71. Kiera
KIERA
“Fuck,” Spencer shot up from her seat, gaze locked on Caleb. Her face was plastered on the news the same way I had been for months.
Despite his aunt’s approach, Caleb’s eyes stayed wide and glued to the TV. Clearly, seeing Spencer’s face on the news under the words “suspected kidnapper” wasn’t what he’d expected tonight.
His mouth worked silently, trying to procure words his mind wasn’t ready to produce.
Spencer took a step forward, her hands raised like she was approaching a scared animal. “I can explain. It’s not what it looks like, they’ve got it all wrong…”
But he didn’t look at her. His eyes flashed to me instead. From the wrinkle in his brow, I could see the calculations running in his mind.
The night at Bennie’s — deleting Spyre off of his phone — as his gaze flicked between Spencer’s granulated picture and my own guilty face, he was piecing it together. He’d been wrong that night.
I hadn’t sworn him to secrecy to protect myself. I’d deleted that app off his phone to protect all of us. And now, he was starting to get an idea of why.
“Why do you keep looking at her?” Dom grumbled, narrowing her eyes at Caleb.
“What?” Her attention broke Caleb from his silence. “I don’t know what you…”
“Caleb…” Leo tilted her chin down. “What do you know?”
But the kid was a terrible liar. He didn’t even seem a tiny bit concerned by what Spencer may or may not have done. It was clear he had something to hide.
He’s dedicated to not snitching, though. I’ll give him that much.
No matter how obvious it was that he was holding something in, Caleb evaded Leo and Dom’s questions until Dom had no choice but to turn to me. “Seriously?”
“Alright, alright,” I sat forward, cracking my knuckles. “I didn’t want to worry you guys since I already handled it. But the night we brought Caleb in… he had the Spyre app on his phone.”
Spencer’s face paled with concern, “Caleb.”
“All the guys in my grade have it!”
“Did you—” Leo started, but I raised a hand to cut her off.
“I told you already, it’s handled. I deleted it from his phone so that they can’t track him or access any of his photos of the house. And it’s a good thing I did, because apparently we’re more vulnerable than we thought.”
I don’t know what I expected — congratulations, thanks, applause? — but what I got was Dom jumping to her feet, face crumpling with rage. “Are you fucking serious, Kiera?”
“It’s pronounced ‘thank you.’” I crossed my arms over my chest, nose wrinkling as I lifted my chin.
“It’s pronounced ‘you’re a fucking idiot,’” Dom roared, crossing the room and holding a palm out toward Caleb. “Phone, now.”
He handed over the device, holding his head up for Dom to activate his face ID. It took her less than ten seconds of poking around his downloaded software to find exactly what she was looking for.
“Knew it.” She growled. “Tracking malware, slipped in with the app install. This doesn’t get deleted with the main app. And its last location report was an hour ago.”
Dom stormed across the room, searching viciously under the TV stand for something.
“What?” I could feel the blood drain from my cheeks.
“This is why you’re not supposed to keep secrets,” Dom muttered, finally digging out a paperclip shoving it into the phone’s side. As the phone’s chip popped out on a little tray, she crushed it between her fingers before storming off toward the kitchen.
After a second of silence, the only sound was metal and glass crunching through the garbage disposal.
I knew I’d fucked up. But pumping with this much adrenaline, it was impossible to wrap my head around the scope of my mistake. Folding my shaky hands in my lap, I turned my gaze to Spencer. “What does this mean?”
She bit her lip, struggling to hide the fear from her eyes. “If they know who I am, they might trace me back to the kids. And if they figure out that Caleb was on the app, they’ll know exactly where we are.”
Her words landed like a brick in my stomach. With one misstep, the ticking clock on our operation had turned into a time bomb.