Page 33 of Silent Desires

She starts to show me the basics of kicking the ball and the rules of the game. It’s easy enough to understand, but I am not very physically fitso even this small effort makes me tired. When Tucker comes to check on us, I indicate I’m not ready to join the game, so he has me watch to see how it’s played. Watching the students run up and down the court, I know I won’t be ready for quite some time. I don’t have enough stamina for that.

When the class finishes, I quickly and quietly sneak back into Tucker’s office to change. After getting dressed back into my uniform and Jasper’s hoodie, I grab my bag and head outside. As I start my walk home, I can’t help but wish it wasn’t Friday. I’m not going to see my guys for over two days.

That reminds me of my new phone, so I pull it out of my bag and see I already have a bunch of missed messages.

Max:Where are you?

I wish you would wait for us.

I wanted to say goodbye.

Jasper:Can we give you a drive home?

Msg me if you need anything, Angel.

Tucker:You must be a ninja. You always seem to escape my office without me noticing.

Gideon:I hope you have a good weekend. Please message me if you need anything.

Atlas:Malishka, tell me when you’ve gotten home safely.

Dom:Text me if you need anything.

Ben:I hear you got a cell phone. Now I can show you some of my favorite games to play on it!

I laugh as I read their messages. Maybe this weekend won’t be so bad after all.

Chapter twenty-two

Growling in frustration, I smack my palm on the kitchen counter.

“No luck?” Max asks me.

“I can’t find anything. There are fifty-eight Jeffs in this town between the ages of twenty-five and sixty,” I tell them in frustration. “We just don’t have enough on Helen’s boyfriend to figure out who he is. His first name isn’t enough, we need more info.”

I spent all afternoon searching for more information on the mysterious Jeff, but with literally no other info on him, it was impossible to figure out his real identity. This isn’t a small town. Even if I looked up all fifty-eight Jeffs individually I have no criteria to exclude any of them, he could be married, have kids, single, a doctor, unemployed, we have no idea.

Usually, I love a good puzzle, especially when it involves layers of deception. But when I’ve only got a couple of pieces to work with, it’s less of a challenge and more of a guessing game, and Ihateguessing. I like hard facts and evidence. I like to use my computer skills to track down a piece of evidence on a suspect, and follow that from one bread crumb to another, until I’ve unraveled enough pieces that the puzzle starts to take shape.

And normally, people leave clues everywhere, whether they know it or not. It’s my job to find them, and I’m damn good at my job. It’s why Dom tried to recruit me in the first place. But what good was a Tracker who couldn’t track?

“We need to start watching Mina’s house for signs of thisJeff. If we can get a license plate number, then Ben can figure out who he is,” Dom says, looking around the kitchen island at all six of us.

I nod in agreement. I know they don’t blame me for not finding any info on Jeff yet, but it’s literally my job, I can’t help but feel like I’m letting the team down.

“Tonight we’ll work in teams,” Dom continues. “Max and Jas, you’re staking out the party. That way, if you see something worth investigating, you can go in and won’t stick out. Atlas and Tucker, you’re on Mina’s house. Watch for anything strange, any sign of Jeff or her mother or anybody else going in or out of that house. Gideon and I will be the second team at her house. That way, if one of them leaves, one team can follow while the other stays to keep watch. Ben, you’re here on comms. Pass along any important info, search anything that comes up, and track our phones as needed.”

“You got it, boss,” I say as the others give their agreement too. We consider ourselves a family but we need Dom to be in charge, otherwise there tends to be too many conflicting options. We figured out pretty early on that we needed someone to be in charge and Dom naturally fit that role for us.

Tonight isn’t our first stakeout, and we know this could either be a very boring night with no action, or we could be about to catch evidence of a killer.

Part of me hopes there is no action at Mina’s home, I can’t bear to think of her involved with a serial killer. But we need to find this guy and all data is pointing to Mina and her family. I really don’t think she’s the killer, she’s too small, young and innocent to harm anyone, but she might be knowingly, or unknowingly, aiding them.

I’ve been searching for two weeks for information on her, but once again, I’ve come up empty handed. I’ve searched her name, looked through missing persons reports for girls around her age, I even dated them back eighteen years, just in case, but nothing comes up that matches her. I looked for girls who were enrolled in high schools in the towns surrounding past murders, but again, nothing. It’s like she’s a ghost.

I just hope we can keep her safe from it all. But not knowing what we’re dealing with is extremely frustrating. If she is involved, I think it’ll be really hard to get over. There is just something about that girl that has my heart sitting up and paying attention to her every movement. She doesn’t look like a high school girl, but she does seem innocent. The way she looked at the stir fry I made for lunch, like she’d never seen a dish like that before, was slightly alarming. And the fact that she wasn’t able to tell the twins her favorite movies, tv shows or music… combined with the seemingly fake learning problems her mother told Gideon she has, means there is something fishy going on here.

I just can’t figure out why. Why is she pretending to not be able to read at school? Why doesn’t she speak? Why does she seemingly have no knowledge of movies or tv shows? Maybe her mother was super religious and didn’t allow some of those things in the house? But that wouldn’t explain everything.

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