Page 8 of Byte

“Well, aren’t you observant,” I muttered.

“Start talking, Gabby,” he said sternly.

I sighed and clasped my hands together. “When I was hiding and waiting for you, I thought I heard him say my name.”

“Like he was calling your name?”

“Not exactly. He was in my closet, and I thought he said, ‘Gabby girl, where are you?’ But I’m not sure. Everything was happening so fast, and I was really trying not to make a sound.”

“Do you have any idea who it could have been?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I admitted. I didn’t really think it was him, but I couldn’t come up with any other possibilities. “I met a guy a couple of weeks ago, and we went out a few times. We weren’t hitting it off, so I told him I didn’t think we should keep seeing each other after our last date. He agreed, and that was that. Or so I thought. A few days later, I was pulled over on my way home from work for having a taillight out. When I looked at it, the light wasn’t just out, it had been smashed. The next week, I had a flat tire. Then, last night, I heard someone say my name. I can’t say for sure that he’s the one doing these things, but this unprecedented string of bad luck started shortly after I broke up with him.”

Byte stopped pacing and turned to look at me. “What’s this prick’s name?”

“You can’t kill him,” I blurted.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me. And I don’t even know if it’s him.”

“If you tell me his name, I’ll find out if it’s him.”

“What if it is?”

He sighed in frustration. “Gabby, it sounds like someone is terrorizing you. We need to figure out who it is, and then we’llcome up with a way to put a stop to it. I’m not opposed to killing someone who deserves it, but it isn’t my go-to response.”

“His name is Chad Higgins,” I confessed.

“What else do you know about him?”

“He said he was twenty-nine and works as a correctional officer at the prison.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Not really. He was very closed off and never wanted to talk about himself, which is one of the things that unnerved me.”

“Wait. I thought you said you broke it off because you two didn’t hit it off?”

“We didn’t, but there was something about him that creeped me out. I feel bad saying that because I can’t tell you why exactly. It was just a feeling,” I admitted.

“I’m going to grab my laptop and see what I can find out about creepy Chad.”

He returned to the kitchen moments later with his computer and started searching. I wasn’t sure what to do while he worked, so I busied myself with cleaning the kitchen and loading the dishwasher. I berated myself the whole time for not checking into Chad myself. I was nowhere near as skilled as Byte when it came to technology, but I was capable of performing a basic internet search.

The sound of the laptop closing and Byte’s chair sliding back from the table brought me out of my thoughts. “What did you find?”

“What makes you think I found something?”

“Because you’re you. You always find something.”

“I can’t argue with that,” he said with a slight smile that quickly disappeared. “I’m afraid I don’t have great news.”

“Well, let’s hear it,” I said and tried to brace myself for whatever news he was going to share.

“I need to do some more digging, but from what I can tell, he’s not a correctional officer at the prison.”

“What do you mean?”

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