After all, the truth doesn't matter if no one believes it.
“There’s more.” I push the phone back toward the troll. “I think there’s a bug in that phone. I turned it off completely when I went dark with Rona, but I gave it back to her to text her mother two days ago. Some greasy reporter fromThe Sizzlearrived in town looking for her not eight hours later. Then this morning, her entire private life was turned into public Asterion posts. She’s so upset about it, she swears she’ll never go on the internet again in her life.”
Malcolm’s eyes narrow to slits and his mouth twists into a scowl. This is the real reason I called him. Because no one is better than him at planting bugs on people’s devices. This means no one is better at flushing them out. Malcolm examines the phone again, his fingers holding it delicately like it might explode.
"Could be implant, could be app telemetry, could be account-level fuckery," he mutters. "I can’t give you a good answer right away. I'll have to tear it down."
“Take it. Do whatever you need to do.”
He slips the phone into a Faraday sleeve from his bag, the metallic fabric crackling. "Give me twenty-four hours. If someone bugged that phone, I’ll find it."
I trust that he will. There’s a reason Malcolm owes me a favor. He’s insanely good at what he does. Meaning he has enemies with deep pockets. Meaning I was once paid to keep those enemies at bay.
I may not be a tech genius like he is, but I’m smart enough to know when someone owing me a favor can come in handy.
We shake hands, Malcolm's grip dry and quick. I can see he wants to slip away and pour himself into work.
“Thanks, Malcolm,” I say as we both get up. “I will remember this.”
“You saved my ass back when I needed it.” He smiles, the corners of his lips lifting in a boyish grin. “Consider this interest payment on that debt.”
Malcolm ghosts out, his steps hurried as he walks out of the diner and toward his car. I sit alone for a moment, processing the implications of what we've learned.
I’ll have some useful information to share with Senator Quinn. There will be no doubt in her mind that the video is fake after I tell her what Malcolm told me. Even if it won’t be enough to clear Rona’s name from public opinion, I know it will matter to her that her mother knows it’s a fake.
And then I will find who betrayed her. Who had access to her phone and tracked her, only to sell her to the likes of Gribble Nix.
I pay the waitress for our coffees, leaving a generous tip, then step out into the cold. I’ve been away from Rona for too long. I yearn to tell her what I found. To hold her against me and soothe her.
I drive on autopilot, my mind circling around what Malcolm told me. Around this whole affair. The timing is a red flag, for sure, with Senator Quinn’s committee on safety and trust in social media. But there’s more to this than just politics. If someone truly wanted to get to Senator Quinn, they wouldn’t release an embarrassing deepfake of Rona and they certainly wouldn’t release screenshots of her private texts. They would attack the senator directly.
This means that whoever leaked this video and tracked Rona all the way to Saltford Bay has a personal vendetta against her. And this means I have a personal vendetta against them.
No one targets my mate and gets away with it.
Time passes as I drive through familiar snow-covered roads. I have no idea how long I’ve been driving when I blink, suddenly aware of where I am.
Familiar houses appear, small and neglected on a side street, tucked away from the main road. I slow down, a stone settling in my throat, making it painful to swallow through the tightness there. But I don’t turn around and I don’t stop until I arrive in front of a small blue one-story house with peeling paint on its white door, standing like a bruise at the end of the block.
My hands grip the steering wheel hard enough that my knuckles scream in pain as buried emotions surface with all the rage of my broken childhood.
It’s been almost twenty years since I’ve looked at that house. Almost twenty years since I spoke to the man who called himself my father.
I idle at the curb, watching the decrepit house, a storm brewing in my chest. Everything is the same as I remember, only slightly worse. Peeling clapboard siding, tilted porch step, half-bent blinds obscuring windows. I’m about to peel off when the door opens.
A tall ogre shuffles out, stomach pushing his belt line, robe gaping over a yellowed tank top. He walks down his driveway in the direction of his mailbox, muttering to himself.
I feel it deep in my soul the exact moment Farmouth Rooke looks at me. He stares straight at the SUV as if sensing methrough the tinted glass. Long moments pass as I fight the battle going on in my chest until I kill the engine and step out.
I stand beside my car for a few seconds that feel like years.
"You gonna stand there freezing or come in?" Farmouth finally breaks the spell and jerks his chin toward the door. He doesn’t wait for me to follow; he just shuffles back up his crooked steps and inside his home, leaving the door ajar for me.
A moment later, I follow.
Inside, the air is thick with the stench of stale beer and dust. I cast a wide glance around the crowded space of the living room, where a space heater is humming dangerously near tangled extension cords. My boots crunch on something that used to be a magazine. Empty bottles line the kitchen table like a broken militia, visible through the open-concept space. The familiar smell triggers something visceral in my guts and my stomach twists with a sudden, sharp pain.
"Didn't expect to see you," Farmouth says, not looking at me as he shuffles toward the kitchen. "Heard you haven’t been back in town since your grandma passed."
