Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
He thought again for a minute, something occurring to him. What if . . . it almost seemed too easy. But he’d been inside this site when the numbers were displayed for him, and maybe they’d been meant to be used right here?
He went to Hollis’s inbox and spent ten minutes looking for what he hoped to find, letting out a frustrated exhale when that proved unsuccessful. But he was onto something—he could tell by the strings of numbers he’d identified. He hopped over to Hollis’s sent box and began digging again into the raw source of each message in order to find the identifier, numbers normally hidden away from the user because they’re not useful or necessary.
That’s where he hit pay dirt.
His heart gave a victorious thump, and he scrolled down the message with the same unique string of numbers that had been given to him by whomever had followed him around this site previously. The person had been communicating with him, just like that flash of light had been a message to Mrs. Willoughby. He didn’t know why or how or who might want his attention, at least on this matter. But whoever it was had been pointing him to this particular email.
The message was a response from Hollis to a staffer who was inquiring about his fiancée Seraphina’s family history with violence. The staffer seemed to think it would play well to bring up her past as a personal connection to the very real effects of being lax on crime.
But Hollis responded that Seraphina was unwilling to speak on that issue, as the trauma was still too raw.
Violence? Crime? Trauma?
Rex’s senses were buzzing.
He opened a browser and looked up Hollis, speed-reading through the first article to find Seraphina’s full name. Seraphina Arnoult. He did a quick search on her, but the only hits were news pieces about Hollis.
Family history with violence.
Rex used a people search to find her closest contacts, forking out twenty-nine bucks to get the full report. This was amateur stuff, but without the backing of the US government—and all the high-tech tools it offered—it was the best he could do on short notice.
It was plenty, however, as the woman who looked to be her mother, if the age was an indication, had a different last name. “Glory Jacobson,” he murmured.
He quickly read through the entire report he’d purchased, but there was nothing else of real consequence. No record, no bankruptcies, no marriages or divorces.
He did a search on Glory Jacobson, his skin prickling when he read the headline of the first hit. Family Experiences Break-In.
As far as headlines went, it was pretty mundane. Still, that prickle didn’t abate.
He read through everything available, so the picture was complete.
Then Rex sat back in his chair for a minute, allowing all the information to swirl. This was it. This was the missing link. It had to be. Everything Cami and her family—and later, Cyrus—had experienced, all originated here.
Rex grabbed his phone, and when he went to call Cami, he noticed that he’d missed a call from her right before Erik’s call had come in. “Damn,” he muttered as he listened to her voicemail. She hadn’t left any information other than to call her back, but it sounded like she was in her car. He dialed her number. “Come on,” he said, right before her voicemail clicked on. “Cami, call me as soon as you get this,” he said. “I have some information.”
He turned back to his computer and did another quick search to corroborate what he believed to be true about the connection between the crime Seraphina’s family experienced, and the one committed against the Cortlandts. Just as he’d surmised, Louis Swift, the man named in the news article who’d broken in and victimized Seraphina’s family, had been arrested six months earlier for breaking and entering. Louis was from an “upstanding family,” and though it was a felony, it was his first offense, and self-reportedly fueled by drugs and alcohol. The court had gone easy on him. He’d been ordered to do thirty days in a rehabilitation center and was then set free, back into the community.
There was no readily available information online about who the judge had been, but based on location, Rex was pretty sure he could guess. For now, a guess was good enough.
How in the hell Seraphina had wound up engaged to the man Cami was dating at the time of her own family’s crime, he couldn’t fathom. But he knew for sure it wasn’t by accident.
Rex grabbed his keys. He couldn’t sit around waiting for Cami to return his call. They weren’t meeting for dinner for another forty-five minutes, but he needed to find her now.
Chapter Fifty
Cami heard someone calling her name, the voice female and far away. Mom? Elle? She struggled to find them, but her muscles wouldn’t move, and her head felt so foggy she didn’t know which way to turn. Where are you?