The Red Light Girls (Unsolved Mysteries Book 2) by Kim Knight (most romantic novels TXT) 📗

Janssen logged into her computer and pulled up her emails. She located the email with the secure link to the video footage.

“Here it is. The twenty-four hours before she was reported missing, right up until the time the witness was at the station herself.” Janssen typed in the password to the security system.

The CCTV footage from eight months ago loaded up, and Janssen hit play. Both she and Gibson frowned at the screen as if to single out any suspicious movements or dark-haired men and a woman fitting Ana’s profile.

On screen, the busy footfall of people in and out of the station played out. Janssen rose from her desk, then crossed the room toward her filing cabinet. She fished out a key from her trouser pocket and unlocked it.

“Hold up,” she called over her shoulder. “Let me grab the file and check the time of the sighting from the witness.”

With the file in hand, Janssen doubled back to her desk, took a seat, then flipped open the pages. She pulled out the witness statement and scanned over it.

“Okay, around six-thirty or so that evening, that’s when the witness was heading into the station.”

She handed the paper to Gibson. He placed his mug down and retrieved the paper to study it. Janssen fast-forwarded the footage to an hour before the stated time and let it play out.

Janssen watched the screen, willing Ana to appear.

“Hold up.” Janssen jumped forward in her seat to pause the footage. “We’ve got something.” She shot Gibson a side-glance, then zoomed in on the camera.

“Looks like that could have been her. Dark jacket. Similar hair colour.” Gibson leaned in closer.

She pressed play. “Looks like she was waiting around for something, or someone.”

“Hmm. Yep, but who?”

Janssen watched the screen with interest.

The woman fitting Ana’s description kept glancing at her wrist. When she turned around, the camera got a good shot of her.

In that moment, Janssen hit pause and zoomed in on her face.

“Fuck.” Janssen slammed her fist on the desk. “That’s not her?”

She looked over at Gibson, who was thumbing through the thick file. He pulled out the victim’s picture, and then held it up to the screen.

“Hard to say. This isn’t the clearest CCTV. Plus, it’s dark and there’s not many streetlights.”

“Damn this. Okay, let’s keep going.” Janssen resumed play of the footage.

She kept her eyes peeled for anyone who approached the woman. After a few moments, the woman of concern, jogged over from the where she was standing outside the station, then stepped out of view.

“Shit.” Gibson sighed.

Janssen clicked a button on her keyboard. “Hold on. Let’s speed this up.”

The footage sped up to double speed. And the woman came back into view. She walked toward the entrance of the station. This time, she was linking arms with another female.

“You seeing this?” Janssen’s mouth hung open. She studied Gibson closely as if to try and read his mind.

“We need to put this footage out for appeal. And ask the woman to come forward and identify herself. That’s the easiest way to check the validity of this witness’ statement,” he said after a beat.

Janssen contemplated the idea, following the woman on screen. She went into the station and disappeared off the radar.

“Either that, or we have the wrong footage,” she retorted. “But the witness specifically said outside the station. And this is the camera facing the entrance.” Janssen paused the video.

“Outside could mean anywhere, not necessarily directly,” Gibson theorised.

“Point taken.” Janssen clicked out of the footage.

She went back into the cloud system she had access to and checked the positions of the other cameras.

“All the other cameras are located in different directions, so this has to be the one,” she said.

“Then if that was Ana, and she was with a woman and not a man, that witness either made a mistake, or meant somewhere else around the station.” Gibson leaned in to look at what Janssen had found.

The endless possibilities hung in the air between then. Janssen sat back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest, and allowed her gaze to penetrate the image of the paused scene on the tape outside of the train station.

“Let’s make an appeal,” she said, “see if that woman comes forward to identify herself. If she does, we go back to the witness and push some more.”

Gibson cocked his head to one side and glanced over at her. “And, if she doesn’t come forward?”

“We follow up with the witness.”

“Cool.” Gibson glanced at his watch. “Lunch time and an early evening news appeal today?”

“Sounds about right.” Janssen sighed.

“In other news, I got a lead on Suzy’s parents.”

“From the address book? Where are they?”

“Still in Hong Kong.” He sipped on his coffee. “I phoned them.”

Janssen froze with her mug halfway to her mouth. “Really.” She looked into her partner’s eyes.

“How did they take it?”

“Well, I spoke to her mum. They had no idea she was a working girl in the city. They thought she was here studying.”

Janssen throw her head back and shook it from side to side. “I don’t believe it, seriously?”

“Yep, seriously.”

“I bet she was in denial about it all, being so far away?”

“Exactly, anyway, I spoke with Dr. Cleveland, and we managed to shoot over a few pictures the doc took during the autopsy.”

“Ahh. So, she could identify the body?”

“Yeah. Hopefully, I’ll get response today. That is if it didn’t come in overnight with the time difference.”

Janssen nodded her head. “Okay, we’ve got work to do. I feel like this killer has been way too careful, so careful, in fact, we don’t even have anything solid to follow up, suspect wise.”

“Hmm, I hear you.” Gibson flicked his wrist to check the time again.

“Let me handle the news appeal. It’s not even nine yet. We need to make sure there’s some lunch time appeals.”

“Yeah, okay. Sounds good.” She tapped her fingers against the surface of her desk. “Looks like my morning will be spent reviewing all the camera footage.”

Gibson rose to his feet, tucked