Page 45 of The Seven Month Itch
He laughs. “Relax, bro. I’m messing with you. God, you’re whipped.” He turns back to face his monitors. “It’s cute, though.”
The clack of his keyboard is the only sound in the room. After fifteen minutes, he claps his hands together when he pulls up all of the surveillance cameras in the hotel. “You’re lucky I’m good at what I do.”
I slap my hand on his shoulder. “You’re a genius, man.” I give him a ballpark time to search for any footage with Preston. Miles scans a screenshot of Preston’s face from a video of him walking to the screening room on one computer and uses another to run the image through some kind of database.
“I added search parameters to narrow down Preston’s time here.” He points at the second monitor. “I’ll have all the footage he’s in soon.”
“Bro, how in the hell do you know how to do all of this?” This can’t be legal.
He shrugs like hacking into a resort’s computer system is child’s play. “The less you know, the better.”
We scroll through the results once the search finishes but come up short. Preston is only in a few videos. Either he knows where the cameras are and dodges them, or he hasn’t been here long.
Either way, I don’t like it.
“Wait, here’s something.” Miles enlarges a video taken after the movie. Justice storms out of the theater with Preston close behind her.
Memories of that night hit me like a brick wall.
I messed up, baby, but I’m gonna fix it.
The camera picks up Justice and Preston in what looks to be a ballroom. She’s inconsolable and walks outside to the balcony with a complete stranger, isolating herself from help if she needs it. The thought of her in danger fills me with dread until I see what happens next.
“No shit.”
I hear Miles but can’t concentrate. Justice,myJustice, throws herself at a man—a trafficker, for all we know—who proceeds to try and fuck her with clothes on. She kisses him with a yearning that rips me to my core.
God, what have I done?
“Turn it off now,” I say in a bark. I can’t watch anymore.
How did we get here?
Miles stands and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Everything will work itself out. You two have been through hell and back. You’ll get your wife, bro.”
I scoff. “I’m not so sure anymore. I think I pushed her too far.”
“Oh, please. It’s clear as day you two still love each other. You burned her with Madison, and she burned you with that guy. You’re even. So go heal together, or whatever the hell it is you married people do.” He bumps my arm with his. “I’ve never seen you give up when you want something, and we both know Justice is worth the fight.”
I twist to face him and raise a brow. “When the hell did you get so sentimental?”
He shrugs off the question and puts his hands in his pockets. “I’m a bastard when it comes to love, but you two are my family. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for the both of you.”
Miles’s third monitor beeps with an alert on the screen. I point to it. “What’s that?”
His fingers are frantic against the keyboard. He brings up what looks like code fromThe Matrixon his fourth monitor. Seriously, what the hell does he do for a living? I doubt he learned this in college.
“That would be the answer to who Preston is. I searched a few databases with facial recognition technology.”
I frown. “A few databases?”
He nods but never takes his eyes off the monitors. “FBI. CIA. DMV.”
“Jeez, Miles. What the hell do you do?” He turns to me with awhy are you still asking about my job?look. I raise my hands. “The less I know, the better. Got it.”
He pulls up a report on Preston and scrolls through the results. “At least he’s not a murderer.”
“Maybe he knows how to scrub his past or is looking for his first victim.”
