They have to find her. Simon cannot be allowed to be the last person to see her, to touch her, talk to her. It is getting harder for Anna to pretend that this isn’t going to end the way Melissa’s life did.
She looks up sharply spotting movement by the window, a soft, round blue-gray face looking in. Around his neck Anna sees the camera is gone, her heart sinking. In its place is the cat’s old collar, with a carabiner that holds a small AirTag disc hanging from it.
Her heart sinks. Tears, hot and stinging, rise and slide down her cheeks. Maybe they saw her video and thought it was a prank, threw the whole thing away.
Anna looks to the door; Simon is not here yet. It might be safe to let the cat in, even just for five minutes.
She heads over and cracks the window, and he slips in with a warbling meow, rubbing his soft fur against her ankles while she recklessly opens another tin of provisions for him. At the table, he eats as she tries to work out her next move, and if there even is one.
As he eats, his cobbled-together collar disc thwacks against the tin. Anna notices something strange on it, peeling away from the back.
She reaches over and turns the disc: taped onto its back is a tightly folded scrap of paper.
A message.A message.
Anna leaps up, quickly peeling the note from the disc, unfolding it to read:
Will send police. Need location. Remove this GPS tag. Keep it there. You are going to be okay.
Anna is gasping, sobbing, tears rolling down her cheeks, the note trembling in her hands.
Someone knows. Someone is coming. It is almost over.
She hastily wipes her tears away, practical thoughts flooding her brain: Simon could be here soon—today is visiting day.
She fumbles the disc off of Blue’s collar and stumbles to the corner of the room, lifting the loose carpet tile to slide the thin disc underneath.
Then, satisfied that no bump is visible, she carefully lifts the cat off the table, carries him safely back to the window, and deposits him outside the window’s bars.
“Go home,” she whispers. “I love you but go home. No more food. Go.”
She shoos him away and shuts the window, but the cat does not budge, instead licking the last of the food from the fur around his mouth.
But Anna has no time. She turns back to the table, grabs the creased note, and pops it into her mouth, chewing vigorously, until she spits a white pulp ball out into her hand. She chucks it into the toilet bowl and flushes, the little wad disappearing in a swirl of water. She washes up the tin and places it in the trash, and when she looks back at the window, the cat is gone, too.
Chapter 40
Found You
Blue twists around my legs,eager to be fed. The carabiner around his neck is empty.
I stifle a yelp.
I quickly fill his bowl, feed pellets showering the floor and then swallowing hard, with trembling fingers, I open the AirTag tracker app, to check.
It takes a moment to load, and then suddenly there it is again, the blue dot pulsing in one spot over and over.
It worked!
“Oh my god, Blue. You did it.”
He looks up at me, unimpressed by the outburst.
I look back at the pulsing dot. Anna read my message; she has the tracker. I’ve found her.But where?
I squint down at the map. It’s only two streets away.
“I’ve found you,” I tell the little pulsing dot.“I’ve found you!”
