Page 84 of Fool Me Twice

“Well I didn’t really have a choice,” Damir admitted with a self-deprecating smile, shaking his head. “But I’m more than happy to be of assistance.”

Hart frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Brace yourself, brother,” Ash said. “This one’s a doozy.”

Damir nodded. “Yeah, it’s honestly pretty strange,” he said. “I was driving home from a case just near the border of Arcstead and Slatehollow, up north. Figured I’d cut my drive short by going through Slatehollow instead of circling around. In the middle of my drive, my car started acting up.”

“Acting up how?” Hart asked, and Damir chuckled.

“I caved recently and splurged on one of those fully electric cars, self-driving tech, all of that,” Damir said. “I’ve never been one to spend money on stuff like that, but it was my birthday recently, and I figured I’d treat myself.”

“Right.” Hart tried really hard to remain polite and patient when he wanted to scream at the man to get to the damn point already.

“Anyway, I’m driving, and the screen starts glitching, my music cuts off, this weird static sound gets really loud, and then I start getting all this info displayed on my car screen.” Damir pulled out a Nexus issued tablet. “I was instructed to show you this. It’s the exact thing that showed up in my car.”

He turned the tablet on and played a video.

It showed an image of a light gray screen with black block letters glitching in and out of sight.

Slatehollow team

Find Hart

Give him the name

Arianna Layton

The words faded and the video cut off, leaving Hart’s head spinning even more than it had been.

“Bit of déjà vu, that,” Black said, pointing at the screen, eyes wide and confused.

“A bit, yeah.” Ash nodded. “Except this time, someone is trying to help?”

“Wait, you’ve already seen this?” Damir asked.

Fix shook his head. “No, not this. But we were hacked recently, having someone warn us not to look into some stuff we found while working a case.”

“You’ve been hacked?” Damir asked. “Our systems are supposed to be secure.”

“We notified Nexus and PUMA, so they’re looking into it,” Fix said.

“Not turning up anything though,” Ash added. “And now this!”

“And you have no idea who sent this?” Hart asked Damir, eyes still glued to the dark screen between them.

“Not a single one.” Damir shook his head. “I assumed it’s to do with your newest case. We did get your email and have been digging into our old cases. Nothing from the newer generations, but we had our intake manager start going through the physical ones we still keep. It’s slow going.”

“And this is all they sent you?” Hart asked. “Whoever it is?”

“Yup.” Damir nodded, before frowning. “Well no. They also texted my phone a few seconds later telling me that they’d hack my car again and drive it here themselves if I didn’t comply.”

Hart stared at the tablet in silence.

“Has anyone heard of an Arianna Layton?” Hart asked, and they all exchanged looks that put Hart even more on edge. “What?”

“We went through public records of cursebreakers and casters while we were waiting for you. She’s not on either,” Fix said. “And if she’s a commoner, it’ll take a while to track her down.”

“I texted Cyrus just before you got here,” Black said, biting his lip before turning his phone to show it to Hart. “He just got back to me. Her name was on the list Morgan and Ash pulled out of the house.”

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