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“What happened?” she demanded. “Are you all right?”
“Listen to me.” Gia had had enough time to realize that communicating with Dani this way was unsafe. She’d also had enough time to do something about it at her end. Time for Dani to do the same. “I need you to find a place in the airport that sells disposable phones. Buy two. Then call me back on one of them, but not on my regular cell. Call me at the number I’m texting you now.”
“Gia, you’re scaring me.”
“Just do it—please.”
“Done.” The line went dead.
Gia tossed down one of the disposable phones she’d run out and gotten and began pacing. She didn’t stop until that phone rang, this time with an unknown number showing in the caller ID.
“Hello?” Gia answered tentatively.
“It’s me.”
“Good.” Gia wished she could stop shaking. “Now we’re going to exchange phone numbers—not the one you’re calling me on or the one I’m answering on. The other two—the ones we haven’t used yet. After that, we’re going to toss these phones and talk to each other only on the unused ones.”
This time Dani didn’t ask questions. She just gave Gina the number. Gia did the same.
“I’ll call you now,” she told Dani.
Dani answered before the first ring had completed. “What happened?” she demanded.
Gia blew through the story as quickly and accurately as she could, omitting none of the details. By the time she was done, Dani was gripping her phone so tightly her knuckles were white.
“This is surreal,” she managed, bile rising in her throat. “A nightmare. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine. But I realized that whoever’s doing this knows when we’re together and what we have planned. That means they must somehow be intercepting our calls and texts. We can’t take the chance of using our regular phones with each other.”
“So from now on, it’s these. I get it.” Dani sucked in her breath. “How do we figure this whole sick thing out?”
“Without putting ourselves in danger, you mean?” Gia asked. “Whoever’s doing this is obviously willing to go to extreme lengths to have us forget we ever met and to abandon poking around in our roots. If we ignore their warnings, who knows what they’re capable of doing?”
Dani gritted her teeth. “I just wish I understood how our trying to figure out if we’re biologically related would threaten them.” Abruptly, a thought struck her. “Gia, the one thing they clearly don’t know about is the DNA testing we had done. We never discussed that on the phone, through our Facebook messaging, or anywhere. Plus, if they did know, they wouldn’t be wasting their time burning up photo albums. They’d be trying to intercept those test results.
Look-alike baby pictures versus DNA? Not even close.”
“You’re right. And they won’t be intercepting anything. The minute we hang up, I’ll call the lab, make them aware that others might want to get their hands on our test results, and inquire about their security policies. That will probably piss them off, but it’ll raise the red flags we need.”
“That’s a smart precautionary step.”
“Yes, but probably unnecessary. Your logic makes sense. Given the tactics they’re using to scare us off, I doubt they have a clue that we’ve gone for absolute proof.”
“Which brings us back to, what do we do? Our lives could very well be in big-time jeopardy.”
“I know.” Gia had already thought this one through. “The test results aren’t due for a couple of days. So let’s let the bad guys think they’ve won. Let them think we bought these phones because we’re scared rabbits. We’ll each stay in our own neck of the woods, go about our usual routines. Their fears will die down. Meanwhile, we’ll wait for the test results. Once we have them, along with the answers both our instincts are screaming they’ll provide, I know the perfect pros to go to for help.”
“Who?” Dani demanded.
“Forensic Instincts—a private investigative firm in Manhattan. Very avant-garde and very proactive, even in the absence of legal evidence.”
“Which we have none of,” Dani realized aloud. “Are you sure we can trust them?”
“I’m sure. They have a well-earned reputation as being the best. And that’s not just hearsay, although they’re in the media often enough. I know one of their team members, Marc Devereaux. I handled his wedding a few weeks ago. He was a Navy SEAL and an FBI agent before joining Forensic Instincts. He’s a great guy, but formidable as hell. If I didn’t like him so much and see how devoted he was to his fiancée, I would have been scared to death. Trust me, a criminal wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. So you have an in. I hope it’s enough to get them to help us.”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
