Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“You’ll be quite safe,” he said in a Russian accent.
Why was everyone telling me I was going to be safe like my safety was in question? A rose on the kitchen table was weird, but maybe Sutton had placed it there, or my mum. There had to be a simple explanation—and I was determined not to let Tristan get paranoid before I figured out what it was.
Twenty-Seven
Tristan
I raced up the stairs to Parker’s flat. Now I knew she was safe with Sergei, all I could focus on was finding out who was trying to send her a message and what exactly they were trying to say. If Parker refused to call the police, I couldn’t make her, which meant I had to take matters into my own hands. In my gut, I knew the Amazon payments and the break-ins were connected. I just didn’t have any evidence. And now, the rose? That was a message loud and clear. Whoever it was wanted to draw attention to themselves. I just wasn’t sure what they were communicating or how dangerous they might be.
As I walked up the corridor to her flat, I glanced at the ceiling. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for but I’d know it when I saw it.
Nothing seemed odd in the corridor so I took a close look at the front door. I pulled up the torch on my phone and peered into the lock. It didn’t look like it had been forced. How had someone got in?
I let myself in with the key and shut the door behind me. I shrugged off the backpack I’d grabbed on my way out. It had a laptop in it and some equipment still good to have on hand in a security emergency like this. First thing was first, I pulled the rose out of the mug and put it in the bin. We had a photo. It was the cup I was interested in. Was it Parker’s? Or had someone brought it in? There was no water in it—it was completely dry. But had someone brought a rose in bloom and put it on the table only for it to die before Parker had a chance to see it, or had someone put a dead rose in a cup? Both were sinister. I couldn’t decide which would be worse.
I took some more photos of the cup, then rummaged around in a couple of drawers before pulling out a plastic sandwich bag. I slipped the cup inside, sealed the bag, and put it in my backpack.
If someone wanted to watch someone, where would they . . .
I stood and turned three hundred sixty degrees in the small kitchen, looking at the ceiling to see if there had been any disturbances. It would be too obvious in such a small space. I scanned the top of the kitchen cupboards and then ran my hand along them to see if anything had been left, but there was nothing. I checked under the kitchen table. Still nothing.
As I stood, something caught my eye but when I looked back, I couldn’t see anything. What was it that had stood out to me? I took a step toward the toaster, which was plugged into a double socket. A phone charger was plugged in next to the toaster, then next to it a pile of socks sat on top of what looked like a biscuit tin. God, she needed to tidy up or get a storage unit or something. I opened the tin. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see, but other than a single digestive biscuit, it was empty. I slid the lid back on and paused, glancing back to the phone charger. Had that been there when she’d been sick? It was just a phone charger, but the cable seemed a little too short. I looked more closely and found a small hole in the base of the plug. That couldn’t be right. I flipped it over, took a screwdriver out of my bag and opened the back. It was a camera. Whoever the fucker was that was messing with my wife had been watching her. Or had been planning to.
Working quickly, I pulled out some tools and set a tracer onto the counter underneath the camera device. I was going to try to hack into the feed from the camera and work out where it was going. Hopefully, I’d trace them before they saw me on the feed.
I checked all the other plug sockets but didn’t find anything else.
I ran my hand around window sills and the top of bookcases, but came up empty. In the hallway leading to Parker’s bedroom and the half bath, I felt around every doorframe and decorative arch. When my hand hit something the size of a pencil sharpener tucked above Parker’s bedroom door, I knew what it was even before I pulled it down. Another camera. I left another tracer.