Uh-oh. Is she getting her marching orders?

She’d been flying under the radar in the investigation, getting a lot of leeway from Sergeant Shaver since she was a witness. But officially she was on vacation. Looked like word had gotten back to the office. He glanced at Zander to see if he’d noticed, but Zander had found the video he wanted and a familiar view of the Rivertown Mall filled two screens.

Zander sped it up to where the third witness burst out of the bathroom. His cap was pulled low, covering shaggy hair, the brim hiding his eyes and a large portion of his face from the camera view. Mason leaned closer.

“That asshole. Look.” Mason pointed at the screen. “He knew exactly what he was doing. He keeps his head tipped down the entire time. Doesn’t matter which angle you switch to. The damned cameras are too high. How about shots of him leaving the area? He has to be caught from a few more angles as he leaves.”

“We’ll have to go through all that footage again,” said Zander. “We weren’t focused on those sections.”

“There should be footage of Justin Yoder heading into the bathroom,” Ray pointed out. “If that’s not him with the mask and gun heading into the bathroom, then he had to walk in at some point. He wasn’t teleported.”

“Fuck me,” said Shaver. “We didn’t review the hours of video before the shootings, did we?”

“We went back a little ways,” said Zander. “Probably not far enough. I know I’ve seen the clips with Walter Borrego and Steve Jordan with his son heading into the bathroom. We need to back up further. No telling how early Justin Yoder went in—if that’s what really happened.”

Mason bit his lip. His instinct told him that was exactly what’d happened. Yoder and their mystery witness had been working together. The witness did the shooting while Yoder waited in the bathroom.

But had Yoder known his job was to be a dead body and take the blame for the shootings?

Or had he expected a different role?

“What was Yoder thinking?” Mason asked. Several of the investigators nodded; they’d wondered the same thing.

“I’ll guess this didn’t play out as he assumed,” said Zander. “He probably expected to join in the shooting.”

“One weapon,” Ray pointed out.

“But he was dressed to shoot,” countered Zander.

“Dressed for stealth,” clarified Mason. “He might have been told something completely different from what went down. Perhaps he expected to participate in a robbery or some sort of weird fantasy game.”

“He stayed silent in the back of the bathroom while the shooter confronted Borrego and Jordan. He was aware of what was happening,” argued Ray.

“This is making my head hurt,” said Mason. “Let’s examine more views of Yoder and our witness before we follow any theories.”

“I need to make a statement to the press,” said Sergeant Shaver. “Do we let them know we might be looking for another guy?”

“Hell no,” said Mason. “Right now he doesn’t know we’re looking for him. Why give him a heads-up?”

“But it might stop another shooting,” said Ava.

She’d silently appeared beside Mason. He studied her face. Stress showed in the new tiny veins that reddened the whites of her eyes. She cracked a knuckle, and he noticed her nails were bitten to the quick. When did that happen? An image of a wineglass in her hand from two nights ago popped into his brain; her nails had been trimmed short but not . . . gnawed on.

“How many of these shootings could one person engineer?” asked Ray.

“We don’t know that we’re looking for one person. Could be a group. Perhaps this is much larger than we realize,” added Zander.

The group looked at one another, and Mason felt the stress level rise. Everyone was already exhausted and now the appearance of stashed clothing had opened up a dozen other questions about mass shooting incidents in which they’d believed the organizer was dead.

“I wouldn’t say anything about these leads to the press,” Mason said slowly. “If our brains are spinning in a million directions now, the press will make it worse. We’ll have every armchair detective coming out of the woodwork with theories.”

“I’ll keep it quiet for now,” said Shaver, making eye contact with each person. “But I need answers. Today. I want to see the video of Yoder entering that bathroom and every shot we have of the third witness after the shooting. He went somewhere. Figure out where. And the Eugene witness statements need to be reviewed and new interviews set up.”

Everyone nodded.

“We’ve called these three young men murderers, and now it looks like they might be victims.” Shaver shook his head. “If we’ve done injustice to their families, I want it cleared ASAP.”

“This doesn’t put them in the clear,” said Zander. “It’s placed a big question mark above their heads.”

“I want it figured out. Soon. And the next shooting prevented.”

Ava winced, and from the corner of his eye Mason watched her slip a stubby fingernail between her teeth. He turned his head toward her, and she whipped the finger out of her mouth, never taking her gaze off Shaver. She swallowed hard.

Does she need distance from this investigation?

He’d thought being involved would help her, but maybe it’d done the opposite.

Shaver made assignments and Ava wasn’t included. Mason wondered what she’d say if he told her to go home. She’d probably just smile and ignore him. He shoved his hat on his head. He and Ray were to look over the Eugene interviews. The group broke apart, and Ava followed him and Ray. Zander had been assigned to oversee the search for more video clips of Justin Yoder and their third witness—the possible shooter.