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Malaceia logged onto his computer system, dreading what he was going to see.
Sure enough, as soon as the system loaded, bright red dots pinged up on his screen, each one chiming its existence so that a constant ear-piercing note was all that could be heard for nearly a minute.
Biting back a stream of curses, he looked through his list of active hunters, searching for Katana. When he saw her name at the bottom of the list, he clicked on it and waited for the screen to load with her tracking map.
A small flicker interrupted the screen before it loaded the location of her whereabouts. According to the map, Katana was near Carlisle. He scrolled the wheel on his mouse, wanting to zoom in on an exact location, but the system froze, then kicked him out.
Frowning, he reloaded his daughter’s location page. As he waited for the map to reappear, he noticed a note from Sophia saying that Katana had agreed to make her own way home as all the drivers were out on other jobs. With the recent influx of cases, that was more than understandable.
He sighed and leaned back in his chair. Drumming his fingers on his desk, he picked up his phone and toyed with the idea of ringing Katana. He was surprised he hadn’t heard from her already, giving him a load of abuse for telling her to come home instead of giving her a new case.
As he stared blankly at the screen, the date and time of Sophia’s note burned into his retinas. Something niggled in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.
Giving up on the idea of calling Katana, because he knew he wouldn’t be warmly received, he put his phone back down on his desk and clicked on the earliest case this release of Gregory’s ‘pets’ had done.
Its bright red, rapidly blinking dot with an exclamation mark in the middle of it told him it was the oldest case. The system was alerting him to the fact it still hadn’t been assigned to anyone.
Then, something clicked inside Malaceia’s head.
The date and time of the case was after the note had been put on Katana’s profile.
If the case came in after Katana had started her journey home, then how could all the drivers be out on jobs because of the influx? At the time the note was made, things were still ‘normal.’
He pushed a button on the underneath of his desk and yelled, “Sophia!”
Seconds later, a middle-aged lady came flying through the door. A little chubby in places, she was rather unremarkable otherwise. The perfect epitome of a ‘plain jane.’ “Yes, Sir?”
“This note you left on Katana’s account states she’s travelling home because all the drivers were booked out on other jobs. The timings don’t add up as to why though. The influx didn’t happen for nearly an hour afterwards.”
Sophia frowned. Her dark, bushy eyebrows, that she never plucked, furrowed together in a mono-brow. “But I haven’t spoken to Katana for anything.”
“You must have done—there’s a note here with your name on it. It’s time stamped to 6.13am.”
“But I wasn’t even on the system then. Not this morning. I was in A&E with Roger all night because he had a grumbling appendix.”
Malaceia raised a brow. “Is he ok?”
The woman nodded, her shoulder-level brown hair bobbing up and down with her movement. “They’re giving him surgery today.”
“What are you doing here then? Go.”
Sophia shook her head. “There’s no point. They wouldn’t even let me on the ward. I can’t do anything until he’s in recovery and been dismissed to the day ward. They’re going to call me when he’s out of surgery. I’ll go then.”
Malaceia gave her a sad smile. “Your loyalty to this family is astounding, Sophia. It doesn’t go unnoticed.”
The woman gave him a thin smile. “Is that all, Sir?”
“If you’re confident this note wasn’t left by your hand?”
“Definitely not, Sir.”
“That’s all.” He nodded her dismissal.
When the door closed behind her, Malaceia leaned forwards and reached for his phone. Perhaps it was time to call his wife on official business.