Page 118 of Twisted Redemption

Will’s house. Will’s boyfriend’s apartment. And, after remembering the letter, David’s house and his bar. But they turned up nothing.

It does nothing to help the sinking dread in my stomach. What if David found her first? What if he’s keeping her somewhere? Hurting her?

Or maybe she’s hiding in plain sight.

Could she have predicted my moves so far? Known I’d go for the places she knew I’d least expect her to be at?

Except that looking in those places wasn’t my idea—it was Willow’s.

“I have a few more ideas,” I say. “I’ll text you with any updates.” Then I turn to go when he gives me a nod.

It’s possible that the hotel really is a decoy. If so, it wouldn’t make sense that she’d crash with Liling or Imani, but I’d be stupid not to check.

Once Felix and Willow make it back to the hospital with my car, we head back to Brooke’s house. Their bickering is starting to get on my nerves. There are more important things to focus on than picking at every little thing wrong with the other person.

Inside, I try to tune them out. Her phone is on the counter, so I grab it, sifting through her text messages again. Then I call Liling.

“Hey babe,” she chirps. “You excited for tomorrow?”

Tomorrow? What’s tomorrow?

“This is Blaze. I take it you haven’t seen Brooke?”

“No. Wait, you haven’t? I thought she wasn’t supposed to go anywhere without you.”

“She ran off last night after we had a falling out,” I grit out. “Liling, if she’s staying with you, I need you to tell me. She’s in danger.”

“She’s not with me.” There’s a pause, and then she sighs. “Trust me, I love Brooke. I wouldn’t lie to you about where she is just because she’s mad at you. Not when her safety is on the line.”

I scrub a hand over my face. What choice do I have but to believe her? “Did she give any hint as to where she was going? Any signal that things were wrong? Anything will help at this point.”

There’s silence on the other end.

“Liling?”

“I—look, she’s going to kill me for telling you this, because I’m pretty sure she’s kept it from you. And please don’t be mad at her, okay? She tried to block him. He kept texting her from new numbers.”

My lungs feel like they’re filled with lead. I lean onto the counter, trying to breathe. “Who?”

But I already know the answer.

“David.”

AFTER GOING THROUGH BROOKE’S phone again, it becomes pretty obvious that she deleted all her texts with David. Frustrating, but she’s smart. She doesn’t want to be found, so she erased every shred of evidence leading to where she went.

My only question is why she ran to him? She can’t actually believe what he wrote in that letter, can she?

I clench my fists. “Any luck?”

I never realized how intensive hacking is until I’m impatiently waiting for Felix to give me some scrap of information.

We’re at Grayson Security, holed up in the tech department so Felix can work. Willow is asleep on the floor, using his hoodie as a pillow. I wonder how she got it off of him.

“Some,” Felix says quietly, glancing at Willow. “But her phone provider had a security breach a month or so ago. Lots of customers’ information was leaked. They’ve done a lot to bolster their defenses.”

“Great,” I grunt, falling into one of the chairs in his office. He’s the head of our tech department. Supervises everything that has to do with computers and shit.

I couldn’t be more grateful right now that he’s my cousin—and a good friend. He’s one of the best when it comes to stuff like this. How he learned to hack—well, I don’t want to know.

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