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“Okay … it looks really good right there.” Wendy leaned back from the laptop and glanced at JD.

He stood on a ladder-back chair, fashioned in the same rustic style as the rest of the hotel’s decor, his shoes off to avoid damaging the white fabric with tiny flowers printed on it. The rich amber wood frame propped him up to a point on the wall between the doors leading to the bathroom and the closets. He was attaching the wireless night-sensitive camera to the wall. He felt a bit guilty about drilling holes in the wall to do it, but the Kiley’s were more than accommodating. They seemed to think nothing of the investigators doing whatever was necessary to gather their data.

“All right, good. Thanks, Wen.”

“Anything for you, handsome. What’s next?” She closed the program showing the camera’s picture and shut the laptop.

“Well,” he hopped down from the chair and sat on it to put his shoes back on, “I guess we can check on Dillon. He’s probably going to need another set of eyes to get his camera positioned.”

“Does he know how to do all that? I mean, he’s only been out with you once, right?”

“Yeah, just the last time. The Jenkins case. But I’ve shown him repeatedly how to do it, so he shouldn’t have any trouble. Of course, it is Dillon. I shouldn’t assume anything.”

Wendy giggled. “You’re way too hard on Dilly, babe. He’s a lot smarter than you think.”

“Yeah, monkeys can be surprising too.”

“So anyway, we go check on Dilly now?”

“Yeah, we’ll help him finish up and then we can go to the second floor and set the third camera up there.”

“I wish we’d brought more of them.”

“I only have these three.”

“Why? Don’t you run into cases when you need more?”

“Probably, but … I’ve never had to do an investigation in an area this large before. And they’re expensive, so I can’t collect them. Still, with the hotel’s security system, we should have plenty of optical coverage. And there are only three rooms we know of where activity took place.”

“Three?”

“Yes. This one, with the hat appearing, the one Dillon’s in, and the room on the second floor. Where the Kileys’ son was …”

“Oh. Right.”

“So, with cameras everywhere outside the rooms, we really don’t need to worry about hallways and stairwells. We may even have footage inside elevators. But we have to pick and choose which rooms to look inside . I chose these first three, but we can move the cameras if necessary.”

“More drilling.”

“I know. But they were all for it — they even provided the drill.” He held the drill gun up and inspected it.

“They’re serious about finding out what’s going on.”

“Definitely.” He stood up, and carried the chair to a corner next to the massive wardrobe. “Shall we go?”

“Let’s find Dilly.” She tucked the laptop under her arm.

“Room 3126, unless he managed to finish without help.” He opened the door for her, and she kissed him lightly as she passed.

Screw gun in hand, he checked the door behind him. They turned down the hall, and Wendy slipped under his arm and leaned against his body.

“I sure hope …” JD’s brows lowered a bit and he shook his head. “I wish I’d thought of that before I drilled holes in their walls.”

“What?”

“The cameras. The transmitters have a limited range. I don’t know if we’ll pick them up through the walls in our rooms from here.”

“Oh. That’s bad.”

“Yes, it is. And I should have thought of that before. I should be able to get a readable signal through concrete walls and such for about … oh, say six thousand square feet. Beyond that, the signal’s going to attenuate too far.”

Wendy sighed. “I hoped this would be easy. Mostly vacation.”

“I know. I can’t believe I didn’t realize … I normally don’t make mistakes like that. I wonder what else I’ve forgotten?”