Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Tabitha
Brian had lied to her. He’d been gone far too long and he’d looked shifty.
She didn’t believe that he’d skipped work because he’d had a drink in the night and got sick.
She’d been in his bedroom for five minutes now, staring at his computer screen.
All she had to do was to nudge the mouse and see if he’d left anything open.
A red blob caught her attention. She pressed it and sniffed her finger – Plasticine.
It was covering his camera lens. She left it where it was, trying hard not to move anything she didn’t have to.
She nudged the mouse and the screen lit up.
‘Whoops, it was an accident, Brian. I was looking for paperclips.’ She smiled, knowing that was her excuse if he caught her.
There were three reduced windows on the screen.
She expanded the first and checked out the gaming site.
The forum he was in looked cool. Everyone was chatting about a game she quite fancied playing herself.
Even though it was a war game, not her first choice normally, she enjoyed a bit of ass kicking sometimes.
She clicked on the reduced second window and recoiled at the search that had brought up pages of websites and links.
How can someone spy on you through your computer?
Now she was getting somewhere. She knew why Brian had concealed his camera now.
She hugged herself and frowned, not knowing what to do with that information.
She couldn’t ask Brian about it. If he knew she’d been snooping, he’d freak.
Yes, he’d never believe she came looking for stationery.
She enlarged the last window and gasped as she almost stumbled into the radiator.
He was on that site again – OpenMeSmiler.
There was a new video to click on. Brian promised that he was done with it.
He swore, and he’d let her down, and now he was in some kind of trouble.
She had to tell him that she’d snooped. He needed her help but she had no idea what to say.
She left her finger hovering over the play button, not wanting to see but not being able to resist. Her gaze fixed on a still of the video. It was the woman who’d gone missing. She pressed play and stared wide-eyed at the pre-recorded video with seven thousand likes.
The woman sitting in a chair. Someone in a morph mask taking photo after photo after cutting off each layer of her clothing, then he rested the huge knife on her chest before drawing with the tip on her skin from her front to her back, then the video ended.
‘What are you doing?’ Brian rugby tackled her onto his bed, then slammed the screen down.
‘Brian… what?’ She didn’t have the words.
‘I’m scared, Tabby. There was this van… I ran… I’ve stuffed up big time and they’re coming for me.’