June walked over to the rack. Like the tape case from KT’s, these were unlabeled, with the blank white facing out. She took one from the rack and opened it. The cassette inside was the same brand as theone from KT’s house. On one side was the same kind of label with a date written in the same spidery hand.
The dates were different, though. She pulled the next few cases from the rack and opened them. They were organized sequentially, each dated roughly a month from the one before. She counted forward and found a single empty slot. After that was a single final tape case. She checked the date on the last one. It was for the month after KT’s tape.
The dates fit. The tape had come from Mishra’s collection. June would bet her life on it.
Sanjay Mishra was KT’s whistleblower.
She turned and saw Sally staring at her, the baby fussing louder now. “I know you’re not interested in a ring of bloody jam band bootleggers. Please, please tell me what this is about.”
June felt for the woman, but she couldn’t allow herself to be human just yet. She kept her voice businesslike, as if she couldn’t see Sally’s distress. “Just a few more questions. Did your husband ever travel without his phone before?”
Sally Mishra swallowed. “A few times, yes, when he went to meet with some startup founders. He said they were a little paranoid about their big idea getting out. They made him put his phone in a kind of security pouch to cut it off from the cell network. I thought it was odd, but he told me the startup might be a game-changer. It only happened a few times. And only for the day. Never overnight.” Her eyes were brimming.
“In the last few weeks or months, did Sanjay seem upset about anything?”
Sally knuckled away the tears. “Not that he’d ever talk about,” she said. “I mean, we’re English. But a wife knows. Maybe two weeks ago, something changed. He was different. Tense. Five days ago he said he had a meeting and I haven’t heard from him since.”
June looked at Lewis. He nodded. She took a deep breath.
“Sally, we believe your husband got involved in something unfortunate. My guess is, he probably thought it was a good thing, something to help your family in case of a disaster. Then, I would like to think, he realized it was not such a good thing. That it was dangerous. And he did something that he hoped might put an end to it. He reached out to a colleague of mine. And now that colleague is dead.”
Sally held the children to her like an anchor, like they were the only things keeping the tide from washing her out to sea. “And my husband?”
June cleared her throat. “We’re looking for him. Do you have any contact information for these startup people he went to visit?”
“I already looked,” Sally said. “I checked his phone, I checked his computer. His work and personal calendars. I know all his passwords. We didn’t keep secrets, at least I thought we didn’t. But I found nothing.”
June had a thought. “May I see his phone?”
Sally led them back through the solarium to the kitchen and took a phone off the counter. She put in the password, then handed it to June, who immediately went to the alphabetic list of apps, looking for Telegram. It wasn’t there.
June went to the app store, found Telegram, and began to download it, holding her breath.
When it was finished, she opened the app.
It went directly to the chat screen. Mishra had deleted the app just like Enderby had. When it loaded, it had remembered the phone. Unlike Enderby, Sanjay Mishra had put the details in his password manager. And now she could see any messages.
There were only two. The first was with Circuit Rider, a single text dated six days ago.
“I understand you’ve chosen to leave our community. Would it be possible to have an in-person exit interview about your reasons? It willreally help us improve the experience of other members. Tomorrow, 10am? Usual place? Won’t take long.”
Sanjay had responded an hour later with a thumbs-up.
The second set of messages was from somebody calling himself WILKS, dated four days ago, after Sanjay’s disappearance. It had never been opened. And it was in all caps, the text equivalent of a shout.
“RE OUR PREVIOUS CONVERSATION, RECOMMEND YOU TAKE NO ACTION. NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES HIGHLY LIKELY.”
The next message arrived an hour later. “STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU DO NOT ACT. TOO DANGEROUS. PLEASE RESPOND.”
Then another message a few hours after that. “SANJAY WHERE ARE YOU?”
Sanjay Mishra had never responded.
Now the only question was whether he was still alive.
June turned to Sally. “Do you have any family nearby? Anywhere you can go stay?”
Sally burst into tears.
