Page 77 of Cage

‘Hey, what’s that red light?’ Katie asked, trying to hide her nerves. ‘The one there. The flashing red light?’

Tommy scurried around towards Katie.

Katie nearly threw up as she caught wind of Tommy’s horribly stale odor. It was gross. Like Tommy hadn’t bathed in weeks.

‘That, my favorite cam buddy, is your camera!’ Tommy said, a strong streak of menace in his voice. ‘Smile, you’re recording!’

Katie felt her stomach twist and turn.

Tommy was recording her.

The whole situation had been recorded.

‘You can’t do this!’ Katie screamed. ‘I have rights! Let me go! Release me now or I’m telling my Daddy!’

Tommy stopped in his tracks.

He was deadly still.

Totally silent.

‘What did you just say?’ Tommy hissed, his voice as cold as ice.

‘I said I’m telling my Daddy on you!’ Katie said, repeating the words with extra emphasis this time. ‘He’ll find me, and he’ll kick your mean butt all over this garage before taking you right down to the station.’

Tommy looked Katie up and down.

He turned and made a big show of looking around the garage.

‘Well unless he’s a teeny-weenie little ant, I don’t think I can see your so-called Daddy anywhere,’ Tommy said, leering and taking pleasure in Katie’s distress. ‘Ha! I’m always right. I knew you’d just be another loner cam worker. You’ve got no one. You made your Daddy up to try and scare me!’

Katie shook her head.

She wanted to tell Tommy how wrong he was, but Katie couldn’t get any words out of her mouth.

‘You’re probably wondering why a handsome man like me loves cam workers so much?’ Tommy asked, chuckling away to himself as he played with his cell phone. ‘Well, I’ll tell you. I just love the control. I’m the one with the money. The other person is my servant. My slave. My employee. Worthless. Only there to do my bidding. It’s hot.’

Katie desperately wanted Cage to bang the door down and rescue her.

But how the hell would Cage even know where to look?

Yes, Cage was a detective. But on the other hand Tommy was evidently very good at hiding his tracks.

Katie decided that if she was going to get out of this mess, she would need to do some detective work herself. See if Tommy made any mistakes. Try and work some kind of angle to expose.

‘Tommy, can I ask a question?’ Katie asked, deliberately keeping her voice sounding as timid as possible. ‘Please. Just one.’

Tommy seemed to get off from how shy and nervous Katie seemed. He took a moment to think. Then grinned a horrible, smug smile.

‘Shoot,’ Tommy said. ‘Ask away. I’m glad to see that you haven’t totally lost your cam worker charms.’

‘Thank you, Tommy,’ Katie said, hating herself for having to be so nice to this creep. ‘How did you find me? You must be so clever. I could never think of how to do something like that.’

For a brief second it looked like Tommy knew what Katie was up to. But his vanity and ego were obviously more important to him. Before Katie knew it, Tommy was explaining in great detail what he had done.

‘Well, it’s pretty simple when you know what to do,’ Tommy said. ‘Especially if you have my set of skills. You see, I hacked your laptop. Not any old basic hack. Real deep hacking. The kind where I can access anything. And I mean anything. I’ve had a good old look at everything you have on that laptop. By the way, I’d suggest an upgrade. You could do with a new security package too. Ha!’

Katie felt humiliated.

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