The Hopper: Chapter 3

Detective Towns is hot on The Hopper’s trail as he reviews the security footage

Tiffany and David continued to walk to the security room as they both had a million thoughts rushing through their minds at once. For David, he was thinking about what all of this could mean in regards to The Hopper case while Tiffany thought about what this could all mean for her medical career if the police deem her as a thief. Tiffany’s stomach began to turn, thinking of the worst case scenario.

“So… I’m not in trouble am I?” Tiffany asked. You could hear a bit of fear in her voice as all she could think about is showing David the security footage and being arrested right after.

“Of course not. I mean right now your story adds up so I’d say you don’t have to worry about anything right now.” Tiffany breathed a sigh of relief. Her nerves came down but she was still on edge a bit over all of this. She just hoped The Hopper was done with her..

The pair eventually arrived at the security room that was located in a more quiet section of the hospital. Tiffany knocked on the door before opening it. As she opened it, the pair were greeted by the sight of a security officer who was monitoring the cameras. He was dressed in a yellow jacket that had “Security” written in big letters on the back. Hearing the knock and the door open, the officer turned to see David and Tiffany entering the room.

“Hey Reggie, how’s it going?” Tiffany said as Reggie looked at her and smiled.

“There’s the thief,” he joked as Tiffany’s face went red with embarrassment. “Is he here to put you away for years?”

“Well this is Detective Towns, he is here to see the footage of the theft,” Tiffany said. Reggie stood up and shook David’s hand before sitting back down and clicking away at his computer. After a couple seconds, Reggie was able to pull up a file containing all of the security footage from that week that showed The Hopper using Tiffany’s body to steal equipment.

“Alright so here is the footage we have of Tiffany stealing the equipment. We have a camera setup in our parking garage that captured all of it,” Reggie said as he pressed play and let all of the clips play out.

In the footage, it shows a black van pull up into the parking garage around the same time every afternoon. The driver cannot be seen as they never exit the vehicle. Instead, the van simply parks and waits as time passes. Like clock work, each clip shows Tiffany walking up to the back of the van and opening the back doors before loading something in the back. Each day was something new. By the end of the week, it appeared that an entire hospital room had been loaded in the van throughout the week. Everything that would be needed to run a tiny hospital was stolen and placed in the van.

“You don’t know this van or the driver, do you?” David asked Tiffany who had been standing back, watching nervously.

“I have no clue who they are or who owns the van. I have never seen either in my life.”

As the three watched the footage over and over again, nothing seemed to be helping the investigation. Sure, there was footage of Tiffany loading the stuff into the van but there was nothing to identify the driver or the van. That was until David noticed the one day the driver parked differently.

Everyday, the driver of the van parked the van in a way that blocked the license plate from the camera. The driver would park the backend away from the camera and would do their best to hide the license plate from the shot. The driver was good at this except for one day in which the driver turned the van around too early and exposed the backend. As the van turned, the license plate was on full display. David quickly jotted the license plate down.

“Bingo, we have a license plate!” David said in excitement. “Send me this footage. I need to make a couple calls,” David said as he quickly began to pack his stuff up and exit the room.

“You’re happy?” Tiffany asked.

“Extremely. Thank you both for this. I’ll call you guys if I need more,” he said as he quickly began to walk down the hall and exit the hospital. As David began to walk over to his police car, he called the chief to give him an update.

“Chief, great news on The Hopper case. We have footage of the van that was used to steal the medical equipment. I’m going to run the plate and see if I can pay the driver a visit.”

“Great job Detective Towns. Just make sure you don’t lose him this time.”

“I won’t,” David said as he hung up the phone and entered his police car. Punching the plate into his computer, it came up to a man named Mark Jones. David wasn’t going to waste any time as he quickly entered Mark’s home address into his phone. The case was getting hot and David was going to make sure he didn’t let it cool.

While David was off to find Mark, Tiffany had returned to work while Reggie went back to watching the security cameras. Since the Tiffany incident, Reggie has been watching them more than ever as before he barely even glanced at them. As he watched the cameras, he remembered that he needed to forward the footage to David. As he opened up the file, however, Reggie suddenly felt lightheaded.

“What the fu~” Reggie blacked out as his body slumped over the desk. His body didn’t move for a couple moments but soon began to slowly move. His body rose back up as his eyes opened. A evil grin formed on his face as he looked at the security footage file.

“Well played detective. Seems like you have a good lead going. Perhaps you won’t be the only paying the man in the van a visit,” Reggie laughed. As he said this, Reggie deleted the file and destroyed the evidence of the theft. “Maybe I’ll have to punish that Tiffany girl for running her mouth too.” The evil grin failed to leave Reggie’s face as he made sure the footage was deleted. Once he did so, Reggie passed out once again. When he came to, he was a bit confused but assumed he’d just zoned out. Nothing seemed to be different as he just went back to watching the cameras again.