Chapter 9
Flickering code reflected in the darkness of my bedroom, the blue light casting eerie shadows across the walls.
I hadn't opened the blinds in weeks. What was the point?
The outside world held nothing for me while Cade remained missing.
Each day that passed made it more likely we'd never find her.
Or worse, that when we did, it would be her cold, dead body.
I shook my head violently, trying to dislodge the image.
I couldn't think like that. She was alive. She had to be.
Sebastian Lynch stood behind me like a statue, arms folded across his chest, watching as I frantically tapped at the keyboard.
The man Bruce Turner had called in to help.
If it had been any other time, I would have been fucking high as hell at the prospect of working with Sebastian Lynch.
He was legendary in certain circles, ruthless, brilliant, and utterly merciless when crossed.
Even my father kept his distance. Yet here he was, silently judging me as I tried to trace the fake texts sent from what appeared to be Cade's phone.
He was here watching me fail in the worst possible moment of my life.
"Another fucking dead end," I muttered, running my hands through my unwashed hair.
I hadn't showered in days, and barely slept.
The screen taunted me with another collapsed trace route.
"Spoofed IP address, routed through servers in Moscow, China, and fucking Ecuador before disappearing.
" Lynch said nothing, which somehow made it worse.
At least Logan and Cole would have offered hollow reassurances.
Lynch just watched, those cold eyes taking in every twitch, every failure.
"They're good," I said, more to fill the silence than anything else. "Burner phones, VPNs, encryption. Professional setup."
"If you're hoping for me to pat your back and tell you that you're doing your best, you're going to be disappointed," Lynch finally said, his voice clipped and emotionless.
I ignored him, focusing on the next attempt.
Someone, someone with resources and technical skill, had been sending fake texts to Cade's grandparents for months.
Whoever it was, they were almost certainly the same person who'd sent her those threatening notes, who'd tried to attack her at Halloween, who'd eventually taken her.
I'd been chasing digital ghosts for weeks, and every time I got close, they slipped through my fingers like smoke.
The code scrolled by, another trace attempt failing spectacularly. A wall of red error messages flashed across the screen.
"FUCK!" I grabbed my half-empty whiskey glass and hurled it against the wall, glass shattering and liquid spraying across my gaming posters.
The sudden violence did nothing to ease the pressure building in my chest. "Every fucking trail goes cold!
Every single one!" Lynch didn't even flinch at my outburst.
"Are you done acting like a child yet?" I rounded on him, rage bubbling up hot and thick in my throat.
"A child? Do you have any idea what this is like?
Every second I waste here is another second she's-" I couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't voice the horrors playing on a loop in my mind.
"I'm failing her. I'm fucking failing, and she's out there somewhere, and I can't reach her.
I'm losing her!" My voice cracked on the last words, raw with desperation. Lynch regarded me coolly.
"With that attitude? Yeah. Probably."
Something in me snapped. I lunged up from my chair, getting right in his face.
"You don't understand what it's like to watch the person you love disappear, to know you're not enough, that you're too fucking late, that she's suffering because you weren't good enough to protect her!"
"I understand all too fucking well." There was something in his voice that made me pause. A darkness, a razor-sharp edge that cut through my manic energy. I took a step back, finally seeing the predator beneath the composed exterior.
"My wife was taken," Lynch said, each word measured and precise.
"Three years ago. A sick bastard who'd been obsessed with her for years finally made his move.
He had been manipulating both of us for years.
Manipulations that made me do fucking awful things to the woman I love.
And then he fucking took her, right out from under me, at a fucking party.
" I swallowed, suddenly uneasy. Lynch never spoke about his personal life.
The fact that he was doing so now made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"I found her," he continued, his eyes fixed on some point over my shoulder.
"In an underground hellhole. Being violated in the worst ways imaginable.
" His face remained impassive, but something flickered in his eyes, a flash of such pure, concentrated rage that it made my own anger seem childish in comparison. "I killed that bastard that night. I would have burned the fucking world down to find my girl, anything less and it’s not love, it’s a mild infatuation. "
The silence that followed was deafening. I couldn't speak, couldn't move. The raw confession had stripped away all my defences.
"So don't tell me I don't understand," Lynch said quietly. "I understand better than most what it is to hunt monsters who take what's yours." I sank back into my chair, properly chastened.
"I didn't know," I muttered. "About your wife."
"Few do." Lynch stepped closer to the monitors, scanning the code.
"And those who do know better than to mention it.
But here's what I learned from that experience, Purcell: I know every detail about my wife now.
Every word she's ever used, every habit, every preference.
I track her phone. I know her schedule by heart.
I have cameras installed in our house, in her studio.
Some would call it obsessive. I call it survival. "
I nodded slowly, understanding dawning.
"You don't miss the details."
"That's how you protect someone. You never miss a single detail.
