Lila

She was woken by her phone trilling in the middle of the night. It took a minute to remember where she was. Her first thought was that Dane was being called to a crisis, and she reached out for him—and remembered the second her hand hit the cold pillow.

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The phone trilled again and she forced herself to roll over and answer it. "Hello?"

"Lila?"

"Yes. John?" Finally.

"I'm so sorry to wake you… but… can you come out now? To meet me?"

"Yes. Yes of course. Just… where?"

"I'll get you the address," he said. "Just get dressed and get ready and go down to the cars. I'll make sure you have it."

She swallowed hard and told him goodbye, then went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face.

She had to keep it together. She had to remember what role she was playing, what the endgame was. If she didn't, she could bring this whole thing crashing down, right on Dane's head.

Josh escorted her down to the parking garage where there was already a car waiting. She looked at the driver, then at Josh, who jumped in hurriedly. "Lila, this is George. He's been with us for a while. But he only works nights, that's why you haven't met him before now."

"Hi, George," she said, letting her voice be weak.

He was an older man, his skin quite dark, but hair gray. His teeth looked incredibly bright when he smiled and tipped his head at her. "Where can I take you, ma'am?" he asked politely in a slight Jamaican accent.

"Oh, right…" she said, trailing off as she pulled her phone out of the front pocket of the hoodie she'd thrown on. "Um… 2904 Upper East Lane."

"You're going to see John?" Josh asked, surprised.

"Yes, he's helping with the investigation and I… I didn't have time earlier. I was… busy. So he's helping me now."

Josh's brow lined. "Maybe I should ride with you, instead of in the back up car?"

"No," she said firmly, letting her eyes well. "I need some time to myself, please."

Josh sighed, but gave the driver his instructions, closed Lila's car door for her, then got into the vehicle behind them. Lila sighed with relief and stared out the window without speaking for the entire ride.

John's office was a small brick box at the back of a strip mall. Lila was surprised, but then, Dane had said he did things differently—tried to stay away from the eyes of people. So this must be one way to do that.

With the cars and guards outside, she walked in, trying to look stronger than she felt.

The inner room was large and completely circled by machinery, computer banks, and what she assumed were large servers. There were wires and cords everywhere, and a noticeable hum in the air.

The center of the room was a large, oval table. John sat at one end. He greeted her as she came in, but didn't look up from the computer, just kept typing and checking it against something he'd written down. She took a seat a couple feet away and waited.

When he spoke, he didn't take his eyes off the computer. "I've been following all the trails and working on the tech to help us spin it," he said without introduction.

Lila blinked. "What trails?" she asked. "Spin what?"

"Sorry," he muttered, still not making eye contact. "I always forget that… never mind. Let me fill you in: I scanned everything on your phone and Dane's. Your phone had all the normal tracking and locators that we put on staff phones. And of course, we have access to the system logs and notes. So I didn't find much of anything I couldn't already see through those. If they had gotten their hands on it, they removed anything I would have found suspicious and it didn't leave a trace. So frankly, I doubt it. I think it was clean," he said, with a grim smile.

"Dane's was a little more interesting," he continued. "He had all the normal tracking and so forth, too. But he'd added something that wasn't from me—something that froze all his logs at different times. I'm assuming it was to block anyone potentially using it as a recording device against his will. Which is great—except it froze everything. I don't know where he found it, or who he had make it, but I am impressed. It denied all rights to anything when it was turned on. So I couldn't dig behind it—and believe me, I tried. So there are gaps in all his tracking and info. Which would be fine, except some of them occur over the weekend of your wedding."

"Why is that a problem?"

"It's when Tish was missing. I don't know if Dane already gave them his phone, or just the logs. But if they cross-reference the logs on more than one app, they're going to notice that the time jumps sync. Which will put some pressure on his alibi for that weekend."

"I know that's a big deal, but honestly, right now, I can't even care."

John shrugged. "Who knows whether it will even come up. But I wanted you to know. One of the gaps was… the hours immediately after the wedding," he said, then cleared his throat. Lila fought a smile when his cheeks colored.

Dane had been protecting her.

"The other thing on his phone was a message that I believe he left for me, because it was in a place that only I, or someone like me, would look."

"What did it say?" she asked, her voice faint.

"He was reminding me of a software he'd had me working on last year. A side-project. It's not worth getting into all the details, but the upshot is, he wanted me to be thinking about tampering with media files."

Lila frowned. "Tampering, how? What kind of files?"

"Exactly the kind of files his father has been sending all of you," John said, his voice dark. "And tampering with them like… making them look like they show someone they don't show."

He finally met her eyes.