Right then, everything makes sense.
I know where you go, I know who you talk to, I know what you do when you don’t think anyone is paying attention…
It’s why everything is happening. It’s how he knows everything.
I glance briefly at Colson. He looks calm—unbothered—and I have no idea how. Then I look at my phone, staring at it with dread. Every interaction I’ve had with Colson since he set foot in this building flashes through my mind. Every word, every sound—all captured by the small device sitting no more than 10 feet away at any given time.
“How do I get rid of it?” I ask as I fight a wave of nausea rising in my throat.
Dallas swipes her finger around the screen a few times and then hands the phone back to me, “There, it’s gone.”
My eyes dart between her and my phone, “That’s it?”
She smiles with a shrug, “It’s just an app.”
“Oh.” For some reason, I thought it would be far more complicated than that. But it was simple, effective, and served its purpose.
Dallas sets my phone on the edge of the desk, “If I were you, I’d change all your passwords, like, yesterday, and check your bank account just in case. Depending on who put it there and why, better safe than sorry.”
I slide my phone off the desk, turning it over in my hands. Bowen has to know I’m gone by now. I’m sure Hannah ran off and told him after gathering up the remaining pieces of his macabre souvenirs and disposing of them somewhere.
Of course, he knows. He’s probably been listening to it in real-time until 10 seconds ago when Dallas pulled the plug.
But regardless of who knows what, landing a few good fists to Hannah’s head felt pretty good…
Colson motions to my bag on the floor, “If it’s still there, she’ll find it.”
I hesitate, and then reach down to pull my personal laptop out of the bag, “Can you help me find a file on my laptop?” I reach across Dallas’s desk and gently set it down in front of her.
“Of course!” she chirps as she opens it. “Do you want to come around and enter your password?”
“No, it’s OK,” I give a weary sigh and lower my eyes to the floor, “I can just tell you. It’s beeswax.”
Colson slowly tilts his head, peering at me so that his aquamarine irises look fluorescent.
“Why’s your password beeswax?” Dallas asks with a chuckle.
Then it dawns on me why Colson is staring at me. I hold his gaze as a slight smile creeps across my face, “Because it’s none of yours.”
Dallas lets out a cackle as her fingers fly over the keyboard. Colson eyes me for a few more seconds before pressing his mouth together and leaning back in his chair. I’ll let him think what he wants, let him think we’re connected on some higher plane of existence that manifests through silly puns and Microsoft passwords.
After I give Dallas the file name for my book, I wait for another minute while she swipes and clicks and types, her hands moving at the speed of light, “Is it a corrupted file or is it totally gone?”
“Totally gone.”
“Did you save it to the cloud?”
“Yes, my desktop and the cloud.”
Dallas furrows her brow, “Both places?”
“Yeah,” I exhale, letting my eyes wander again.
“That’s…” she pauses for a moment, “weird.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re two different processes. You back up to the cloud in case something happens to your computer. It’s not like if you delete one, the other disappears, too.” Dallas squints up at me, “I’m surprised it’s not still in your recycling bin. Did you empty it before realizing it was gone?”
I shake my head. I didn’t do anything with my files after hearing from Jada.
Dallas stares at the screen pensively, tapping a spiderweb nail on the keyboard, “This might be an awkward question,” she glances over top of the screen, “but does anyone else have access to your computer? And, if so, is there any reason they’d be messing with this file?”
When I open my mouth, I mean to answer her, but nothing comes out except a long breath as the sinking feeling in my gut grows stronger and stronger.
“I only ask because…” Dallas leans back in her chair and scrunches up her nose sympathetically, “it’s gone,” she states bluntly, “and you didn’t do it by accident. It was deleted by someone who knew what they were doing.” She turns my laptop around so I can see the screen and points to a line on a list of dates and times, “This is when it was deleted. It was executed on your machine, so no one hacked into it. Do you remember what you were doing?”
Four days ago, June 21 at 2:43 AM.
The longer I stare at the time, the louder my pulse gets in my ear and all other sounds melt away, “Asleep,” I murmur, feeling my chest tighten, “I was asleep.”
And before I can say another word, I pitch forward and stumble out of my chair, doubling over as I start heaving into Dallas’s trash can.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Colson
One Year Ago
