Chapter 41
Daniel
?? I’m on my way to your place. I told Jake and Cole to be there too.
I looked at the message from Terry. When my phone pinged, I had hoped it was Lydia.
We hadn’t spoken since the night before.
I tried not to worry, because it was Lydia and she had her way of processing what happened, but it still had me on edge.
It was already late afternoon, and I had to keep reminding myself that she said she needed a day.
It took every effort to keep myself from calling her or just showing up at her place.
I paced through the kitchen and living room until Jake, Cole, and Terry arrived.
Terry put his laptop on the table, keeping it closed.
“Tell Lydia to come here, too,” he said.
I sent her a text and looked at Terry, who was squirming.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.
He got up and poured Jake, Cole, and me tumblers with whiskey before sitting back down.
“Kernel reached out.” Terry talked slowly, carefully. “He knows I have the laptop and that I’m monitoring the transmission.”
Jake leaned forward. “Shit. Does he know it’s you specifically? Are you safe?”
“He doesn’t know who I am. He just knows Lydia doesn’t have her laptop and phone anymore, and that we’ve been messing with the data the past few days.”
My stomach turned. “So he’ll try again? Send someone to break into her apartment?”
Terry sighed. “No. He reached out, as in, he sent a message.” He opened the laptop and hit play on a video. It was a black screen with just a light gray sound wave moving along with a distorted voice.
“I want to speak with Lydia Davis. Put her in front of this screen if you want information about your investigation.”
“What the fuck?” Jake hissed.
Cole leaned back, glaring at the screen. “Can he see us?”
“No, I’m blocking the transmission. Once I unblock it, he’ll be able to see through the camera.”
I shook my head. “I’m not putting her in front of that camera.”
“You’re asking the wrong question.” Jake stood up and started pacing. “Forget about it being Lydia for a second, man.”
My thoughts were a mess—all I could focus on was the fact that I wasn’t putting Lydia in danger, and Kernel was dangerous.
Terry sighed again. “I dug deeper into Lydia’s past. I know you said not to, but if Kernel is interested in her, not you, we need to know why.”
Cole leaned his head back in the armchair, facing the ceiling.
Jake stopped pacing.
“And?” I asked.
“And it’s messy. I couldn’t find much of a trail besides a sealed record from when she was a minor, and it wasn’t much.
She lived with a drug gang when she was a teenager and was arrested twice—once for aggravated assault, which was later ruled self-defense, and the other for possession, which she got a slap on the wrist for.
After that, she must have cleaned up her act. Nothing else came up.”
“So what’s Kernel want with her?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know.”
I put my tumbler on the table to stop myself from smashing it. “Why the fuck did you tell me to bring her here, Terry?”
“You know why.”
Jake stood behind the couch I was sitting on and put his hands on my shoulders to keep me from getting up.