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I know I shouldn’t do it, but I can’t help myself. Since running that cognitive interview with Callie I’ve been unable to get something out of my mind. She knew her kidnapper. She called him her love. Ignoring the raging green eyed monster inside of me, I have to focus on that fact. She knew him. She thought she was in love.
We swore we wouldn’t invade her privacy. When she didn’t want to talk about the abduction and the things that happened afterwards, we never pushed it. But this changes everything. To go from thinking it was a seemingly random attack, to knowing that this was a well orchestrated and craftily structured plan? Well, that changes everything.
While she sleeps I pull out my secret laptop. This one is completely untraceable and well hidden in the flat. Only the guys know about this machine, yet another secret we keep from Callie. I hesitate before jabbing the power up button decisively. We need to do this. Once logged on and through the five-round security procedures I put in place, I bring up the highly illegal programme which will allow me to trace all of Callie’s phone activity. She may not have the phone anymore, but I have the number, and that alone gives me access to everything I need.
We probably should have said fuck her privacy and done this sooner but in all honesty, we didn’t have the skill set. We’re contract killers, guns for hire. Or we were. Before. Once we spent all our favours on uncovering Callie’s location, we no longer had the means to get the other intel we needed. So I taught myself. I’ve just not had the confidence to try until now.
I’ve added a lot of strings to my bow, self taught and born through a fierce determination for justice on Callie’s behalf. This is just my latest accomplishment, and tonight it’s finally time to put it to the test.
Part of me feels horrendously guilty, watching her sleep in the bed beside me, knowing that I’m about to uncover secrets she chose to hide from us. But a bigger – louder – part of me is berating me for not doing this sooner.
I wouldn’t have hesitated to use this back when she was taken, to help us find her. If I had it. No, this was a skill I had to learn later as part of our revenge plan, and it didn’t occur to me to use it on Callie until now. I feel stupid for not doing it sooner – despite the guilt.
In no time at all, pages of calls and text logs fill my screen, dating back months. I quickly filter out our numbers, Callie’s mum, and a couple of people from school and her work. Hundreds of messages back and forth to one number are left on screen. Without opening any, I bring up a second programme and run a trace on the number. Letting it run in the background, I flick back to the messages and sort them by date. Quickly doing the sums in my mind, I realise that whoever this guy was, he’d been messaging Callie for over six months. And we were none the wiser. What the hell?
Most of the messages are time stamped late at night, making me realise just how often we leave Callie alone when we take late jobs. Of course, back then, even if we were home she would have been tucked up in her bed alone and able to message whomever she pleased without our knowledge anyway.
She never seemed secretive or like she was always on her phone, but I wrack my brain trying to remember if there was anything, any small clue that we may have missed. I mean, there must have been something. A blush, a giggle, a mention of going out with a mysterious friend…but I’ve got nothing. Given how obsessed with her I’ve always been, you would have thought I’d notice something.
But there was nothing. Which makes me wonder if it was deliberate. I’m pretty sure Callie was groomed before her abduction. Why? If the goal was always to take her anyway, why put the time in getting to know her?
And more to the point: Why Callie?
We’ve always known we were missing a link, and hopefully I just found a breadcrumb that can lead us to it.
Just as I’m about to open the program I wrote that will allow me to click on the very first message this guy sent, Callie stirs. Shit! I quickly slam the laptop shut, my security measures in place meaning this action alone is enough to wipe my cache and close everything down, and slide the laptop under the bed.
“Hey,” she murmurs sleepily. “What are you doing?”
“Would you think I’m a real creeper if I said just watching you sleep?”
“Never.” She smiles faintly. “I used to do that too.”
“How can you watch yourself sleep?” I tease.
“Silly. I meant you.”
“You watched me sleep?”
“When you were home. If we fell asleep watching a film.” Her innocent words cause a stabbing sensation in my chest.
“I like sharing a bed with you now.”
“Me too.” I swallow thickly and nod.
“What time is it?”
“Late. Past midnight. Do you want to go back to sleep?”
“Can we get some food?”
“Sure thing. Want me to get something delivered or cook?”
“Cereal?” she asks hopefully.
“You got it, cariño, the most goddamn gourmet bowl of cereal you’ve ever had.”
She giggles at my exaggeration, and I gently tug her out of bed and through to the kitchen. She jumps up onto the worktop while I fix us some breakfast food. It’s technically morning anyway. Weirdly, the guys aren’t back yet. I guess the job was a little more complicated than initially thought.