" Lynch gestured at the screens. "And you, for all your technological tantrums, have been missing the forest for the trees.
" I frowned, turning back to the monitors.
Lynch's words resonated with something that had been tickling at the back of my brain.
I pulled up the texts sent to Bruce Turner's phone, scrolling through them more carefully this time.
Not just looking at the technical data, but at the content.
"Super busy with coursework. Catch you later xo," I read aloud. Something felt off. "Cade would never say 'super busy.' That's not how she talks." I flicked through more messages. "Can't wait to see you at break! Miss you tons!"
"That's not her either," I muttered, the realisation building.
"She doesn't use exclamation points like that.
And she'd never sign off with 'xo,' not even to her grandparents.
" Lynch watched silently as I pulled up my own texts with Cade from before she disappeared, comparing the writing styles.
The differences were subtle but distinct once I knew what to look for.
"And look at the timestamps," I continued, energy surging back through me.
"Tuesday, 2:34 PM. Thursday, 3:15 PM. Monday, 2:52 PM.
" I didn’t need to check the dates and times; I already knew where Cade was at every moment before she was taken from us.
"She had Literature during those times. She wouldn't have been texting during McGregor's class; he's a stickler for no phones.
" Lynch's expression remained neutral, but something shifted in his posture.
"So whoever sent these knows enough about her to be convincing to her grandparents, but not enough to mimic her texting style perfectly."
"And they don't know her class schedule well enough to avoid those times," I added, fingers flying over the keyboard as I started a new approach. "We've been trying to trace the technical path, but what if we focus on the writing style instead?"
I pulled up a linguistic analysis program I'd used for a cybersecurity project in my second year.
Not exactly its intended purpose, but it would work.
I input all the fake texts, establishing a baseline pattern of word choice, punctuation, and emoji usage.
Cade had distinct patterns; she rarely used emojis except with Luce, preferred ellipses to exclamation points, and almost never used text shorthand.
"I need more data," I muttered. "Local communications, message logs."
"I can get that," Lynch said, pulling out his phone. He made a brief call, speaking in clipped tones about tower dumps and message logs. When he hung up, he turned to me.
"My contact will send everything within the hour.
Anonymised, of course, but it should give you what you need.
" My fingers drummed impatiently on the desk as we waited, the manic energy building again.
When the data package finally arrived, I uploaded it into the system: thousands of anonymised SMS messages, DMs, and emails from the university community, all stripped of identifying information except for basic metadata.
"This is going to take time," I warned as I started the cross-reference. Lynch merely raised an eyebrow.
"Then get to work."
Hours blurred together as the program crunched through the data, comparing linguistic patterns, searching for matches to the writing style in the fake texts.
My eyes burned, my head throbbed, but I didn't dare step away, not even to piss.
With every passing minute, Cade remained missing. Another minute, she might be suffering.
The progress bar crawled forward with excruciating slowness:
67%... 68%... 69%...
"What if this doesn't work?" I asked, my voice hoarse from disuse. "What if we're wasting precious time?"
"Then we try something else," Lynch replied simply. "We keep trying until we find her, or until we're dead. Those are the only options." I nodded, oddly comforted by his brutal pragmatism. No false promises, no empty reassurances. Just the cold, hard truth of what needed to be done.
85%... 86%... 87%...
My mind wandered to Cade, as it always did in quiet moments.
The purple of her hair, the defiance in her eyes, the way she'd looked at me that last night we spent together before the fucking punishment, vulnerable and trusting despite everything we'd put her through.
The way she'd moved beneath me, her skin flushed and perfect.
The way she'd whispered my name, not with fear but with something close to affection.
I'd fucked it all up. We all had. But I'd get her back.
I had to. And then I'd spend the rest of my life making it up to her, if she'd let me.
93%... 94%... 95%...
"Almost there," I murmured, leaning forward, fingers tapping an irregular beat on the edge of the desk. Lynch moved behind me, actually showing interest for the first time. The tension in the room thickened as the progress bar filled.
98%... 99%... 100%.
A ping sounded. The screen flashed:
MATCH FOUND. 99.8% LINGUISTIC MATCH. NAME: HANNAH KENSIN.
My heart stopped as the results loaded.
"Hannah?" I whispered, stunned. Hannah Kensin. Tall, willowy, with carefully highlighted blonde hair and a practiced smile. Always impeccably dressed in the latest fashion, no doubt bought for her on daddy’s credit card, never a hair out of place.
She'd always seemed so bland. Forgettable.
Perfectly pleasant when required, but I'd barely spared her a second thought.
Especially since she was always overshadowed by Julia.
"You know her?" Lynch asked, his voice sharp with sudden interest.
“Damn fucking straight I know her,” I snarled. Anger coursed through me at the absolute betrayal that I was feeling. “She’s the Archive House Consort.”