Flash Point by Colby Marshall Read Free Book Online Page B

millions. CNR might’ve had the good judgment to keep it off the air and inform the FBI, but unfortunately, Jenna had no doubts that the terrorists had passed the footage on to other journalists, too. The FBI could yank feeds, keep it at bay as long as possible, but in the age of the hungry Internet and even hungrier media, all it would take before anyone with a broadband connection could see it would be one foreign server.
    â€˜They swiped the security footage to give to the media but left it intact,’ she whispered.
    â€˜What?’ Saleda asked, turning to face her.
    Jenna shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. ‘We thought they stole the security footage because there was something on it that would show us more to these attacks … something that might differ from the picture they were leaving the note and the witness to paint. But here’s the footage. Obviously, it cuts off the moment they yanked the tapes, so we can’t know what happened after everyone was dead and they left the building, but otherwise, it’s seemingly in full and untampered with. So their sole reasoning in taking it was to deliver it to media directly, but why?’
    â€˜Or maybe they want us to
think
that’s their sole reasoning,’ Dodd countered.
    â€˜Maybe, but humor me for a second. Why leave a witness if you’re leaving access to a full-length video?’ Jenna asked.
    From the side, Porter grunted a curious-sounding, ‘Hmph.’
    Jenna whirled to face him. ‘What? What did you just notice?’
    He smiled close-lipped, though it wasn’t happy. Just interested.
    â€˜Vocals,’ he replied.
    Slate gray burst forth in Jenna’s mind, the same color that had tried to peek through moments ago after Porter’s comment about Ashlee Haynie being their favorite living witness. Of course. The color she associated with the sense of hearing. It wasn’t just images that would be burned into Ashlee’s memory. It would also be the screams, the chokes, the sputtering.
    And any words they said
other
than what they told her to pass along to us.
    â€˜I need to talk to Ashlee Haynie again,’ Jenna said. ‘I need to find out what else she heard.’

Eight
    â€˜No, no, no, no, no!’ Ashlee’s voice got louder with every word as she shook her head, eyes squeezed shut tighter and tighter. ‘I don’t want to!’
    â€˜Ashlee, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t extremely important. I wouldn’t make you relive that nightmare unless I thought it could help me catch the people who did this,’ Jenna said softly.
    â€˜I feel like I’m going to throw up,’ Ashlee said weakly.
    â€˜Agent Dodd, will you get Ms Haynie a glass of water, please?’ Jenna said. ‘Take a few deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth, Ashlee.’
    Jenna watched the bank worker round her lips into an O, slowly blowing out a breath. The woman’s flushed, red complexion evened, and hand trembling, she accepted the paper cup of water from Dodd. She took a slow sip.
    â€˜That’s it,’ Jenna said, nodding. As bad as she needed information, eyewitnesses were sketchy at recalling moments under duress. Uncooperative, hyperventilating eyewitnesses made for even worse testimonies. If the terrorists had simply wanted to pass the phrase
important to be earnest
on to the cops, they could’ve just written it on the same note that warned authorities they would strike again. But they hadn’t.
    Instead, they’d left them a living witness instructed to give the message.
    Which was why Jenna now knew that whatever else Ashlee had heard come from any of their mouths was vital. They’d have known the video wouldn’t have audio. They’d have also known that leaving a witness alive meant leaving a standing, testifying account of any vocalizations they made inside the building – be they statements made