Page 36 of To Love a Monster
“All right.Then listen carefully.You’ve got two options, and only one won’t tip him off.Go for a silent overlay.Keystroke ghosting.It’s slower, but if the passcode’s cached, you’ll pull it without triggering anything.”
“And if it’s not cached?”
There’s a beat.Then Elias exhales like he already knows I’m not going to like the answer.“Then you’re screwed, and the phone probably gets melted the second something lags or blinks out of rhythm.”
Exactly what I thought.Carl might look like a guy playing house, but everything about him has been too smooth.Too careful.The kind of man who doesn’t take chances unless he already knows the outcome.If he’s been trained, even loosely, he’ll feel it the second something’s off.
But I’m already reaching for the rig.I link the decryptor to my burner, connect it to the phone, fingers moving in practiced, silent rhythm.The soft green interface flares to life, lines of code blooming across the screen like a heartbeat.
“Loader’s up,” I mutter, eyes fixed on the flickering sequence.
“Let it breathe,” Elias says.“This isn’t smash-and-grab.You rush it, you trip it.Be patient.Let the system open itself up.”
I watch the loader crawl across the screen, line by line, unlocking cached data like it’s peeling back skin.“You’re in range,” Elias says.“System’s vulnerable.Time-stamped cache just popped.If the last unlock was recent—”
“It was.”
“Then you’ve got a shot.The tool just needs another minute to validate the sequence.”The decryptor hums softly beside me, running silent, lights blinking in steady rhythm.My hands hover over the keys, ready to dive in the second I’m inside.
While the program works, I reach for the small external transceiver in my pack.Compact, signal-secure, already configured.I slot it into the side of my burner and initiate the sync protocol.
Not just a crack.A mirror.
The second the phone opens, everything it does will echo to a secure interface on my second device.Real-time reflection.Passive monitoring.Any call, message, GPS ping, it will register there, not here.Nothing touched on the original.No traces.Set it up right, and he’ll never know I was inside his world.The unlock comes a moment later.
Click.The screen blinks.Access granted.A pulse flares down my spine, cold and electric.Directories appear.Text threads.Contact logs.Audio notes.GPS history.There’s a web here.Names I don’t recognize.A few flagged codes.Outgoing messages buried under dummy folder names.
I’m just starting to scroll, digging into a thread of messages marked with aliases I don’t recognize when a flicker of movement catches my eye.My other phone, resting beside the laptop, lights up softly.
Not a buzz.Just a shift, a motion alert.I glance down at the live feed of her house.One of the exterior cameras mounted near the porch just triggered.I tap into it instantly to see Carl standing at her front door with damp hair, no tension in his posture.
His hand hovers over the wood, like he hasn’t decided whether to knock or kick the door in.
Chapter Fourteen
Lila
