Page 84 of Never Forget

“Baby, please. You know I would never do something like this on purpose. I don’t know how he got it. I’m so sorry. Please believe me, I’d never⁠—”

I blink again, breaking out of my shame spiral and focusing on Scott. I can’t help but recoil a little.

“You think I blame you for this?”

His amber eyes are swimming, his brow creased with worry. “It was me who made that recording. It’s still on my phone, Naz. I– I thought it was safe. I didn’t save it to the cloud or anything, just on the local storage, and⁠—”

“Scott, I let you make that recording. I could have said no.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that they got it from me.”

Cory clears his throat. I’d forgotten he was there. Scott pulls away from me and returns to his seat next to me but leaves his hand on my thigh. His touch is reassuring. Comforting.

“Other than today, when you gave your phone to Emmy, has anyone else touched it? Did you leave it unattended or let someone borrow it? Anything.”

“No,” Scott says. “It’s been in my pocket since we left North Carolina. The only time it’s been out of my sight other than our meeting today was the night before when I was sleeping, but it was close by, charging. I always keep it on me.”

“May I see it?”

Scott unlocks and hands over his phone without hesitation. Cory thumbs through it for a minute before speaking again. “And you’re absolutely sure you didn’t save it anywhere else or send it?”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know,” Cory concedes. “What I can’t figure out is how the recording could have been lifted off the phone.” Cory shuts down the phone, then pops the back off, dismantling it piece by piece. “There’s no sign of malware or a listening device or anything else.”

“You don’t think Emmy…” I start, but I can’t even finish the sentence. Emmy wouldn’t do that. Not on purpose, at least.

Cory shakes his head. “It would be extremely unlikely that he would have had time to make a second copy, and the first one is still in my possession until I pass it off to Blake’s contact with the Waves App IT department.”

“Emmy loves all of you. There’s no way he’d do this.”

I nod at Scott. I really don’t believe that he would, even if he hated us.

“Besides,” he continues, “I already know who is responsible, even if I have no idea how he did it.”

“He?”

Scott nods. “Whoever has been texting me called me after I made the drop. He said I failed his instructions because I brought Naz with me.”

“He knew Naz was there? So that means he might have been there or had eyes on you somehow.”

“I think so. I tried to keep him talking as long as I could so I could spot him, but I didn’t find anyone and then I was worried I’d lost Naz.”

I cringe inwardly, wishing again that I hadn’t left that spot. I didn’t know he was on the phone with a potential madman while he was frantically searching for me.

“Okay. I need you to tell me everything that happened today, from the beginning.”

Scott runs Cory through the events of the day, starting from where he left off on the story he told me, right around when I found him in Blake’s office. It’s when he gets to the specifics of the call that piques my interest.

“Back up. He said what?”

“It was mostly a lot of trash talking you guys, saying you don’t care about anyone but yourselves, stuff like that.”

“What did he call you specifically?”

“Insinuated I was dumb and disposable.”

“He called you a ‘dumb meathead security guard’?”