Page 92 of Devil in Disguise

“I’m reading the goddamn report. I didn’t write it,” the sheriff snapped.

“The stalker,” Ghost said. “Nav, you get facial rec on that guy yet?”

“No. All I have are his eyes. It’s gonna take time.”

“I can fix that,” Dante offered, handing Danika over to me as he moved over to Nav’s computer. Nav gave him his seat, and we waited while Dante did his thing.

The sheriff sighed. “What stalker?”

Looking at King, I asked, “You don’t share shit with your uncle?”

“I’m his fucking brother,” the sheriff snapped.

“Only what we have to,” King answered. Turning back to the sheriff, he filled him in when someone knocked on the church door. “Gunner’s sister showed up a couple of days ago. She’s being followed. We’re working on it.”

Opening the door, Blade asked, “What’s up, Joey?”

“Uh, Archie said you were looking for Melissa?”

“Yea, you know where she is?”

“No, sir, she left right after the sheriff got here.”

“What?” Ghost asked the prospect.

“She drove out right after the sheriff drove in. The gate moves kind of slow, and aside from stepping in front of her car, there was no way to stop her. Also”—he looked down at his hands—“this came a few minutes before. I didn’t have time to run it in before the sheriff pulled up.”

The prospect handed Blade the paper, and the brother didn’t waste time opening it, quickly reading the contents. “Where did it come from?”

“A kid dropped it off. Said he was given a hundred bucks to deliver it.”

“Thanks, Joey. You can go back out to the gate,” Blade said, closing the door, then looked at Ghost, who stiffened in his chair.

“What the fuck does it say?”

“You can’t keep her.”

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled. “Who the fuck is this guy?”

Nav’s computer pinged, and a face came up on the screen on the wall. “Detective Andrew Henderson is the man who destroyed Melissa’s office,” Dante informed the room.

“He’s also the man who reported the kidnapping,” the sheriff confirmed as Dante looked at me and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Fuck.

It was time to go back to work.

“I need a computer,” I demanded.

Nav quickly ran out of church, only to return moments later with a computer. The exact computer I used the last time I was here, and the very computer that had my own algorithm processing the drive. Blade walked over and took Danika from me, and I stretched my arms out in front of me, cracking my knuckles, as I shifted my head from side to side. The second my fingers touched the keyboard, I felt as if everything was finally as it should be in my life, like this computer was the last missing piece. Listening to the clicks of keys, I quickly found myself immersed in the dark web of ones and zeros as my world welcomed me home. Everything evaporated around me as I searched for answers to questions that no one asked. It was all there, hiding in the dark web, just a click away.

“What the fuck did you two do? What did you say to her?”

“It was my fault.” I clearly heard Dante say as I muttered, my focus on the task at hand, “Baby, it was not your fault.”

“It was. I asked her about her brother. I shouldn’t have done that. We were supposed to be talking about Dani.”

It didn’t take me long and the information I was looking for popped up. “Ok, Caylee Meadows is a five-year-old girl, recently removed from her mother’s care. Neighbors called the police, asking for a welfare check when Caylee wouldn’t stop crying. When the police showed up, they found a severely malnourished Caylee who weighed only twenty-five pounds.”

---