Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
We're in the lobby now, and I'm trying to steady my breathing. Julian paces near the mailboxes, his jaw working like he's chewing through scenarios, calculating risks.
"I know someone," I explain. "Someone who can crack that computer."
He stops. "Who?"
"Raine," I say, the name coming out in a rush. "His name is Raine. He's the one who broke into Dylan's phone for me when I needed to get evidence. He's absolutely brilliant with all this tech stuff—like, scary good at it."
Julian's eyes narrow—calculating, not doubting. "Can we trust him?"
"He helped me before." I pull out my phone, already scrolling for his number. "And he wants to work for the CIA someday. Catching a psycho would look great on his resume."
I tap his contact info and hit the dial button before my racing thoughts can convince me this is a terrible idea and I lose whatever shred of nerve I've managed to scrape together.
Three rings. Four.
"Yo."
"Raine, it's Liza. I need you. Like, right now."
Silence stretches. Then: "What kind of right now?"
"Breaking-into-a-dead-man's-computer kind of right now."
He whistles low. "That's intense even for me, babe."
I'm irritated now, frustration bubbling up hot and sharp in my chest. He doesn't understand how crucial this is, how everything we need could be locked inside that computer. "Can you do it or not?"
"Give me an hour. Where?"
I rattle off the address, relief flooding through me. "How long will it take once you're here?"
"Depends on the security. Could be minutes, could be longer. I'll bring my kit."
"Thank you. Seriously."
"You owe me so many coffees." He hangs up.
Julian's watching me with something like admiration. "You're full of surprises."
"Yeah, well, desperate times." I glance toward the elevator. "We should go. Standing around here looks suspicious. The lobby cameras—"
"Right." He takes my hand, and we push through the glass doors into the cool afternoon air.
An hour feels eternal. We grab coffee at a place two over, neither of us drinking much. Julian keeps checking his phone. I keep replaying what we're about to do—illegal, reckless, necessary.
When Raine finally texts, we're back on the street in seconds.
He arrives carrying an industrial briefcase that looks like it could survive a nuclear blast. Black hoodie, ripped jeans, that same cocky smirk.
"Damn, girl. You look stressed."
"Can you just—"
"I got it, I got it." He hefts the case. "Lead the way."
I pull out my phone with shaking fingers and dial Colleen's number again, praying she's still at home. The line rings once, twice, and my stomach clenches with each passing second. Finally, she picks up.
"It's me again," I say, trying to keep my voice steady and casual. "We forgot something upstairs."
There's a pause, and I can practically hear her considering whether to ask questions. But she doesn't. The intercom buzzes almost immediately, that electronic click of the lock releasing echoing through the lobby like a starting gun.
"Thank you," I breathe into the phone, but she's already hung up.
Bless that woman. Bless her lack of curiosity and her willingness to just let things slide without interrogation.
The lobby feels different this time. Heavier. Like the walls know what we're doing.
My hands shake a little as we wait for the elevator. Julian squeezes my shoulder.
"Last chance to back out," he murmurs.
"No." My voice comes out stronger than I feel. "We finish this."
The elevator doors close around us, and my heart climbs into my throat.
His office smells like stale cologne and old paper—that expensive stuff Daniel always wore mixed with the musty scent of forgotten files and dust that's settled into every corner.
My stomach twists into tight, uncomfortable knots.
The air feels thick, oppressive, like it's pressing down on my chest with every shallow breath I take.
Raine drops his briefcase on Daniel's desk with a thud that makes me flinch. He cracks his knuckles, all business now. "Alright, let's see what we're working with."
He pops open the case—rows of cables, drives, gadgets I don't recognize. Pulls out something sleek and black, plugs it into Daniel's tower.
"I need to boot from an external device. Bypasses the login screen entirely." His fingers fly across the keyboard. "Pretty standard encryption for a civilian. Amateur hour, really."
I can't stand still. My feet carry me back and forth across the worn carpet—three steps, turn, three steps back. Every creak in the hallway outside spikes my pulse.
Julian leans against the doorframe, eyes on his phone, one ear trained on the corridor. We worked out the escape route on the way up—fire escape, run two buildings over, circle back to the car.
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry, and silently pray with everything I have that we won't need any of those carefully mapped-out escape routes—that we can just walk out of here like normal people, undetected and unseen.
"How long?" My voice comes out thin.
"Patience, grasshopper." Raine doesn't look up. "Genius can't be rushed."
I shoot him a glare. He grins.
Minutes crawl by like hours. I yank my phone from my pocket, the screen lighting up my anxious face in the dim room.
No missed calls. No texts. My thumb hovers over the screen for another second before I shove the phone back into my pocket, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I pull it out again barely thirty seconds later—an compulsive tic I can't seem to control—and check one more time, just to be absolutely certain.
The screen stares back at me, blank and unhelpful. Still nothing.
"In." Raine leans back, triumphant. "Told you I was good."
I practically dive across the desk. The desktop loads—folders, files, icons scattered like breadcrumbs.
"Recent emails first," I say, taking over the mouse. My hands are trembling so badly I can barely control the mouse as I click into his inbox, the cursor jerking across the screen in stuttering, uneven movements that betray every ounce of my terror.
Spam. Bills. Rental property correspondence. Nothing.
"Try drafts," Raine suggests.
Empty.
"Sent items?"
I scroll down. Scroll. Scroll. Then freeze.
An email about special lock purchases catches my eye.
I click into it, my pulse quickening as I start reading through the entire email chain, scrolling down through the conversation thread.
He's apparently bought multiple high-end locks—expensive ones, the kind that require special installation and come with reinforced strike plates and anti-tamper features.
The kind you don't just pick up at a hardware store on a whim.
Weird.
Suspicious.
Dated approximately one week before Claudia vanished without a trace.
I know this with absolute certainty because I've memorized the exact date of her disappearance down to the hour—I've stared at that date so many times in news articles and police reports that it's burned into my brain like a brand.
"Holy shit," Raine breathes.
Julian appears behind us. "What?"
"Look." I point.
Julian’s jaw tightens. "Print it. Screenshot it. Whatever."
I fumble with the keyboard, saving everything I can. Then I navigate to another software—security cameras.
When we were living together, Daniel spent a lot of time monitoring the cameras—obsessively, really, though I didn't realize it then.
At the time, I thought it was kind of weird, sure, but I figured it was just one of those landlord things, necessary security measures since the building doesn't have actual security guards on staff or anything like that.
There's no one sitting at a desk in the lobby watching monitors all day. Just Daniel.
Always Daniel, watching. He even let me play around with the system once or twice when I was curious, showing me how to pull up different angles, how to rewind footage, how to zoom in on specific areas. He seemed almost eager to demonstrate it, like he was proud of his surveillance setup.
The interface is clunky. I click wrong, backtrack, curse under my breath. Damn, I should have paid more attention, months ago.
Finally, the feed loads. Multiple angles. Entrance, lobby, hallways, parking lot.
So many cameras.