18. Miles #2
I smile, letting my leg rest gently against hers. “Good morning.” I press my thigh a little more firmly into hers. “You, on the other hand… look beautiful this morning.”
Her breath catches, just a tiny hitch, and I see a faint flush creep up her neck. It’s time to see if she’s fully hooked on the Ghost, or whether she’s willing to play outside of the mask too.
“I slept like a baby, maybe not tonight or tomorrow,” she murmurs, her fingers tightening slightly around her steaming mug. Her gaze flicks back up to mine, then away again, like she’s trying not to stare.
“Regionals in two days?” I ask, shifting my thigh so it presses more fully against hers. The heat of her skin radiates through our clothes.
I’m hoping she is fully with the Ghost, and she lets me continue to have fun.
She nods, biting the inside of her cheek. I ignore the conversation happening around us, Mason’s talking about something to do with another party in a few weeks.
“I’m sure I can find ways to help you relax,” I say quietly, my voice low. Say no, say you have someone to help you.
Her thighs part just slightly in response, almost instinctively. She swallows, her lashes lowering as she stares into her coffee, but the corner of her mouth curves upward.
“You’re being dangerous this morning, Miles,” she whispers.
“It’s college, it's meant to be fun, isn’t it.” I stop when my phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out looking at what my computer has sent me.
Fuck. Another girl has gone missing. Well, I know what I’ll be doing tonight, fucking hell.
“It is, but not when I have regionals in two days.” She smiles, and glances at my lips.
“Maybe, once they’re over, if my friend can’t help me,” she finally admits, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes meet mine, dark and sparkling with nervous excitement. She holds the gaze longer this time, her lips slightly parted.
The air between us feels thicker, and my cock stirs in my pants. Is she trying to work out if it’s me? Does she have an idea of who the Ghost is? I mean I could tell her, but where is the fun in that?
“Well, I’m ready when you are, whenever you’re ready… I’d love to be the one who helps you forget everything for a while.” I smile at her. I need her to just say she is seeing someone, then I’ll know she is with me, well the Ghost, even though that’s me too.
“You’re going to get us in trouble,” she whispers, but her eyes are bright, playful, and full of quiet wanting. The tip of her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip.
I go to answer when Juno asks what time we are getting there to watch them, and Mason tells her to let Lileah know the timetable, and I look at my phone again, and shake my head.
My system is working on the videos, and it’s finally got something, and I need to find out what it is.
I quickly get up and look at Mason. “I need to go.” He nods, knowing where I’m going. This might finally give me something, like who's behind this. Right now, I’ll take a fucking location.
Did I want to stop talking to Sadie? No, but like Cain always says, the family business always comes first, and nothing gets in front of it.
I look over at Sadie staring at me and I give her a smile. “Try not to stress too much about your routine, you’ll kill it.”
Then I leave and get to work. My professors are going to hate me this week. I’ve not been to too many lessons, but there are more important things which I need to do.
The image enhancement software finished its run; it took eight hours to do so. I left the coffee shop at nine; it’s now five in the evening.
When my phone beeped, I thought maybe I finally have a location or something, but no it’s something else.
It’s something I almost missed on the first three watches of the third video, just a frame, it’s less than two seconds where the angle shifts and the sleeve of one of the figures in the background rides up.
A tattoo.
The wrist and lower forearm, caught for ninety-three frames before the angle corrects and the sleeve drops back down. I've had the enhancement algorithm running on those ninety-three frames and what's resolved on my screen now is clear enough to work with.
It’s a circular design, Eastern European in origin which, I can tell from the style of the linework and geometry of it. There are three interlocking symbols that I don't recognize yet but will soon. If I find something, I’ll always find the answers to it.
I screenshot it. Clean it up. Run it through the tattoo identification database I built access to eight months ago for a completely different problem Cain involved me in. So now every tattoo I see goes into my database.
The algorithm takes six minutes, and then it returns a hit.
It’s not a name, but an origin, a prison in Romania where this design was documented twelve years ago as belonging to a network. The network has infrastructure, and resources. They have enough patience to watch seven locations across six time zones for months before they move.
This network sells people.
I sit back, because I know all of this, I’ve found them selling girls, I just don’t know where they are holding them.
The tattoo connects the figure in the video to a documented organization. Which means this isn't just a trafficking operation, it's an established one, with history, with reach, and with a trail that goes back further than fourteen months ago.
I open a new window.
Then I start pulling everything I can find on the network: arrests, known associates, and documented activity across Eastern Europe and the US. It takes twenty minutes just to build the first layer of it.
I pick up my phone and send Cain a message.
Miles
I have something. Tonight. It's bigger than we thought.
Looking back at the screens, the tattoo sits in the center of the fourth monitor, cleaned and sharp, with three interlocking symbols that just cracked the case open wider than I was prepared for.
I turn back to the keyboard.
Work first, everything else after. I’m getting closer, I know I can find these people and stop them. I just have to fucking sleep before I miss things which means another girl goes missing.
I’m working on one screen, then the other.
Right now, I have something, I can’t afford to sleep right now.
I need to look into the new missing girl and pull up all the camera footage I can.
Hoping, praying they have messed up, it’s wishful thinking because they haven’t done so far, but you never know.
I will stop whoever this is.