any customers before 11:30. The first hour to hour and a half was devoted to setting things up and getting ready, so he was surprised to have a customer coming in. Though he certainly didn’t turn early customers away.

  Then he saw Mario and Nick and his heart skipped a beat. What’re those bastards doing back here? He’d just paid them off yesterday, so he should have had a month without their snide comments and degrading insinuations.

  To say nothing of the financially challenging insurance payments.

  Dean turned slowly to face them, then addressed to Nick, “Hello Mr. Castano, what can I do for you today? Would you like a slice?”

  Nick pasted on one of his insincere grins and said, “Naw,” he jerked a thumb at the far upper corner of Dean’s little restaurant, “we just need to look through the video from your security cams.”

  Dean tried to keep his face calm even though his heart started racing. He’d been keeping a separate file that recorded the Castanos’ visits. Even though he knew there was absolutely no chance the current police force would do anything, he wanted to be ready if anyone ever did try to bring the Castanos to justice. Especially, he wanted to have a record if they broke up the Castanos’ empire and tried to reimburse the little people who’d been ripped off all these years.

  He’d often thought to himself that he should save that separate file of the Castanos’ visits on a jump drive that he kept hidden at home. But right now, it was just in a separate folder on the same hard drive that the current security videos were on.

  If someone had told the Castanos what he’d been doing, and they were here to search for those files, he didn’t think it was going to be hard to find them. Dean wondered if he could pretend he’d forgotten the password for that computer. He could say he was going to the back to get the password, then bolt out the back door. He’d lose the restaurant, but, after the Castanos had taken their share, he was barely surviving on what he earned from it. “What’re you looking for?” he asked in an excessively bright tone.

  Really, he thought, I’d rather start over, working up to a new restaurant somewhere else.

  Dean’s thoughts about fleeing were interrupted by Mario leaning across the counter and grabbing him by the front of the shirt, “What Mr. Castano’s looking for is none of your business!”

  Realizing his question had only served to make them suspi
cious, Dean stammered, “I, I’m, just w-wanting to help you find w-what you need.” He pointed back over his shoulder toward his office, “Th-the videos are stored on a computer in the back room. I, I can take you there.”

  Back in his office, Dean scrolled quickly past the incriminating folder and clicked on the folder that stored the weekly security videos. He felt grateful that he only kept the security videos for a week, then wrote over them. If the Castanos were looking for something from more than a week ago, it’d be gone. Though, he couldn’t think of anything he didn’t want them to know about, other than the fact he was also storing copies of the videos from their visits.

  Nick said, “Where are the vids from yesterday?”

  Dean moused to that folder and clicked on it.

  “Bring up the one that’ll cover 4 to 5 o’clock.”

  Dean clicked on the video that ran from 4 to 6. The video opened and started running.

  “Fast-forward it until you see us. Then we’re going to go to normal speed.”

  Dean clicked fast-forward until he had the video running at 16X. As he watched for Mario and Nick to appear in the video, his mind scrambled, trying to figure out what they were looking for. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what he might have done yesterday. Maybe it’s something they did? Something they want me to erase?

  Suddenly Mario and Nick raced across the screen. Dean punched play and the two men in the video slowed to their normal saunter. “Do you want me to run it back to where you entered?”

  “No,” Nick said, leaning closer to the screen. “Just let it run from here.”

  Dean almost asked them what they were looking for again, then remembered how they’d reacted before. He tried to watch the screen without appearing to be too interested. As near as he could tell, nothing unusual happened. The two men collected their payoff and headed for the exit just like he’d remembered. Once they’d left the screen, he looked up at Nick. Though he didn’t say anything, his expression said, “What next?”