It was the food truck. Smoked South BBQ. The owner had pulled down his service window, but mounted directly above the metal awning was a black dome security camera. It was angled down, pointing precisely at the cluster of picnic tables where I had been sitting.
The police were entirely focused on Trevor, who was now loudly demanding his lawyer and refusing to answer any questions about the gelatin capsule. I didn't wait for permission. I walked away from the officers, stepped around the police SUV, and knocked hard on the food truck’s metal service door.
A moment later, the door swung open. A tired-looking man in a flour-dusted apron frowned at me, holding a stack of greasy cardboard trays.
“We’re closed, miss,” he said, his eyes darting nervously toward the bikers and the flashing police lights. “I’m not getting involved in whatever gang fight that is.”
“It’s not a gang fight,” I said, my voice finding a sudden, desperate clarity. “That man in the grass just put something in my drink. Please. I need to know if your camera works.”
The vendor blinked, his defensive posture dropping. He looked from my pale face to the black dome above his head. Without a word, he set the cardboard trays down, wiped his hands on a towel, and picked up an iPad resting near the register.
“It records on a twenty-four-hour loop to a cloud server,” he said, tapping the screen. “Give me a second.”
He turned the iPad toward me. The screen showed a crisp, high-definition feed of the park. It was perfectly framed. I saw the wooden table, my canvas bag, and the bright yellow lemonade.
“Go back,” I urged him, leaning over the counter. “Go back before I walked away to help the kid.”
He dragged his finger across the timeline bar. The footage scrubbed in reverse. I watched myself walk backward to the table, sit down, and pull out a stack of spelling tests.
“Keep going,” I said, my chest tightening. “Five more minutes.”
The timestamp in the corner read 3:42 PM. I was sitting at the table, grading papers. And there, sitting on a concrete park bench exactly thirty feet behind me, was Trevor Kane.
He wasn't walking past. He wasn't a random opportunist who saw an unattended drink. He was sitting completely still, holding a newspaper he wasn't reading, his expensive sunglasses locked squarely on the back of my head.
“Leave it playing,” I whispered. I pulled my own phone from my pocket, opened the camera, and hit record, capturing the iPad screen.
I watched Trevor wait. He sat there for nineteen agonizing minutes. He watched me stretch. He watched me check my phone. He watched me take a sip of the lemonade and set it down. And the exact second I stood up and turned my back to help the child with the balloon, Trevor was on his feet. He closed the distance with terrifying speed, palmed the capsule, and dropped it into the cup just as Doc shouted from the grass.
It was methodical. It was practiced. It was a hunt.
“Jesus,” the vendor muttered, staring at the screen. “I’ll email this to the cops. Right now.”
“Thank you,” I said, saving the video to my own phone. My hands were shaking so violently I nearly dropped the device.
I walked back to the picnic area just as Officer Miller hauled Trevor to his feet. Trevor’s hands were secured behind his back in heavy metal cuffs, but the panic was completely gone from his face. He looked bored.
“You’re making a massive mistake, Officer,” Trevor said smoothly, ignoring the dirt on his knees. “You have zero proof of what was in that capsule. It’s an antacid. You can't charge me with a felony for littering.”
“We’re taking you in for questioning and processing,” Miller replied, his grip tight on Trevor’s bicep. But I saw the deep frustration pulling at the corners of the cop's mouth.
I stepped directly into Miller’s path. “I have video,” I said, my voice loud enough for the surrounding crowd to hear. “From the food truck. He sat on that bench for twenty minutes watching me before he made his move. He targeted me.”
Officer Miller stopped. He looked at the video playing on my phone screen. His jaw flexed as he watched Trevor’s calculated approach. “I’ll need that file, Ms. Grant.”