She pressed her lips together and replayed the call.
This time, Isabel moved closer to the desk, bracing one hand against it as she leaned in. Victoria could feel the heat of her just across the space, but Isabel’s attention was locked on the waveform on the screen.
“That hum,” Isabel said. “That’s not a normal AC unit. It’s got a cycle. Almost mechanical. Could be a generator.”
Collins nodded slowly. “Portable? Or industrial?”
Victoria hit the space bar, rewinding ten seconds. The room fell silent again except for the static and the distorted voice. She isolated the last two words and looped them. The hum was clearer there, steady, followed by that faint metallic note.
“Not portable,” Victoria said finally. “Too low. If it’s a generator, it’s powering something big.”
“Warehouse,” Isabel said.
Their eyes met for the first time since she’d walked in. For a second, Victoria forgot to breathe. Then Isabel looked away, her jaw tightening, and the moment was gone.
Victoria clicked the mouse, loading the audio file into the precinct’s waveform editor. The screen filled with jagged peaks and valleys, the ransom voice a distorted block in the middle.
“Let’s break it down,” she said, her tone brisk. It was easier to keep her voice even when she focused on the work.
She highlighted the first second of the file. “This — background static, room tone. Could be a call placed from an enclosed space.”
She clickedplay. They all listened to that empty second, the hiss of the distortion.
Isabel leaned in, forearms braced on the desk. “There’s a texture to it. Not just white noise — there’s depth. Sounds like the mic picked up room echo. High ceiling, maybe concrete walls.”
Victoria nodded, forcing herself not to notice how close Isabel’s sleeve brushed hers when she shifted.
Collins stepped forward, her hands on her hips. “Warehouse or big garage. You get that same bounce in the sound.”
Victoria moved to the next segment — the voice.
“One chance. Five million. Cryptocurrency. Instructions to follow.”
She looped it, playing it at half speed. “Listen for breaths. Cadence.”
At the slower pace, the pauses between sentences stretched. They weren’t natural pauses for breath — they were intentional.
“Reading from a script,” Isabel said flatly. “Probably prewritten.”
Victoria stopped herself from agreeing too quickly. “Or just methodical. Either way, not improvised.”
She isolated the final second of the file, boosting the volume on the faint metallic clang. The speakers emitted the sound, tinny but distinct.
“That’s not a dropped tool,” Collins said. “Too resonant.”
Victoria was already running it through a frequency filter. The software visualized the sound as a sharp vertical spike. “Hollow metal. Pipe or drum. And the hum…”
She layered the sound profile of a standard HVAC unit over it. The peaks didn’t match.
“Generator,” Isabel said again, more certain this time.
Collins frowned. “You said that already.”
Isabel glanced at her. “I’m saying it louder in case the captain didn’t hear me the first time.”
The corner of Collins’ mouth twitched, but she didn’t bite.
Victoria replayed the loop one more time, but her eyes kept drifting to Isabel’s profile — the set of her jaw when she was concentrating, the faint line between her brows. She looked good like this. Focused. Controlled. But the coldness in her expression was new, and it landed like a stone in Victoria’s stomach.
