Page 23 of Merciless Obsession
“Wait, why now though?”
His stare leveled on me. “If you don’t want to go, staying here is an option too.” He went to turn but I stopped him.
“That’s not what I’m saying, this is just sudden.”
“Maybe I’m in a good mood today.” Rolling my eyes and crossing my arms over my chest, I poked my lips out and chose not to respond.
Ezra turned and left the room, but I called out to him again, making him pause. “My phone. Can I have my phone?”
“Don’t get greedy now, Ziora.”
I rolled my eyes. It didn’t matter to me, I would just grab my backup once I got home. Ezra might think he had the advantage over me now, but once we got to my house, the roles would be reversed.
____
The moment I stepped through my front door I took a deep breath and my eyes bounced around my living room. Everything looked to be in place but it felt stale in here. Ezra had made himself comfortable on my couch. Rolling my eyes, I went to the window closest to the door, unlocking and opening it to bring some fresh air in. Following that I went to the other one on the connecting wall, doing the same. It was the first week of October and the cool fall air was refreshing.
“Where you going?” Ezra asked when I walked past the couch toward the stairs.
“My office, there’s a lot of things I’m behind on thanks to you. Not to mention I gotta make sure your brother didn’t fuckup anything while trying to break into my computer.” My eyes shifted to the side where my table was. Where I’d opened the present that held James’s hands. It was gone now, more than likely destroyed to hide evidence of the crime. Still, a shiver shot through me. I doubted James was still alive but I couldn’t bring myself to ask or try and find out.
“Trust me, Emmet didn’t fuck up anything.”
“Yeah, we’ll see.” Ezra stood and walked toward me. “What are you doing?”
“C’mon, Bumblebee, I have to come with you. Unfortunately I can’t trust you yet not to try something funny.”
Instead of responding, I continued up the steps. This was the longest I’d gone without posting on my blog page. I also knew there were a ton of emails I had to catch up on. Thankfully I had finished my last job before I was taken, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have others inquiring about my services. Before I started my catch up there was something I needed to check first.
When I stepped into my office, I made sure to examine everything to make sure nothing looked out of place. I walked across the room to my board. My eyes bounced around, pausing on Dominic Tavarez’s picture. I studied it for a long second. The brothers were adamant that their dad wouldn’t allow a child predator to get away but I couldn’t just take their word for it.
Turning, I stared at the other white board on the wall. All the names of the missing girls haunted me, starting at the top with my sister. I felt like I was failing them because I was no closer to finding out who oversaw all this. They were like ghosts.
I swallowed hard and twisted my neck to look at Ezra who was standing a few feet away watching me.
“Your brother’s friend that went missing, what was her name?” I walked to the board and grabbed the marker in the tray.
“Adrian Larson.” I wrote her name down, then went to my desk. I booted my computer up and waited for the password screen to pop up.
Once it was unlocked I went to work, pulling up the software I used to find information that wasn’t easily available.
“What are you doing?”
“Do you know her birthday?”
“No, she was the same age as my brother.”
Moving the mouse to my second screen I pulled up the internet browser and entered the girl’s name. She went missing a couple years before my sister. The biggest difference between the two was this girl was rich and taken as a causality. They had to know her death wouldn’t be swept under the rug like all the others, making her more high risk, yet she didn’t turn up dead.
I hadn’t been able to do a deep dive like I wanted when Ezra told me his brothers were here. It wasn’t clear to me if she was taken by the same people I was looking for but everything lined up besides her family background. From what I was able to see, she didn’t come from a broken home, her parents had money, she wasn’t an at-risk teen. Her cousin that had been taken with her, however, was. Mom strung out on drugs; Dad murdered when she was a baby. She fit the profile. So why kill the cousin and not Adrian? None of it made sense.
I locked my computer and stood.
“You remind me of my brother when you’re working. You both zone out when it comes to computers.” Ezra chuckled as we left my office. “All that shit is foreign to me but you two seem to be right at home.” When I didn’t reply, he continued. “When you get into all the hacking shit?”
“Thirteen. At sixteen, I upgraded to the major stuff.”
“Impressive and just what I would expect.” He stepped forward. “I’ll grab the door.”
