“I don’t watch any—”
“Whoever it is has no criminal record, and they haven’t worked for the government, military, or any plan that has high-level security that would require fingerprint input.” Without any of those things, a single finger isn’t much to go on when looking for a person.
“Oh. What about—”
“None of the finger-related injuries in hospitals are from foul play, and there are no police reports.”
He visibly swallows, looking ill. “Oh.”
“Nothing stays hidden forever; we’ll find them.” The condition we’ll find them in is the only unknown in this scenario. Not something that Matthew needs to concern himself with.
That seems to satisfy him. “So the… um, the pet, who are they?” His fingers dig into my shoulder, and he tenses. “Lester. The one who killed that person at the hotel. Is that—is that—?”
“Yes.”
“You know, I’ve thought more about death in the last three days than I have my entire life,” he says weakly. “In a more real sense. Not in a ‘movie’ way. Not in a ‘someone grieving the death of a loved one’ way either. This is just… murder and people toying with lives like they’re—like they’re money in a cash register.” He closes his eyes briefly. “Or something. I don’t have an analogy for this.”
“Probably for the best.” Though I can admit to some curiosity about what he’d compare it to next. “Lester does all the dirty work for Roger. He’s likely to be one of the only people that knows where Roger is hiding. Possibly the only person. I have no use for going through others only to get to Lester anyway.”
“Start with the most likely source.”
“Exactly.”
“And, um, how exactly are you going to find him?” He toys with the hair at my nape, and my fingers twitch, my first instincttelling me to rip them off and push him away. Get him out of my space. I swallow hard and push through it, searching for the pleasant aspect of the touch. A reminder that my aversion has nothing to do with him. It’s not the touch itself that I’m responding to, and when I sift through all of the initial thoughts, I don’t dislike the way he feels on my skin. Reminders of last night, not a lifetime of isolation as he so eloquently puts it. Touching is not the same as being touched, but it’s a start.
He moves on to my ponytail, tugging lightly on the strands as he plays with it. It brings me some relief and a weird sense of loss. The sensation isn’t terrible. Far from it, in fact.
“Among other business ventures, Roger smuggles drugs into the country. Sporadically, and never with a pattern someone can follow. However, there’s always a paper trail.”
“So you’re looking for the paper trail?”
“I’ve found it, in a manner of speaking. There’ll be a shipment soon.”
“And you think this Lester will be at the exchange?”
“He’s always there for the big ones; Roger is too paranoid to think it will go smoothly without his direct supervision.”
“So why doesn’t he go?”
“He’d hardly sully himself doing grunt work.”
Matthew scrunches up his face, like he’s just sucked on a lemon. “When is it coming in?”
“A good question. There’s no exact date or location on any of the correspondence or the numbers.” Roger really is getting smarter. Guess you actually can teach an old dog new tricks. Annoying. He still hasn’t learned that no information is gone forever, though. “There’s a man who works at the docks who works for Roger. If we find him, we can get the rest of the details.”
Matthew shifts, settling properly on his chair, our thighs brushing. “Put me to work,” he declares, smiling widely andlooking far too cheerful for this time of morning. For any time of the day.
“There isn’t anything that you can do.” It’s not a two-man job.
The disappointment is palpable, and I sigh heavily before keying in the code and handing him my phone.
“Just like that? What if I want to go snooping?” he asks, blinking at it. “Aren’t you a super-secret spy kind of guy?”
I’m not sure that I would have put it quite that way. “There’s nothing on my phone that anyone can’t easily find elsewhere. Turn it over.” He flips it automatically, with no hesitation. “Feel the side with your thumb.”
His face twists in confusion as his thumb hits the middle. “There’s like… a bump?”
“Using the right code, it will set off a small charge through the phone that will destroy the electronics and make it useless.”
