“Will you quit dicking around?” Junior snapped. “I’m guessing you have incoming.”
“We can intercept,” the lead man chimed in.
“Absolutely not,” I said, suddenly stone-cold serious. “If anyone so much as lays a finger on Aly, I’ll make all your lives a living hell. Don’t think I’m not capable of draining your bank accounts and putting illegal shit on your computers and phones.”
Was I happy with Aly right now? Fuck, no. But that didn’t mean I was okay with someone else restraining her.
“Do you understand?” I said, my voice so low with warning that I barely recognized it.
“Copy that,” the lead guy said.
“Junior?” I pushed.
“Yeah, fine,” he grumbled.
I let out a sigh of relief. “Was anyone able to locate Brad’s phone?”
The response was an immediate negative.
Fuck. There was no way I could leave without trying to find it. At least most of the hacking software I brought with me was automated. I could hit run on all the applications and search the house while they churned away.
“Aly, baby,” I said. “Can you wait for me in the shadows out back? I don’t want you entering the house since less of you is covered.”
Her sweet voice was a relief when it came over the line. “I can wait, but hurry up. It’s cold as shit out here.”
“I’ll hurry,” I told her.
“We’re leaving,” Junior said. “We’ll keep the watch cars in place and wait for you at the pickup spot. We won’t be able to hear you guys once we get out of range, so you’re on your own. Only use the burner phones as a last resort.”
“Got it, thanks,” I said. “I’ll work as fast as I can, Aly.”
“I know you will,” she said, the open trust in her voice spearing straight into my heart.
“I’m going to be quiet for a bit so I can get this done.”
Her tone turned saccharine-sweet. “How will I ever survive the silence?”
A snort-laugh came over the line, telling me the others were still in range.
I stiffened. “Please tell me that was Junior.”
“Nope,” he said. “I think that means you owe her twenty bucks.”
Aly let out a quiet whoop of victory.
I groaned and got to work.
The first thing I did was pull a thumb drive from my tool belt and pop it into a USB port. I’d loaded my favorite generative password-cracking AI on there, and it took less than ten seconds for it to log me into Brad’s system. Next, I opened a file that would scrape Brad’s entire web history, set the keywords to every variation of Aly’s name I could think of, along with her home address, and hit “run.” It didn’t matter if Brad had used Firefox or a stealth browser that promised it was untraceable. My crawl tool would find them all and mine them for the data I sought.
That done, I opened another handy piece of software that a hacker friend had created. He called it the Brick Layer, and no, I had never gotten him to explain the significance of that name.
The program searched for hidden files and hard drives. Once it started chugging away, I pushed back from the chair and left the room, careful to keep as low as possible and out of sight while I traversed the hall, searching for Brad’s phone. I was aware that this would be easier with two people, but if I couldn’t find Brad’s phone and some digital trace of Aly was on there, the cops finding any physical trace of her inside the house could be disastrous.
The end of the hall was dark enough that I decided to risk turning on my flashlight, remembering the instruction to keep it pointed down at all times. The red beam functioned as promised. I could hardly see much in it, so I doubted anyone would notice the glow out of the windows.
I peeked in doorways as I passed them, but the bedrooms that lay beyond looked like they were for guests. Finally, at the very end of the hallway, in the darkest part of the shadows – because, of course – I found Brad’s room. There wasn’t much to point it out at first, just the subtle hints that it was more lived in than the rest, but I went with my gut, and as soon as I stepped inside and saw a pair of shoes discarded near the bed, I knew I was in the right place.
Junior told us that Brad lived alone and rarely ever had company, and now I knew that probably had something to do with the dead bodies in the basement. The realization made me shudder. I was in a house with two corpses, and god only knew how many other people had died inside these walls.
A spine-chilling feeling slithered down my back. It felt like someone had reached out to touch me but changed their mind at the last second.
I whipped around. No one was there.
Yeah, this place was definitely haunted. What had Mom told me to do if I ever encountered a ghost?
“I mean you no harm,” I whispered.
“Who are you talking to?” Aly asked, making me jump.
I clutched my chest, trying to relearn how to breathe. “Uh, no one, sorry. Just looking for Brad’s phone.”
“Want me to come help?” she asked.
“No. Please stay outside.”
“Fine.”
“Aly,” I ground out.
“I said fine! Just hurry up. My toes are starting to tingle.”
“Could be worse,” I said, resuming my search of the room. “You could be the son of a serial killer currently stuck in a murderer’s house with his last two victims somewhere a few floors below you and are trying not to spiral or let the memories of your childhood send you screaming from the place.”
Aly was quiet for so long that I thought my earbud must have cut out.
“Aly?”
Her voice came through so low that I barely heard her. “I think someone just pulled into the driveway.”
I clicked my flashlight off, fear and adrenaline flooding my veins. “Can you check?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m trying to get to the front of the house, but the snow is loud, and I don’t want them to hear me crunching toward them.”
“Hang on. I think this room might overlook part of the driveway.”
I slunk toward the window and leaned forward just enough to see outside, and – fuck! – there was a car right below me.
“Stay where you are,” I told Aly. “Someone’s here.”
“Get out!” she hiss-whispered.
“Way ahead of you,” I said, racing back to the office. “I just have to wipe you from Brad’s computer.”
“No, Josh. You have to leave. What if they catch you?”
“They won’t,” I told her. “Did Junior text your burner about his people spotting cops?”
“No, but they could be in an unmarked car, or it could be one of Brad’s friends or family members. Josh, get out.”
“I will as soon as I’m done. I’ll go out the window if I have to.”
I really didn’t want to go out the window, but as I skidded around Brad’s desk and saw just how much of Aly I’d have to erase from his search history, I realized it might come down to that.
Hoping to buy myself some time, I shut and locked the office door before starting to wipe the browser Brad used to look for her. He had two hidden ones, and a quick glance revealed that there was more than enough on there to damn him in the eyes of the police, so I left them intact and wiped the other. He also had an encrypted hard drive, so I immediately unencrypted it and ran my search software on that, too. There was no trace of Aly on it, and I didn’t bother looking further into what it contained; I was short on time and figured whatever was on there would probably scar me. I’d already been scarred enough for one lifetime, thank you very much.
“Josh?” Aly whispered. “What’s going on?”
“Shh,” I said, straining my ears. “I think I hear someone coming.”