“Cal said she passed out pretty much straight away.”
“She’ll be fine with Cal. She trusts him and he makes her feel safe. I think that’s what she really needs most of all right now,” I told him. I just wished I could be the one laid out at home with her snuggled against me.
Dante and Arran were waiting for us in the boardroom when we stepped off of the lift. They had multiple laptops open before them, and the look on their faces, as they glanced to us, filled me with warning. Whatever they had found was going to be bad. I just hoped Rafe was ready to face it, especially if Gia was at the centre of it.
“Tell me,” Rafe commanded as he walked into the room and right over to the chairs they both sat in, leaning on the back of them so he could see the laptop screens. I took the seat beside Arran and moved in closer so I could see too.
“What do you know?” Dante asked.
“That Gia had those two kids hired to stalk Cara. Have you confirmed that story?” Rafe asked.
“Yeah. Checked Gia’s phone records and found the calls made, earlier today, to the girl who was related to the teens in the steakhouse. She set it all up with a little help,” Dante confirmed.
“What else?” Rafe pushed.
“I wanted to look further back into Gia’s call logs, just to check who else she’d been talkin’ to since Cara arrived. I just thought maybe there could be a reason for the way she‘s been behavin’ and carryin’ on,” Arran went on.
“And was there?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Dante answered. “We found these calls.”
He clicked on a tab and a page opened with six or seven calls listed. They were all over the space of the two weeks before Cara had even called Rafe, mostly in the afternoons or evenings. They varied in length. The longest was over thirty minutes. Theshortest just three. I looked to the numbers, noting they were all the same, but that wasn’t what stood out.
“Is that the US dialling code?” I asked.
“Yeah. The first call from this number came to Gia’s phone. After that she was calling the number back, multiple times.”
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Burner phone,” Dante shrugged. “But it was located in the Chicago area.”
“Fuck,” I uttered as I tried to make sense of it all. Gia was speaking to someone in Chicago before we even knew that’s where Cara was?
“What are we thinking here? These calls were made before Cara ever reached out to me. Gia couldn’t have know where Cara was. How would she?” Rafe demanded.
“We dinnae know, but we’re tryin’ to get into Gia’s social media accounts to look fer a link there. Maybe it’s all innocent, but it seems a hell of a coincidence to me,” Arran continued.
“What if she was speaking to Cara? Maybe they fell out and that’s why Gia’s so angry,” Rafe mused.
“How would they have reconnected, and if they did, why wouldn’t Cara just tell us that? Why would she lie? Would you really have cared that much of she’d reached out to Gia before you? Knowing how scared of you she was when we found her?” I questioned.
“Cara didn’t lie!” Dante snapped as he jumped to his feet. “She wouldn’t. She likes honesty. She tells us the truth even if it’s hard. She wouldn’t lie about this.”
“Dante, sit yer arse back down. No one’s accusing Cara of anythin’ right now. We’re just trying to work out what the fuck’s goin’ on,” Arran cut in before Dante exploded further.
Dante sat back down, but he didn’t look any less volatile as he stared daggers at Rafe and I. Lucky for him, we were used to his outbursts and didn’t take it personally.
“Okay, I’m in,” Arran said as he stopped clicking on his laptop long enough to glance up at us.
“Check the private messages first,” Dante ordered and we all leaned in as Arran moved to the messaging section of the page.
I expected to see a ton of messages from her friends about parties and clubs. That was what Gia usually used her social media for, but this account seemed older, The messages from friends names who I recognised were further down the list and the photo of Gia on the page was from a few years ago too.
“Who’s that? That conversation is the only recent one.” Rafe asked as he pointed to the screen. Arran clicked to open the messages and several appeared before us.
Ella
Gianna. I’ve been searching for you
