Her Last Day (Jessie Cole #1)(85)

The other two journals included a total of twenty-one names listed in order of date captured. The list of names did not include his father, the man he called Dog. Beneath each name were details about the victims: age, approximate weight and height, occupation, hobbies, favorite foods, hopes, dreams, and fears.

Of the twenty-two victims, there were sixteen females and six males, ranging from the age of five to sixty-four, Dog being the oldest.

Another trait noted by Colin and others was Forrest Bloom’s extreme cleanliness. His bed was made, the floors swept clean, and not a dirty dish or towel could be found. The only macabre items found within the house were three bleached white skulls lined up neatly on the pantry shelf. Who the skulls belonged to had yet to be determined.

Jessie stared at the blank TV screen, wishing she could spend a day doing absolutely nothing, but she had work to do. Her day in court had been moved up. In less than forty-eight hours, she would be sitting in the courtroom before a judge. And things were looking iffy at best. Friends and family were determined to defend Koontz at every turn. Other than Adelind Rain and Fiona Hampton, nobody had anything to share about Koontz’s Peeping Tom tendencies.

By five o’clock that same afternoon, Jessie was working in the living room while Olivia did her homework at the kitchen table. Colin had called earlier to say he’d pick up a pizza on his way over, but as was the norm, he couldn’t stay long. Andriana paced the living room, her cell phone pressed against her ear. When she disconnected the call, she said, “You’re never going to believe this.”

Jessie looked at her and waited.

“Parker Koontz is responding to certain commands.”

Jessie raised an eyebrow. “I don’t understand.”

“I have a friend, a nurse who works on the same floor where Parker Koontz has been staying. She’s been keeping an eye on him, and she told me that this morning he opened his eyes. Not only that, he moves his fingers in response to commands. She’ll call me later if anything changes.”

“If he comes out of the coma,” Olivia said from across the room, “then you would be off the hook, right?”

“It’s not that simple,” Jessie told her, trying not to sound defeated.

Andriana sighed. “If only I’d looked at the video you took at the park before it was stolen. It keeps me up at night.”

“You need to let it go,” Jessie said. “Neither of us would have thought someone would bother to steal the GoPro.”

“You can still look at the video,” Olivia said without looking up from her homework.

Jessie and Andriana looked at each other before Jessie peered over her shoulder at her niece. “What do you mean, Olivia?”

Olivia set her pencil down, stood, and walked over to where they were sitting. She put her hand out, palm faceup, and said, “Give me your phone.”

Jessie did as she asked.

“You asked me to order the GoPro for you after I told you about the one Bella uses, remember?”

“I remember. So?”

“So I ordered the newest model, the one that automatically hooks to your Bluetooth, and I set up an account for you, remember?”

“It rings a bell,” Jessie said.

Olivia snorted as she clicked away. “All you have to do is go to your GoPro Plus account, then to the Hero Session, find the app, and there you go.” She pushed another button and then looked at Jessie. “Do you want to view the video on your mobile or your laptop?”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Andriana said.

By the time Colin showed up with the pizza, they were watching the video on Jessie’s laptop, fast-forwarding to the part where Jessie followed Parker Koontz through the rose garden at Capitol Park.

Colin set the pizza box on the kitchen counter and then came to hover over Jessie to see what was going on. “You’re all so quiet. Looks like serious business going on here.”

“It’s the video Jessie took when she was following the Peeping Tom,” Olivia told him. She then went on to explain how the video was automatically uploaded via Bluetooth on Jessie’s phone.

“Well, look at that. He definitely fired before you pulled out your gun,” Andriana said.

“Can you rewind the video?” Colin asked.

She rewound the tape, then waited.

“Farther back,” he said, his voice strained.

They all watched closely as she did it again.

“There! Hit ‘Pause,’” he said.

Again, Jessie did as he asked. “What is it? What do you see?”

Colin pointed at the upper-right-hand corner of the computer screen. “See that man, the guy right there? The entire time you’re walking, he’s looking directly at you. Right as we hear a shot fired, he cuts off abruptly to the left and disappears.”

She reversed the video again. They all watched him. “I see him,” Jessie said, “but what does it mean?”

“It’s him.” Colin exhaled. “That’s David Roche.”

“Koontz’s partner,” Andriana said.

Jessie watched again. He was right. It was definitely him. “I went to his office to talk to him. He was so arrogant and full of himself, but I never thought he might somehow be involved in all this.”

“Why would David Roche be watching Koontz,” Andriana said, “unless he knew something was about to go down? Do you think there’s a possibility he planted the blanks in Koontz’s gun?”