Tav.
His warm voice weakened my knees, even after all this time.
“Hi,” I breathed into the app’s recorder.
“It’s good to hear your voice again.” It was him, there was no way I was mistaken. I would never forget my dead fiancé’s voice, not in a million years.
I almost sobbed into the phone. I dropped to my knees, tears heating my lids.
“I’ve missed you.” Came his next voice message.
I nodded, relief flooding my system that he was alive and safe after all this time. His voice was just as I remembered, its effect on me clear down to the marrow of my bones.
Just like always.
Gone was the obligation to Bradley, just because he was the only other witness to my secret. Forgotten was the past that used to bind us in favor of the danger that was woven into my life now. I was living my life anonymously every day, only existing through the small lens of the outside world when I hiked down the mountain for a day and uploaded my next article at a cheap internet cafe in Seaport.
I even stopped at The Seaport Roadside Motel once, but ownership had changed hands already. So life goes.
“I never thought I’d hear your voice again,” I admitted.
“God, I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed talking to you.” I heard the crack of emotion in his voice. “I had to go into hiding, there was a threat on my life—on both of our lives. What I did, I don’t know if it was ethical, but I’d do it again if it kept you alive. Did you get the lockboxes?”
“No, I changed my number and never looked back,” I confessed.
His rich laugh filled the recorder. “Typical of you. My estate lawyer is probably shitting himself trying to find you, he doesn’t get paid until you sign the bank paperwork transferring ownership of the lockboxes.” His tone turned serious. “Ah well, it probably kept you alive.”
“I would have turned it all over to your friends at the fed if I'd received it anyway.”
“I don't have friends, Frey, never mistake anyone for a friend. People are always connected in surprising ways. I don't know any feds, I only know that a stranger contacted me and knew more than I expected about things no one should know. I escaped with my life at that hotel in Maine just barely. After I pulled the needle out of my arm that you left me with I went down the fire escape—I figured they must have set you up to take me out. I thought maybe it was the Ecuadorians at the time, but now I realize you were framed, Frey. Not by the opposition, but by thehome team.”
The voice message went silent.
The implication in his words surged through me like a shockwave. “It sounds like you mean a coup or...treason.”
“I took a few phone calls from a very powerful man. I promised him nothing, and they deposited millions of digital currency into an electronic wallet. I never struck a deal, they were attempting to offer me a bribe. There’s millions of dollars on the computer chips locked in those boxes and I don’t care, I'm safer this way. I’ve never felt more alive. The Rocky Mountain air is good for me, come visit, Freya.Stay.It’s been hell without you.”
“But, I’ve never felt safer at Deception…”
“Jesus—you’re still on that mountain?”
“Yes, Bradley said it was the safest for now—”
“Bradley is a mole. Since the moment I caught him trying to put a GPS trace on your car last year I’ve been working to figure out his angle. I knew whoever was involved with your mother’s accident had to be close—must have known and had access. I saw the crime scene, Freya. From the trajectory of the wound, I would say she knew the person that took her life.”
“W-hat?!Why, how? How could you think...why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t I tell you? Because then I’d have to explain why I already had a trace on your car. I never trusted him, now I know why. I stayed away, tried to give you freedom until it became clear that your freedom stood at the cost of your safety. I had to get you out of there, had to get you somewhere he couldn’t find you.”
“You stole me away for my safety?” I huffed. “Do you really think my oldest friend would have harmed me? And why did you have a tracker on my car?”
“The therapist suggested I do it after she suspected you were having dissociative fugue states.”
“The therapist thought I was dissociating? I don’t recall any of what you’re saying.” My head pounded with his words.
“She wasn’t sure. You seemed so confused and you’d been through so much. When I mentioned I’d found receipts of places you’d claimed to never be...well, we thought it was the safest option for the days I worked in the city and couldn’t be with you physically.”
“So how does Bradley tie into all of this?” Disbelief laced my words.
