Page 3 of Tamhas

“Didn’t you want to tell him?”

Yes, I had. I wanted to tell him all kinds of things about me, which was why I hadn’t. “You can’t be too careful online. We both know this.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Who knows if this guy was a crazy stalker or something?”

I knew he wasn’t, but there was no sense in arguing with Emelie about it. She just didn’t get it.

“How’s it going?” I asked instead.

She frowned. “Not so great. This is pretty strange stuff.”

I lifted my head. “Strange how?”

“Strange as in this isn’t a straightforward task. You know me. I can generally find anybody. It’s not that difficult—unless a person makes it difficult.”

“You’re saying he made it difficult?”

“I’m saying somebody—either this guy of yours or the owner of the server he’s using—took pains to make it damned near impossible to find them.” She leaned in a little closer to the monitor, squinting, typing faster than ever.

I watched for a little bit, fascinated that she even knew the first thing about what she was doing. It was always a mystery to me, that behind-the-scenes world.

I could either tell her to back down and respect his privacy, or I could encourage her to keep going because every roadblock in my way made the prospect of finding out who he was even more intriguing. Why did I care so damned much? I was an adult woman, aware of the world. I knew what it meant to ghost somebody. It happened all the time, every day.

If I had been ghosted, it was really no big deal. Tamhas was nothing more than a face on a screen, some characters in an email which even I was savvy enough to understand translated into nothing more than a bunch of 0s and 1s in computer code.

So why did I care about finding him?

Why were my instincts screaming at me, insisting this was more than just a case of ghosting?

I was silent for a long while, watching her work as my brain went wild with questions. It was better to let her do her thing in silence. Not like I’d understand a damned thing she told me, anyway.

“Hang on,” she whispered, eyes darting back and forth over the screen.

“What is it?”

“This is weird… yeah, this is very weird… aren’t you the smarty-pants?” she whispered, a smile spreading across her face. “Damn, they’re good. Very good. But not as good as me.”

“You found something?” And why did my heart leap with joy?

“I think so. I mean, this is thick, babe. Lots of layers.” She typed a few characters, then a few more. “I mean, proxy servers, rerouting through several different countries—Libya, Russia, Thailand, Brazil…”

Goosebumps covered my arms. Who was this guy that he needed all these layers of security?

“I’m still uncovering more information,” she muttered as she pushed up the sleeves of her oversized sweater until they were well past her elbows. I knew that gesture. She was just getting warmed up and was ready to dig in full-force.

“You know, if you have other things to do…” I murmured, feeling a little guilty all of a sudden.

If I had known it would be like something out of a cybercrime movie, like some James Bond-level stuff, I wouldn’t have asked. Just like me, Emelie always had more than enough work to keep her busy.

She shot me a look, and I was familiar with it as well. Her “are you crazy?” look.

“Are you crazy?” she asked. “Like I’m gonna let this go now. Oh, no, no, no, girl. I take shit like this personally. Nobody escapes me.”

“You should’ve been a detective,” I chuckled.

“I am a detective, babe. I just don’t carry a gun or a badge. I’ll call you back in a bit when I have answers.” She ended the call before I had the chance to thank her.

I leaned back in my chair with a sigh. I felt defeated, and I hated that feeling. How was I supposed to know that a simple question of where a man was messaging me from would turn into a spy-level event?

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