Page 110 of Bone’s Choice

“That’s not how this shit works,” Dave sighed.

Bull looked at the screen. “Movies make it look easy.”

Dave frowned. “Movies are full of shit.”

“Good to know,” Bull muttered.

The van disappeared behind one of the buildings.

“Where’s it going?” I asked.

“Toward the section covered by the camera Mercer shut down.”

My jaw tightened.

“Then what?”

Dave fast-forwarded.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Then the van appeared again. It was moving in the opposite direction.

Timestamp read 2:29.

“Sixteen minutes,” Myth muttered.

“Sixteen and change,” Dave said.

The van disappeared from view.

A minute later, the original camera came back online. Owen Mercer never appeared again.

“Fuck,” Hose muttered.

I agreed. “What do we know about the van?”

Dave leaned back in his chair. “Not much. Dark color. Ford Transit, probably. Could be a few years old. There are about a billion of the fucking things on the road.”

Dealer resumed pacing. “So Mercer shuts off a camera, van rolls in, van rolls out, camera comes back.”

“That’s what we’re looking at,” Myth said.

“Sounds like Mercer was helping somebody,” Bull pondered.

“Maybe,” I said.

Dealer looked at me. “You got another explanation?”

“Could’ve caught somebody doing something and killed the camera because he was trying to see what the fuck was happening.”

“Why shut it off?” Humpty asked.

“Don’t know.” I didn’t know fucking shit. I was just spitballing, trying to find something that made sense.

“Then mine makes more sense,” Bull pointed out.