Page 41 of Penny For Your Thoughts
The VCR whirred to life when I hit the power button, so that was a plus. The TV emitted static until I found the right input setting, then I was greeted by a blue screen.
It would have been easier to take the tapes home and borrow a VCR from Ruiz. He was bound to have something in better condition in his dungeon office, but I wasn’t friendly enough with Tallus’s cousin, nordid I think Ruby would let me stroll out of the building with crates of security footage.
So, I suffered in the dusty closet with a television close to death and a VCR with gears that ground and threatened to eat the tapes whenever I rewound them.
Perfect.
By eleven, I’d taken two cigarette breaks and managed to locate the tapes showing Faux Kael visiting the home on December second and ninth. As anticipated, the video quality was grainy as shit, but the camera angles were worse, and I had a great deal to say about dear old Bobby, whoever he was.
The lobby cam—the one I focused on—gave a bird’s-eye view of the front entrance and reception desk. It caught the backs of people’s heads as they entered and the tops of most people’s heads as they left, since everyone exiting the building either stared at their phones or their feet. We lived in a world where people didn’t look forward any more than they had to.
Considering Faux Kael’s visits happened during one of our colder months, the boy was bundled in an army surplus jacket with a black hoodie underneath. Every impression showed him with the hood drawn, shadowing his face. He wore jeans and tattered running shoes with the laces undone. The kid signed in on the first visit and held a short conversation with the receptionist.
The second time, no words were exchanged. Not that I would have been able to hear since there was no audio. The kid shuffled off in the direction of the elevator, and that was all I got. The elevator was outside the lobby cam’s frame.
Each visit with Elwood took place in the man’s room and not in a common area where I might have caught a better angle on anotherfeed. Instead, I got brief glimpses as he shuffled down the second-floor hall, hands stuffed in his coat pockets, head down.
I was getting nowhere, and my patience was shot. I’d gotten the hang of the antiquated equipment and managed to locate evidence of Faux Kael’s final visit. Again, the kid entered without much how-do-you-do and left forty minutes later.
The final visit, however, showed two variations. The first was the piece of crap laptop he carried under his arm upon entering. He didn’t leave with it, which fit Elwood’s story.
The second difference was the time of day. The final visit happened much later than the first two, starting a shade before four in the afternoon. Like the first two, the boy left exactly on the quarter-hour mark. The precision was noteworthy.
I watched him appear from the direction of the elevators and aim for the exit with his chin buried in his chest. At the same time, a woman who had been chatting with the receptionist headed out. She cut into the kid’s path, seemingly by accident, forcing him to halt so he wouldn’t crash into her.
The woman held out a hand, touching the boy’s elbow, and I imagined she apologized for the near collision. He shrugged, and they continued to the door. In the vestibule, the woman paused and pulled something from inside her purse. The smoker in me recognized the size and shape of a pack of cigarettes.
My fingers twitched, and a soft buzz of longing traveled under my skin as she removed one from the pack.
Before leaving the frame, the kid also paused, lifted his chin from where it was buried inside his coat, and said something to the woman.
They stood at the far edge of the frame, and despite the quality, I watched as the woman offered the pack of cigarettes to the boy. The boy took one and placed it between his lips. It bounced in a mannerthat suggested he said something else.Thank you, perhaps, or “Got a light?” the smoker in me mumbled.
The woman dug through her purse again and passed him what I assumed was a standard Bic based on the size.
“Bingo. Give the man a prize.”
The two went through the sliding door, exited to the outside, and officially left the frame.
I rewound the tape enough to replay the exchange. It was brief, but it was also the first time I caught the slightest glimpse of the boy’s face. Unfortunately, between the poor quality of the recording and the distance, it didn’t give me anything solid to work with.
I checked the time. Five minutes before I had to go for lunch. Evergreen had one camera covering the parking lot. It was the worst one of them all due to distance and the fact that no one had cleaned the lens in a hundred years. Regardless, I followed Faux Kael’s departure on both of his previous visits, learning he didn’t drive to the nursing home, or if he did, he parked on a side street somewhere off frame. He took the same route to the sidewalk and turned in the same direction on both the earlier recordings.
I switched to the parking lot camera and located the time stamp for when Faux Kael and the woman exited on December sixteenth. It caught them pausing under the awning to light their cigarettes. It caught them walking together through the parking lot to the distant sidewalk. It caught them turning in the same direction and vanishing together off-screen.
They chatted the whole time.
I sat back, cracking my knuckles and bouncing my knee. “Huh.”
Echo raised her head and chuffed, moving to my side. She licked my fingers.
“Yeah, I know.”
I rested a hand on her back, processing what I’d seen. The woman hadn’t driven to the home either. The woman had engaged in a conversation with the mystery kid. They had wandered off together. I needed to talk to this woman, whoever she was, but I had a lunch date and a fucking AA meeting to attend.
The jitters I’d managed to suppress while scanning tapes returned with vengeance, and it was more than a simple craving for a cigarette. I dug my fingers into Echo’s fur and kissed the top of her head. “Gonna need you for this.”
She chuffed as though she understood my plea.
