Page 47 of What We Don't Say: Part Two

I turn my head toward Kade because limits are the last thing I can survive hearing. “Hack the cameras.”

His jaw tightens. “Sloane.”

“Traffic cameras. Campus cameras. Hotel systems. Toll booths. Streetlights. I don’t give a fuck what it takes.” I push myself upright on one knee, and my voice starts to shake because begging has entered it now, and I can't keep it out. “You know people. You have people who know people. Find someone who can get into the feeds and trace her car, trace the patrol car, trace where they took her, trace where she went after. Anything.”

Kade looks like he would rather let me hit him than say what he has to say. “I don’t have that kind of power. Recovering damaged files you handed me is one thing. Breaking into every live camera system between here and every campus is another, and anyone who says they can do that cleanly is either lying or selling you a felony wrapped in hope.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” He stays crouched where he is, voice low and brutal with honesty. “I can recover damaged files when we have the files. I can trace a compromised device when I have the device or the account path. I can preserve evidence, identify tampering, and give Zana material she can use without getting it thrown out. I can't break into every camera system between here and every campus within driving distance and magically find her because you need me to.”

The room blurs. I hate him for saying it. I love him enough to know he's telling the truth.

Kade reaches into the hard case and pulls out another folder, thinner than Zana’s legal pads. “What I can tell you is your phones were compromised. Yours, Idris', and Theo’s. Not in acartoon spy way. A hidden reroute path tied through an app shell and device permissions. It can redirect calls and messages to a controlled number without the user seeing the redirect. It can filter what comes through. It can make a message appear like it behaved normally when it didn't.”

Idris' purr falters. Theo goes even stiller against him.

“She was calling,” I say, and the words barely carry. “On the campus footage. She had the phone to her ear.”

“She could have been calling you while your phone never showed the call.” Kade doesn't soften it. “Same for Idris. Same for the house line if that was routed through the same account structure. Some texts may have been intercepted. Some replies may have been spoofed. I can document enough to support tampering, but her old number is dead now. Fixing this doesn't give us her new one.”

“She thought we weren’t answering.”

Kade’s eyes hold mine. “Yes.”

The word takes whatever is left of my spine. I sit back on my heels with my hands hanging uselessly between my knees and understand, finally, exactly how Garrett killed us without putting a hand on her throat. Callie called into a silence he built. Then she came home to a door he’d already barricaded with a carefully placed trap of paperwork, police, and my stolen name. She screamed for me outside the house while the phones and cameras failed exactly where Garrett needed them to, and every pretty word he’d ever spoken did its job.

Theo makes a tiny sound at last. It isn't a word. Idris bends over him, kissing his hair, his temple, the place near his bite while the purr starts again. “I have you,” Idris murmurs, rough enough that I know he's talking to both of us and not enough to either. “Theo, breathe with me. Good. Again. I have you.”

Zana closes her laptop with deliberate care. “I'm filing tonight. Kade, I need declarations on the phone compromiseand footage recovery by morning. Idris, I need Theo’s written statement updated only if he can do it without harm. Sloane, I need you alive and not arrested. That isn't a joke. You are named in fraudulent paperwork, and Garrett benefits from every uncontrolled move you make.”

“I hear you,” Idris says when I cannot.

Kade rises slowly. “I’ll stay in the building until the declarations are drafted. I’ll have Skylar review anything that touches police procedure before it goes to Zana.”

I should thank him. I should say something to Zana. I should get off the floor. Instead, I reach for the edge of the table and miss it the first time because my hand is shaking too hard.

Idris moves then. He eases Theo into the chair with care, murmuring something too quiet for me to catch. Theo’s fingers clutch at his sleeve until Idris bends and presses his mouth to Theo’s forehead. “I’m getting him up,” Idris tells him. “Then I’m coming right back for you. Stay where I can see you.”

Theo nods once, eyes glassy and unfocused.

Idris comes to me and kneels. He doesn't tell me to stand. He slides one hand under my arm and the other around the back of my neck, bringing his forehead to mine until the storm in him meets the wreckage in me.

“Come with me,” he says.

“I don’t want to think.” The words fall out of me before I know I'm saying them. They sound small. They sound like something Theo might say in the dark. I hate that, but I need it, and Idris' hand tightens at my nape like he knows both things are true.

“It’s okay,” he says. His voice breaks on the edge and then steadies because he's Idris and he will hold a roof over us with his bare hands if he has to. “We’ve got you.”

The attached bedroom is through the private door behind Idris' office, a narrow room with a bed large enough for three if no one needs space, a dresser with spare clothes, and blackoutcurtains that make it possible to forget what hour it is. We have slept there in pieces over the last few weeks, Theo curled between us after meetings ran too late or after going home felt like walking back into Garrett’s mouth. It smells like us now. Smoked cedar burnt thin by grief, black tea and rain, cardamom bruised by too many hard nights.

Theo follows because Idris keeps one hand out behind him until Theo takes it. Zana and Kade stay in the conference room. I don't look back. I can't carry one more witness.

Inside, Idris closes the door, then turns the lock with a soft click. The sound should scare me after everything locks have done to us. It doesn’t. Idris is between me and the world. Theo is beside me, trembling but present. Callie is somewhere beyond all of us, still there, still waiting without knowing we are finally looking at the right lies.

Idris faces Theo first. “Sweetheart,” he says, soft and firm at once. “Let me help you out of these clothes.”

Theo’s throat works. His eyes flick to me, then back to Idris. “Sloane?”