Page 42 of Filthy Liar

I smile. “It’s my name.”

“Is it?”

“I’m actually not very good at false identities, so I try to keep it simple. Variations on a theme, if you will.”

“And Gray…”

“That’s made up.”

“Any chance you’ll share your real last name?”

My smile is a proper grin now. “Nope.”

“Just checking.”

My phone vibrates in my bag, and I reach down to grab it. But it’s not my main phone. It’s the burner that I use with Caroline. Fingers shaking, I pick it up.

14

Jason

Ellie’s facegoes white as she pulls her phone out of her bag.

“What is it?” I’m already out of my chair and around the desk.

“Somebody has Caroline’s phone,” she whispers.

I shake my head. “Wilson has it.”

“Not that one. We use burners to keep some of our conversations off of her work phone. I didn’t look to grab hers to bring with us when we came here last night.” She gives me a wide-eyed look. “It may already have been taken at that point, but why? And not that the person would know this, but this phone number,my burner, is the only one that has any history with hers. Literally, we swap them out regularly. But somebody has it, and they’re pretending to be her.Look.”

She shows me the screen. The text message on the screen is from a phone number, not assigned to a contact in the phone.

555-451-1765: If you want to see Caroline alive again, be prepared to transfer five hundred thousand dollars to a numbered bank account tomorrow morning.

It’s a ransom demand. My stomach lurches, and I grab my phone, dialing Deacon.

He answers right away. “What’s up?”

“You still with her?”

“Sure am. We’re playing Scrabble.”

“Can we talk to her for a second?”

There’s a fumble, and then Ellie’s friend comes on the line. I put her on speaker. “This is she,” Caroline says.

Ellie lets out a rough breath. “Hey. Good. Just needed to be sure. Love you.”

Caroline sighs. “Same, boo. Stay safe.”

“Same.” She taps the end call button the screen, then paces across the room. “Okay, what’s our next step?”

“Let’s go interrupt Wilson’s dinner and see if we can triangulate a text message source if we engage. Otherwise, we ignore for now.”

“But—” She swallows the protest. “For now?”

“For a hot second. We need to figure out the endgame here. A fake ransom demand is the same game plan as a fake blackmail image. Why?” I leave that question hanging in the air as we hurry to Wilson’s office. I text Cole and Tag and tell them to come in, too. “I hope to God everyone is rested. It’s going to be a long night.”

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