I nodded slowly, understanding dawning.
"You don't miss the details."
"That's how you protect someone. You never miss a single detail." Lynch gestured at the screens. "And you, for all yourtechnological tantrums, have been missing the forest for the trees." I frowned, turning back to the monitors. Lynch's words resonated with something that had been tickling at the back of my brain. I pulled up the texts sent to Bruce Turner's phone, scrolling through them more carefully this time. Not just looking at the technical data, but at the content.
"Super busy with coursework. Catch you later xo," I read aloud. Something felt off. "Cade would never say 'super busy.' That's not how she talks." I flicked through more messages. "Can't wait to see you at break! Miss you tons!"
"That's not her either," I muttered, the realisation building. "She doesn't use exclamation points like that. And she'd never sign off with 'xo,' not even to her grandparents." Lynch watched silently as I pulled up my own texts with Cade from before she disappeared, comparing the writing styles. The differences were subtle but distinct once I knew what to look for.
"And look at the timestamps," I continued, energy surging back through me. "Tuesday, 2:34 PM. Thursday, 3:15 PM. Monday, 2:52 PM." I didn’t need to check the dates and times; I already knew where Cade was at every moment before she was taken from us. "She had Literature during those times. She wouldn't have been texting during McGregor's class; he's a stickler for no phones." Lynch's expression remained neutral, but something shifted in his posture.
"So whoever sent these knows enough about her to be convincing to her grandparents, but not enough to mimic her texting style perfectly."
"And they don't know her class schedule well enough to avoid those times," I added, fingers flying over the keyboard as I started a new approach. "We've been trying to trace the technical path, but what if we focus on the writing style instead?"
I pulled up a linguistic analysis program I'd used for a cybersecurity project in my second year. Not exactly its intended purpose, but it would work. I input all the fake texts, establishing a baseline pattern of word choice, punctuation, and emoji usage. Cade had distinct patterns; she rarely used emojis except with Luce, preferred ellipses to exclamation points, and almost never used text shorthand.
"I need more data," I muttered. "Local communications, message logs."
"I can get that," Lynch said, pulling out his phone. He made a brief call, speaking in clipped tones about tower dumps and message logs. When he hung up, he turned to me.
"My contact will send everything within the hour. Anonymised, of course, but it should give you what you need." My fingers drummed impatiently on the desk as we waited, the manic energy building again. When the data package finally arrived, I uploaded it into the system: thousands of anonymised SMS messages, DMs, and emails from the university community, all stripped of identifying information except for basic metadata.
"This is going to take time," I warned as I started the cross-reference. Lynch merely raised an eyebrow.
"Then get to work."
Hours blurred together as the program crunched through the data, comparing linguistic patterns, searching for matches to the writing style in the fake texts. My eyes burned, my head throbbed, but I didn't dare step away, not even to piss. With every passing minute, Cade remained missing. Another minute, she might be suffering.
The progress bar crawled forward with excruciating slowness:
67%... 68%... 69%...
"What if this doesn't work?" I asked, my voice hoarse from disuse. "What if we're wasting precious time?"
"Then we try something else," Lynch replied simply. "We keep trying until we find her, or until we're dead. Those are the only options." I nodded, oddly comforted by his brutal pragmatism. No false promises, no empty reassurances. Just the cold, hard truth of what needed to be done.
85%... 86%... 87%...
My mind wandered to Cade, as it always did in quiet moments. The purple of her hair, the defiance in her eyes, the way she'd looked at me that last night we spent together before the fucking punishment, vulnerable and trusting despite everything we'd put her through. The way she'd moved beneath me, her skin flushed and perfect. The way she'd whispered my name, not with fear but with something close to affection. I'd fucked it all up. We all had. But I'd get her back. I had to. And then I'd spend the rest of my life making it up to her, if she'd let me.
93%... 94%... 95%...
"Almost there," I murmured, leaning forward, fingers tapping an irregular beat on the edge of the desk. Lynch moved behind me, actually showing interest for the first time. The tension in the room thickened as the progress bar filled.
98%... 99%... 100%.
A ping sounded. The screen flashed:
MATCH FOUND. 99.8% LINGUISTIC MATCH. NAME: HANNAH KENSIN.
My heart stopped as the results loaded.
"Hannah?" I whispered, stunned. Hannah Kensin. Tall, willowy, with carefully highlighted blonde hair and a practiced smile. Always impeccably dressed in the latest fashion, no doubt bought for her on daddy’s credit card, never a hair out of place. She'd always seemed so bland. Forgettable. Perfectly pleasant when required, but I'd barely spared her a second thought. Especially since she was always overshadowed by Julia.
"You know her?" Lynch asked, his voice sharp with sudden interest.
“Damn fucking straight I know her,” I snarled. Anger coursed through me at the absolute betrayal that I was feeling. “She’s the Archive House Consort.”
