Page 5 of Mine

“Who’s it from?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Did you trace the email address?”

“Untraceable. The email was sent from a bogus account over a bogus IP address.”

“Where are they?”

“I can’t trace the location without a viable IP address.”

I straighten, fold my arms over my chest, and stare down at the picture on the screen. “How the hell did someone find out Valerie is my wife?”

“Marriage records are public. Even though we made an effort to conceal it, anyone with significant hacking experience—which is pretty much half the population these days—could figure it out, I’m sure.”

I squint at the email. “It’s been a long time,” I mutter, repeating the last line.

“So, it’s someone you’ve met at some point.”

“Which is completely useless information.”

“Right. When was the last time you spoke to Valerie?”

“Seven months ago.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Longer than that.”

“Was she still living in the safe house you set her up in?”

“Yes. She knows she’s not allowed to leave—actually, that’s a good point. Check the security cameras at the beach house where she was staying.”

“Step back.”

Cillian pushes me out of the way, which takes little effort considering the man is six-foot-five and as thick as a refrigerator. He sinks into the chair and begins opening multiple files and programs.

“Is she still on her meds?” he asks, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

“Yes. I get an update from her doctor every three weeks. He refills her prescription and takes a blood sample to ensure she’s taking them.”

“Good. How is she? I mean, mentally?”

“The same.”

A dozen different views of my secret oceanfront property fill the screens. It’s a small three-bedroom bungalow on a cliff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by twenty acres of gardens and manicured woods.

“Start with three weeks ago,” I say. “That’s the last time I received a communication from her doctor, who visited her at the house.”

Cillian fast-forwards through the footage.

I watch my wife come and go. Outside, inside, back and forth, over and over again.

Small and painfully skinny, her long blond hair hangs in tangles down her back. The white robe she practically lives in is dingy and stained. In most of the footage, regardless of the weather, she’s barefoot, her skin almost as pale as her robe.

She looks ethereal, ghostly almost, seemingly gliding over the ground as she walks.

Occasionally, she gestures to some phantom object in front of her, her fingers fluttering madly as if she’s trying to communicate something. She walks the grounds, even in the night. When the camera catches her face, her eyes reflect like a cat’s.

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