What could Raine have possibly discovered? What piece of evidence has he unearthed that's important enough to warrant this kind of urgency? The questions loop endlessly as I navigate the familiar streets, each turn bringing me closer to answers I'm not sure I'm ready to hear.
We meet at the same café. I buy him a coffee and a muffin, like the last time. The familiarity of the ritual somehow grounds me.
Raine looks at me over the rim of his steaming cup, a hint of triumph in his eyes. "I’ve got something you're going to want to see."
My heart thuds against my ribs as he slides a stack of papers toward me. "What is this?" I ask, fingers brushing the pages like they might burn.
"The texts I pulled from Dylan's phone," he replies, nodding toward the papers.
I sift through them, scanning words, snippets of arguments, sweet exchanges, emojis splattered between emotions. It feels invasive, reading someone's life in speech bubbles and timestamps.
Then I hit it. A conversation that chills me to the core. Dylan and Claudia, arguing passionately about someone else: an older man named Daniel.
My blood runs cold, freezing in my veins like ice water, suddenly replacing everything warm and living inside me.
"Wait," I whisper, my throat dry. "Daniel?"
"You know him?"
I'm almost speechless. "Uh… yes."
"Weren't you dating some guy named Daniel?” he asks, suddenly realizing. "I think I saw him on your socials."
I'm still shocked. "Uh… yeah."
"Good looking guy," he adds.
Ugh.
"Liza, listen," Raine says, leaning closer like he's sharing a secret meant to shatter. "Dylan's accusing Claudia of sneaking around with this Daniel. The texts go back and forth. There’s mentions of meetups and arguments over who she should trust. All involving this Daniel character."
Numbness wraps around me. "I didn't realize... I didn't know Daniel knew Claudia."
"You think it’s your Daniel?" Raine's voice sharpens with intrigue.
I can barely nod, my mind whirling. Of course it is. What were they involved in? How deep does this go? My stomach flips with a strange kind of dread, the edges of my world tilting.
In that moment, everything about Daniel becomes a new shade of sinister. He’s not just my nightmare, not just Julian's tormentor. His darkness reaches further, touches more people than I imagined. Claudia could be in more danger than I ever thought possible.
"And there's more," Raine tells me. "It's kind of ironic that Dylan was on her case about seeing this other dude, when the whole time, he was tapping some other girl named Amber."
"Really?"
“Yeah… tons of filthy texts and pics too, a real skanky girl covered in tattoos with long red hair. Real trashy. I bet she's a lot of fun."
"Raine!!" I deadpan, appalled by his words. "Don't you have any respect?! I really don't give a shit about this Amber girl… this is about Claudia."
He raises his palm up in apology. "Sorry."
Idiot.
"Seriously, Raine," I say, voice shaky but determined, "I need to see this through. We have to figure out what's happened to her."
His eyes meet mine, serious and steadfast. "I’ll help you. Whatever you need."
"We really should bring this to the police," I tell him. “But first, I want to run this by my friend Colleen… she's Claudia's aunt."
"Sounds like a plan," he says, a little too eagerly. "This is cool… like being a detective on C.S.I."
