Page 25 of Duplicity

Drawing attention to himself never went well, and with this investigation, someone could die.

“Talked to the neighbors.” Romeo strode up to him. Probably, this guy and Peter would be good friends—if they weren’t already.

Cat asked, “Anything?”

“No one has a doorbell cam with a view of this house. An older lady might’ve seen a cable van, a contractor, not the company vehicle. I’ll follow up with them, but the timing isn’t quite right.” Romeo lifted his chin. “You found her phone?”

“Simon did.” Cat almost sounded impressed.

All he’d done was track each of the signals connected to the Wi-Fi in the house.

Simon clicked through the open windows. One was a social media site with direct messaging. He winced at the contents of the first one that popped up—fourteen new messages. A group thread with a number of different people, all of whom seemed to have targeted Marianna with their ire. “She was being harassed.”

He sent the access information to Lucas’s PD email address. The detective could pass it to their tech department to comb through.

Simon found the window with Marianna’s text messages. One of the numbers saidHidden Sender, and the thread seemed pretty one-sided. Once in a while, the teen had replied.

Leave me alone.

He knew what that felt like.

Simon rolled his shoulders and clicked to see the number. Nothing but an IP address to indicate the source of the messages. He frowned. It couldn’t be… He gritted his teeth and did a quick copy and paste into the other program.

Talia would notice. He’d promised to share all the intel with her, which probably meant her boss knew all about what they were doing. He should tell Lucas and Peter that when they got all worked up about him being alone. He had help. If anything had happened to him, Talia would’ve told them right away.

Ping.

“What does that mean?”

Simon’s stomach flipped over.

Cat touched his arm. “Sie, what does that mean?”

Her voice warped and echoed around him while his ears did that weird thing where he disconnected. He pushed back against it, anchoring himself in the here and now. The ground. Warm night air on the skin of his arms. Cat sitting close by him, and the fact she cared about people.

“Something else.” He blew out a breath and quickly sent everything from the phone to Lucas’s email. Then he closed the lid of the laptop and stood. He shoved it into his backpack, and the corner caught. He swiped the laptop off the grass and got it in fine on the second try.

“Bro—”

He shook his head. “I have to go.”

“Suddenly, at ten o’clock at night?” Lucas walked over. “What happened? What did you just see on her phone?”

How could he explain it?

Cat stood as well. “Text messages from someone. A hidden number.”

Lucas stared at him. “Who was she talking to?”

“I don’t know whose phone it was.”

“But you’re gonna go find out?”

Cat gasped, turning to him. One hand touched his arm. “Sie, are you saying she’s connected to your case at the school?”

His last meal threatened a reappearance. He sucked in a breath through his nose. “I don’t…” His thoughts fragmented. “I need to figure it out. I can’t do that here.”

His breath was coming fast. The world seemed to spin around him.

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