Unbreakable

Chapter Fourteen - Reunion

The office was empty and I was the only one here so I took advantage of the quietness and got straight to work. I read through the CSU reports from the night of the charity event, I rewatched the interview tapes that Nathan and Agent Riggs conducted, I reread all of the witnesses statements and analyzed them for any comparisons, and I listened to all of the recorded calls that's came in with "tips" about the shooting. Everything I did yielded little to no results.

"The answer is here, I just need to find it." I mumbled aloud to myself while looking at the drawing board I'd created with notes from the case. I yapped my pen against my lips while I tried to formulate a coherent thought. Every single guest there all said the same thing, they heard gunshots and then screaming and it all became a blur. It wasn't a surprise that these witness statements weren't all that helpful, witnesses usually aren't. Everyone thinks that if there's a witness to a crime that its a slam dunk case but in reality its the opposite most of the time. Witnesses are usually unreliable and get information wrong or they get confused and change their stamens as the time passes because they have more and more time to think about it and the longer you think about something the hazier the details actually begin to get. The only real slam dunk in a case is when you've caught something on video.

"Oh god, I'm such an idiot. CCTV footage." I groaned to myself and walked over to the CCTV footage that was sent over from the event and started to pull it up when Nathan and Elara walked in.

"What are you guys doing here? How did you know I'd be here?" I questioned them, not even trying to conceal the annoyance in my voice that I was no longer alone.

"We're in the FBI Spence." Nathan rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it's really not hard to track someone down." Elara added.

"The real question is, what are you doing here?" Nathan gave me a concerned look, I know I can't lie to him because he knows when I'm lying but I really didn't want to get into what happened between Sierra and I.

"I'm working, I've been off this case for too long." It wasn't a complete lie, I wanted to tackle this case head on, after getting shot my motivation to solve this has grown immensely.

"Okay, what's the other reason?" He cocked his head to the side and gave me a quizzical look.

"There is no other reason." I argued defensively hoping my tone would get him to drop it. He brought his hands up in front of him in a surrendering motion indicating that he wasn't going to press the matter further.

"So we're all just going to pretend we didn't see Sierra leave the tavern crying and you leave looking like someone kicked your puppy?" Elara asked bluntly. I gave her a pleading look to just drop it and Nathan cleared his throat uncomfortably. Elara sighed. "Very well, where do you need us?"

"I was just getting ready to review the CCTV footage again." I explained.

"We already reviewed it, you can't see who the second shooter is in the crowd." Nathan explained and Elara nodded her head in agreement.

"I'm not trying to look for the second shooter, not directly anyway. It may take some time and some extra work but I wanted to cross reference every face we see with a name on the guest list and witness statements." I knew this was a long shot but I was running out of ideas and I desperately needed something to put me onto a new path to investigate.

"I'll start a pot of coffee, seems like we're in for a long night." Nathan said.

It had been over two hours of cross referencing faces with names and we weren't yielding any new results, Elara had passed out at her desk and Nathan wasn't far behind her. His eyes were bloodshot and the bags under his eyes were growing. I felt the exhaustion creep into my muscles but I forced myself to power through it. Sleep wasn't going to get me answers and right now thats what I needed.