I texted Holt at 9:00. He confirmed Caspian's sworn statement had been notarized at 8:15 and added to the warrant. He confirmed Sheriff Thrasher's deputies were posted three streets over starting at noon. He confirmed Wynn Mercer would be parked in an unmarked Crown Victoria on the corner of Briarwood Glen Drive and Magnolia Trace from 1:30 onward. He confirmed my body camera was paired with the central server at the station.
He confirmed two officers from the day shift, Tucker Brennan, sergeant, and Lane Murchison, rookie, were the next two units in the dispatch queue for vehicle recovery calls within the Briarwood Glen zip code. He confirmed they did not know anything. At 11:00, I went into the garage. I lifted the bay door. I rolled the Mustang halfway out into driveway, front end pointed at the cul-de-sac, the way I'd been doing once a month for 2 years.
I connected the battery. I cranked the engine. I let it warm for 6 minutes. I shut it down. I left the hood open.
I got a clean chamois and a bottle of detail spray. I knelt at the front bumper and started polishing the grill. I wore jeans, a faded UGA cap, a worn navy t-shirt with a small bleach stain on the left collar from a load of laundry I'd done wrong in 2020. I clipped my body camera into the inside breast pocket of my t-shirt, so the lens peeked out at the top of the fabric. I activated it at 1:30.
The red light blinked twice and went solid. Tate came down at 12:45 and went upstairs to his bedroom on the second floor. He opened the window that overlooked the driveway. He set his iPhone on a small tripod his mother had bought him for his 14th birthday. He hit record on the camera.
He gave me a thumbs up from the window. I gave him one back. At 1:42, Hadley Lockwood walked out her front door across the cul-de-sac. She wore a coral blouse, white capris, gold sandals, same outfit as the pound cake day. She had a manila folder in her left hand.
Bryson followed her, taller than her by half a foot, wearing tennis shorts and a polo. He had a printout in his hands. Hadley walked to the foot of her own driveway. She stopped. She crossed her arms.
She was facing my driveway directly. She wanted to be seen. At 1:45, I saw the dispatch ping on my phone over my wristband notification. I had cloned the feed. I watched a single line of text scroll across.
CV DSP, vehicle recovery, 4815 Briarwood Glen. Caller reports stolen Mustang. At 1:47, two units acknowledged. C12, Brennan. C-19, Murchison.
On route. I went back to polishing the grill. I did not look up at Hadley. I did not look up at her son. I did not look at the upstairs window where my own son was filming.