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“All the familial love aside,” his uncle began, his voicesofter than before, “was there anything interesting on the tapes?”
Lou’s eyes widened as though she was remembering they had ajob to do. He wished they could go to lunch and sit with his parents and maybeafterward go over and hang out with hers. He would toss whatever ball Jayce wasplaying with this season—football, baseball, basketball—he could do any ofthem. He liked having a younger brother to mentor. They would have dinner withher parents and then he would take her home to their bed where his cousinswould gag and pretend it was all too much for them, but he would know how happythey were he was finally able to properly take care of Lou.
Endless days of being with Lou was all he wanted. He’dproven himself, found a place where he belonged, and that was at her side.
Which he couldn’t do if he was in prison.
She wiped at her eyes as she walked back to the desk wherehalf an hour ago he’d eaten her pussy.
He moved in beside her, unable to stay away.
She gave him a watery smile and squeezed his hand beforeturning back to her laptop. He watched as she took a long breath and seemed totry to get professional again. But when he put a hand on her hip and got close,she didn’t push him away.
He wanted to be in that moment where she’d joined them andhe finally fucking felt complete.
“TJ mentioned he thought someone was behind the scenes,” Loubegan. “This isn’t intel we got from MI6. This is what Kala and Cooper managedto get from the mercenary base. I’ve had the AI working on it for hours.”
“You talking about the man who was interrogating TJ?” hisfather asked.
TJ shook his head, a chill coming over him where he’d beenso warm mere moments before. “No. You should be able to hear him clearly. Ididn’t see his face, but he spoke openly to me. He was the guy givinginstructions and leading the interrogation. Almost certainly German. There wassomeone else. I’m sure of it. He showed up late the first day I was held.”
“I think the man who interrogated you is Huber,” Lou said,her eyes on the screen. “The accent is German, and the tape even catches himordering security around in German. If I could find another tape of his voice,I could confirm it, but that feels right to me. He absolutely acts like theboss until the second man shows up.”
“I’ll contact some friends of mine at Interpol,” his uncleoffered. “I suspect someone in that part of the world has taken him in for questioning.The good news is German police know how to document. If they have tapes, we canget them and put aside all doubt.”
“You could reach out to Damon,” his mom prompted.
His uncle’s eyes narrowed. “I’m still not sure if I’mkilling that son of his.”
His dad sat back on the couch with a smile. “Oliver is stillhitting on Charlotte. And Genny Rycroft.”
“And me,” his mom added. “The boy seems to have a thing forolder women. Mommy issues.”
His dad frowned and looked to his uncle. “Maybe we shouldtalk…”
Nope. He wasn’t letting the OGs devolve again. His dad anduncle could sit around for hours talking about how to torture a dude theydidn’t like, and they would throw around fantasies like drawing and quarteringand evisceration. His mom would toss in her two cents. No way. “I’m almostcertain there was someone else there, someone asking questions in thebackground. I know this sounds weird, but he was the one I was afraid of. Icould barely hear the man, but something was wrong with him. He was…felt…I hateto use this word, but he felt evil.”
“I think I’ve managed to isolate what TJ is talking about,but the language isn’t German,” Lou was saying. “I’m using a program I workedon with Tristan that identifies background sounds. The AI behind it studies thesound and attempts to reconstruct it if it can’t simply amplify it. It couldn’tin this case, so what we’re going to hear isn’t the actual voice but what theAI decided is its best guess about what’s being said.”
“Yes, we used it recently on a corporate case,” his motherexplained. “We couldn’t use it in court, but it gave us the right accountnumbers to prove the CEO was stealing from the shareholders. It’s a good pieceof work, babe.”
Lou’s lips curled up. Praise. She flourished in it.
He wanted to make sure he understood. “So the computer canpick up stuff the human ear can’t hear.”
She nodded his way. “Yep. It’s all there on the tape in somecapacity, but at a level we can’t make out. The AI can usually identify what itis. In this case, I’ve isolated what it thinks is a voice, and from there ituses logic and what it can hear to extrapolate what’s being said. In othercases, it would simply tell me what it thinks the sound is. Like this one.”
She hit a button, and he heard the sizzle of the tasercoming on. Then an artificial voice came over the speakers.
This is the sound of some dude getting hit by a taser,and I don’t think that was the way he planned his day.
“Sorry,” Lou said, flushing slightly. “Tris programmed theAI to sound like a surfer guy. He thought it was funny.”
“It’s annoying, and that was his point,” his uncle said. “Heis so like his father.”
“Well, it’s right. I did not put get tortured via cattleprod on my daily schedule, so that point goes to surfer guy,” TJ snarked. “Whatdoes it think that voice said?”
“This is what I was able to pull off the originalrecording.” Lou pressed some more keys and then something like scratchy hummingcame out. “That’s the isolated sound. If you listen closely, you can hear a wordevery now and then.”
