Morgan wolfed down his dinner, cleared the table, and checked on Rachel before heading upstairs to his office. He shut the door, which in this household meant he was not to be disturbed, and gave his oak desk a wipe with a microfiber cloth he kept in his top drawer. A clean working environment was one of those things he found vital to the success of any project, and he’d been that way since his school days. It was his mother who’d instilled cleanliness in him, always threatening to smack him on the ear if he ever let her down. To this day, he didn’t know if she’d been joking.
With an open workspace in front of him, Morgan raised the lid of his laptop and rapped his fingers on the oak while it booted up. It seemed to take forever, each whir of the computer’s insides teasing him as if to say, “It’s here, but you can’t have it.”
Story of my life, he thought.
By the time the computer was working, Morgan was ready to delve in. He’d only briefly perused the email from Gary on his cell phone, but the amount of attachments suggested he’d need the security of a real computer. Along with the attachments were a few short paragraphs from Gary, mostly telling him to “keep this on the shush.” Morgan didn’t need to be told twice—the last thing he wanted was Captain Bray chasing him down for another lecture.
He licked his dry lips and opened the email.
The first couple of files showed nothing helpful, but Morgan often found the most important details could be found in a man’s history. With this in mind, he took the time to thoroughly read through Mason Black’s file. What he read was hardly surprising: there were a lot of suspensions during his time with the San Francisco Police Department, and each one was listed as Disobedience with a short paragraph underneath. Morgan leaned into the computer, its bright screen stinging his tired eyes as he read further into the reports made by someone named Captain Cox. Judging by his file, Mason was prone to coming off the rails and diving headfirst into the snake pit. Morgan wondered if that was what had happened this time—if Mason had dug his own grave with thoughtless, reckless behavior. It wouldn’t be the biggest shock.
The accompanying files told a similar story. The Black family mortgage was unstable to say the least, but that only got worse with his divorce from a woman named Sandra. Morgan was just starting to wonder if Sandra was the woman in the videotape, taking Mason’s car—and maybe his life—as a means of revenge. But he clicked onto the next page and found a photograph of her. She was thin, with brown hair and hollow eyes that made her look like a skeleton. It definitely wasn’t the same person.
It wasn’t until hours later that Morgan realized his posture was screwed up. Giving himself an excuse to stretch, he printed off Morgan’s phone records and held the sheets in his hand, pacing the room to get his circulation going. He passed by the window countless times, studying the cell phone exchanges from the past twelve months.
When he found it, he stopped dead.
A repeated number, mostly as two-second long incoming calls, taunted him from across the page. Morgan paused to consider whether the SFPD had already gone over this. If not, would they in time? How long would it be before the MPD got involved and decided to give it a try? Phone records were often one of the first things to be analyzed, though Morgan didn’t quite know why—worthwhile information was rarely found in them.
Except this time.
Hurrying to his desk, Morgan grabbed a Magic Marker and circled all the instances where the two phones had been connected. When he was done, he tallied them up and found that over thirty calls had been made between them. That number had escalated in the past few weeks, stopping, of course, on the day Mason Black had disappeared. Morgan wanted to get excited, but he knew his luck: even if this number was relevant, it was likely from a prepaid phone that couldn’t be traced unless it went through the MPD. Even then they’d need a warrant and then they’d need to establish a call.
Which gave him an idea.
It was one of his riskier moves, and he knew it. Sure, later he’d reach out to the phone company and confirm it didn’t have a registered address, but what would happen in the meantime? Would Mason Black’s body be found? Morgan didn’t want that on his conscience. Didn’t need it either. That was why the idea settled in his mind, only growing and paving the way for excuses to be made until he was certain it was his only move.
No longer thinking straight, he reached for his cell phone. He paused for only a moment, assuring himself he was doing the right thing—that only a positive outcome could result from this. He ran the call through his mind, considering the danger he could be causing for his client’s father. But it wasn’t enough to wonder. He simply had to know.
Hand shaking, throat dry, he made the call.
It rang twice before a deep, croaking woman’s voice sounded. “Yes?”
Morgan froze. It suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea what to say. Was he supposed to ask if she’d committed a crime? Not likely. Instead, he just opened his mouth and allowed his instincts to do the rest. “Hi. Who am I talking with, please?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’d like to know your name.”
A pause. “You called me.”
Morgan turned to the window and gazed up the street, fiddling with the curtain tassel. For all he knew, he was talking to an innocent woman—maybe someone Mason Black had been having an affair with. Hell, it could’ve been his boss, and Morgan would just be stirring up trouble by making the damn call in the first place. No matter what he did, he was taking a risk, so he dared to call her bluff. Standing up straight to convince himself he was more confident than he really felt, he cleared his throat and gripped the phone harder. “Okay, let’s level with each other here. My name is Morgan Young. I’m investigating the disappearance of Mason Black, and you know exactly where he is. You can tell me and make this a lot easier for yourself, or—”
“Just who the hell do you think you are?” The British accent was clearer now.
Morgan persevered. “There’s footage of you, so you can’t deny it.”
The line went silent. Morgan checked the screen to make sure the call was still connected. It was, only now he’d run his mouth and challenged a woman he knew nothing about. He began to think it was one of his dumber moves, but when the woman on the other end laughed, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. It was a dry, throaty laugh that sounded all too genuine.
“Very good,” she said. “But do you have permission to make this call?”
“I don’t need one. I’m self-employed.”
“Oh, so you’re not a real cop.”
Morgan recoiled, losing control of his tongue.
“What are you?” the woman pressed. “A private investigator?”
“Maybe.”
“I do like PIs, Mr. Young. In fact, I have one of my very own.”
“What?” Morgan’s heart beat in double time, as if her words were dancing on his chest. Anxiety surged through him, his blood feeling like fire as it raced through his body. She has her own PI, he thought. Did that mean she was keeping Mason Black alive, or did she simply mean she’d hired one? Morgan didn’t know who he was kidding—the facts were laid out right in front of him. It was just the woman’s reckless, challenging confidence that scared him into a corner. “If you’ve hurt him, you’re setting yourself up for a lot of trouble.”
“Spare me the crap,” the woman said. “We both know you’d have to find me first.”
“I have MPD behind me,” he lied.
“So? I’ve been covering my tracks.”
“Right. That’s how I found your number so easily.”
“For a prepaid phone.”
Morgan twitched with both anger and panic.
“Look,” the woman said in a tired, fed-up tone, “the only reason he’s still alive is because nobody has come close to catching me yet. The closer you get, the more determined I’ll be to make him suffer. Whatever you have going on over there—police, spies, whatever—I suggest you stop it now before Mason Black goes bye-bye. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” Morgan said through gritted teeth.
But he couldn’t let her win like that. After all, he’d just received confirmation that Mason was alive, and now his priorities had to change. All he could do was placate her, but that didn’t mean he had to stand back like the coward people thought he was. Steeling himself, he uttered three words that were sure to make her nervous—edging her on to make a mistake. It was all he could do while the anxiety attacked him. “I’ll find you.”
Once again, the woman laughed. “Don’t you dare.”
Then the line went dead.