Moving on to her social media, I look for patterns, or anything out of the ordinary. Like the rest of the MacTavishes, her social media presence is extremely limited and most of her accounts are private. There are no personal messages of note. Looking over her TikTok account, I notice several message requests, but she never opened any of them. Clicking on one, I get the notification that “This request has been withdrawn.” There’s at least fifteen of them.
I dial Xenia’s number, my fingers tapping impatiently on the desk.
“Xenia here. Who is this?” Our resident hacking genius always sounds slightly suspicious. I respect that about her.
“Lucas Stewart.”
Her tone immediately brightens. “You’re back? Thank god, you’re the best tracker we’ve got.”
I had belonged to the MacTavishes. Not anymore.
“I’m going through Cat- Miss MacTavish’s social media and I need some help. Can ye track a deleted message on TikTok?”
She snorts. “Now you’re just insulting me. I’m in my lab, one floor below you, suite sixty-one.”
“Be right there.”
Cat always claimed that Xenia’s place looks like Apple and Microsoft had a baby and the baby threw up all over her lab. There’s twisted cords and wires, multiple monitors on the walls and most of the light from the windows is blocked by a long series of incomprehensible grafts. She’s a tiny blonde thing from the US with a voracious appetite for skimming through the dark web and energy drinks.
“I come bearing’ gifts.” I hold up a twelve-pack of Celsius drinks.
“You remembered!” She presses her hands to her chest like I’ve just presented her with a diamond bracelet and a dozen roses.
“Need ye sharp and alert.” She cracks one open and downs half of it in one enormous gulp. “Do ye have three stomachs, like a cow?” I ask. “Because I dinnae know where ye keep it all. I’m thinking your internal organs are drowning by now.”
“This shit is the only thing keeping me sane, you idiot. Don’t disrespect the process.” She’s already swung her chair around and she’s tapping furiously on her keyboard, pulling up Cat’s social media records.
Leaning over her, I point to the messages column. “Someone tried to message her repeatedly, but she never opened them. They withdrew their request. Can ye track the IP address? Even an email?”
“Take a seat and learn from the master, my lad.” Her fingers are a blur as she skips from one monitor to the other and back again. “Hmmm…”
“What does ‘hmmm’ mean in this case?”
Blindly reaching out, she seizes the half-empty energy drink and downs the rest of it. “You might have to give me a couple of hours. This shit is encrypted. Whoever it was didn’t want anyone finding them. Probably a man. Got his widdle feelings hurt because she wouldn’t answer his message request.”
“Sounds accurate. Can I use your facial recognition software while ye go through the messages?”
“Use the laptop on Georges’ desk,” she says absently, eyes narrowed and watching whatever meaning the random streams of data are showing her.
There’s something itching at the back of my mind, the picture on her phone from the fancy dress charity event. Pulling it up, I watch the facial recognition tracer scan the faces. Most of them are relatives or close friends. The cursor hovers over the few faces in the background, other guests just passing by. I scroll over the faces, most blurry and out of focus.
Hovering over one face, I dismiss her. Blair Murray’s been chasing after Michael for years. Another of a man who looks vaguely familiar… ah, he’s a banker.
The cursor moves over the next face and the image sharpens slightly. I click the text box and the name pops up.
Hugo Dubois. He’s side-eyeing Cat avidly, all but licking his lips. Googling him brings up a myriad of stories. An eccentric who loves to dress outlandishly. A vicious businessman who’s not above extortion. He’s a leader in the pharmaceutical industry, but his passion?
Rare poisons.
Calling Xenia back, I wait for her distracted, “Huh?”
“It’s Lucas.”
“Oh, good!” she says. “I was just dialing your number. The message requests were from-”
“Hugo Dubois?”
She huffs irritably. “You just can’t let me be the one to make the dramatic announcement, can you? Yes, it’s from one of Dubois’ encrypted emails. He was quite persistent. The messages kept coming until about a month ago.”
