59 - Monty
59
Monty
—
With an unsettling feeling in my stomach, I disconnect the call with Wilson and dial Frankie.
As the phone rings, I slide out of bed and grab something to wear.
Leo and Kody are already dragging on clothes, their jaws locked down and Adam’s apples bobbing like buoys in a storm-tossed sea.
“She’s not answering.” I leave an urgent voice mail and call her head bodyguard.
“Mr. Novak?” Carl picks up on the first ring.
“Where is she?”
“In the on-call room. She worked twenty hours and needed rest. She advised me not to disturb her for six hours. She’s been in there for forty-nine minutes.”
“She’s alone?”
“Yes. I checked the room. Dr. Howell was on his way out when we arrived. Is everything all right, sir?”
“There’s another missing person. Do not leave that door. Do not fucking blink. Not for a second. And alert me the instant she wakes.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hang up and look at Leo and Kody. “She’s asleep in the on-call room.”
“Fuck that.” Leo stabs his fingers in his hair. “Her guards need to bring her home right fucking now.”
“Calm down.” Kody shoves on his boots, his black eyes distant, hiding his inner turmoil. “She’s safe in that room. Alvis Duncan could’ve had a family emergency, and the phone she has now doesn’t have spyware because Monty just gave it to her. No reason to scare her until we have all the information.”
I call Wilson on speaker.
“Monty,” he answers.
“How was the spyware installed on her phone?”
“She clicked a link and inadvertently downloaded it.”
“She knows not to click on unknown links.”
“Not if she trusted the person who sent it to her.”
“Can you find that link? Who the sender was?”
“Not easily. She deletes her texts and emails, but we’re digging.” Wilson clears his throat. “The spyware enabled the hacker to watch her through the camera, listen to her through the microphone, and track her movements through the phone’s GPS.”
My heart shoots into my throat, beating painfully.
They had access to her whenever she had her phone with her.
I wrack my brain, trying remember the conversation I had with her about The Ghost. We were in my office, and she was wearing sleep shorts and a tank top. No pockets. No phone with her.
Unless she slipped in another conversation with Leo and Kody, the stalker doesn’t know about The Ghost.
Leo looks feral, his posture vibrating and breaths raging. Ready to kill.
“I received more potential persons of interest from your father’s ledger,” Wilson says. “The list is never-ending, but there’s one entry I want you to see. I’ll text a photo of it.” A pause. “Just sent it.”
I switch to the messaging app and open a photo of my father’s handwriting.
Renat Moroz
Age 12
“He filled a shelf with a small army of books and read and read; but none of it made sense. They were all subject to various cramping limitations: those of the past were outdated, and those of the present were obsessed with the past.”
A chill runs over my scalp. “I don’t recognize the name, but several things stand out.”
“The Pushkin quote?” Wilson asks.
“Yes.”
“It’s the only Pushkin quote in the ledger. That’s why I flagged it.”
“The age…” I look at Leo and Kody, marking the horror in their eyes. “Is this one of Denver’s victims?”
“Unconfirmed. But I found a Renat Moroz, who lived on Kodiak Island.”
“Most of Denver’s victims did. Where is he now?”
“He disappeared thirty years ago. Parents are deceased. No living family. The name doesn’t ring any bells?”
“No, but Moroz is the Russian word for frost. ”
“Oh, fuck.” Leo’s eyes widen. “The text she received…”
Who am I? I think you know. We share the same heart of frost and scars.
“And Denver’s riddle.” Kody’s voice drops to a deadly rumble. “In the chambers of frost, pain is my art.”
“I think we have our stalker.” My pulse quickens.
“Only problem is,” Wilson says, “we don’t know who or where he is.”
“He would be using another name.” I pace the bedroom, my mind swimming. “When Rurik paid off Denver’s victims, he changed their names and moved them away so Denver couldn’t find them.”
“We’ll find him.” Wilson hardens his tone. “Now we know he’s male, age forty-two…” He pauses. “Dr. Rhett Howell is forty-two.”
Panic floods my chest. Adrenaline spikes, and the roar of thunder fills my ears.
But it’s not thunder.
It’s Leo.
He explodes out of the room with Kody on his heels. I disconnect the call and race after them, my exhales sharpening as fear bursts past my lips.
“Call her guards!” I shout at them and fly down the stairs, dialing The Ghost.
I catch up with Leo and Kody in the entryway, their phones held to their ears as they bark orders at the guards and sprint out the front door.
The pain in my chest is excruciating, threatening to bring me to my knees as the phone rings.
It rings in my ear at the same time an unfamiliar ringtone sounds behind me.
I freeze, the air leaving my lungs as something sharp flies past my head, grazes my scalp, and impales the doorframe before me.
Several strands of my hair fall from the blade of a fillet knife.
The fillet knife.
My heart stops. A cold sweat breaks out. Leo and Kody pause just beyond the open door, their expressions twisted with shock and confusion.
Slowly, I force myself to turn toward The Ghost.
And I come face to face with Oliver.
Holding his phone, he disconnects the call, his features unreadable as he says in Russian, “Let’s have a little talk.”