“Yeah.” I recite the name of the shop and he shakes his head. “This laptop is full of spyware. There’s a program to allow remote viewing and a—”
“No. He told me he found all of that and wiped it.”
Caylon’s gaze locks on mine for a few seconds, then he curves his lips into a smile that never reaches his eyes. “Everything on here was installed on the same date.” He turns the screen of the monitor he brought with him towards me so I can read it for myself. “Is that the day you took it in?”
“No.” My skin crawls, gooseflesh popping out on my upper arms. “Is there… Could someone have done this over the internet or something?”
“You mean remotely?” When I nod, his eyes defocus completely, then slowly return to their previous level of dead. “Not without having physical access for at least part of the time. The rest…” He shrugs, but it’s not the sign of a man confident that’s what happened.
“It wouldn’t have just reinstalled itself?” I ask, a last grasp at hope.
“No.” He reassembles the laptop and rolls away most of his tools, then frowns at Trent who nods back to him. “It’s a nice day. Do you want to sit outside for a bit?”
I’m flummoxed but Trent puts a hand on my lower back, not giving me much choice as he pushes me ahead of him. Three steps from the back door, Caylon asks, “Can I check out the rest of the place.”
And I twig on why he wanted me out of the house. “You think someone’s installed more spying software?”
He scrunches up his nose, briefly returning to the physical perfection of earlier as enjoyment dances in his eyes, then it blinks out like a light. “No, but hardware’s not out of the question.”
I sit on the concrete step, curling my knees to my chest as Caylon searches through the house. The two blessings are that Trent’s comforting arm is around my shoulder the entire time and that the hunt is completed quickly.
While my insides twist like they’re caught in a ceiling fan, he tours me through the photos he took of the flat, giving me a completely different perspective of the familiar spaces so they turn alien and unwelcoming.
The images capture the tiny glittering cameras and mics hidden in crevices around the house. One is tucked in a plug outlet, another in the corner of the defunct cooktop fan.
The most invasive microphones are in the bathroom; hidden in the floor drain and the chipped edge of the medicine cabinet. The most distressing cameras are the ones in my room, recording me from the bedside lamp and the wardrobe.
The lamp that I brought with me from my foster home. The one that means whoever did this, did it after I moved into the flat.
A mic and no cameras in Finley’s room, the same in Lily’s. Two mics and two cameras in mine.
I shudder at the thought of someone watching me while I sleep, while I change, while I fiddle about with the toys from my bedside drawer. Distress fires through me leaving charred wreckage in its wake.
It’s outside the realms of coincidence to think a house would randomly be bugged at the same time I’m getting gut-churning mail and my computer found a new affinity for spyware.
“Do these have a way to trace back who put them there?”
Caylon shakes his head, turning on his heel to stare through the window into our lounge, eyes poking and prodding at every nook and cranny in case there’s something his gadget missed. “No, they’re not relaying a signal we can follow. Even if we tear them all out, we won’t pinpoint its owner.”
“Come home with me,” Trent declares, folding his arms when he sees my lower lip jut out in defiance. “There’s no way I’m letting you stay here as a target.”
“I’ll wait until the police tell me what they do or don’t need me to do.”
“You’ve called them?” Caylon asks, his eyes not moving to my face.
“Not yet, but I will. They can add these details to the rest of it.”
“There’s been someone sending threatening cards,” Trent explains. “But this is an escalation.”
“It’s not an escalation because he’s obviously been doing this the whole time.” I rub my left arm, feeling the roughness where my goosebumps have set in for the day. “So there’s no more danger than there was yesterday.”
“But we know about it now, so we—”
“Exactly,” I say, cutting off Trent. “We know about it, so I’m actually far safer than I was then because now I know the fuller extent of it. I’m better prepared.”
“If you haven’t called the police yet,” Caylon says, ignoring both of us, “then I’ve got a counter proposal. The policemightfind who did this and theymightlock them away for a while.”
A huff bursts out of me. “They’re better placed than I am.”
