“Blow jobs, bindings, maybe even some an?—”
“Uncle,” Mantis said on a laugh. “I get the picture. More than I ever needed to.”
“You only have yourself to blame. If you’d minded your own business…” Daphne pointed out.
“A failure I will be paying for for a while,” Mantis said, before kissing her cheek. She nodded and started toward their car.
Lovell lingered a beat as Mantis watched her go. “In all seriousness, you’ll stay safe?” he asked. Mantis wasn’t just talking about the hit on his life, but Lovell had no answer to the other question. Was hesafewith Daphne? Emotionally? Mentally?
“We all do our best,” he said.
Mantis nodded. “And hope it will be good enough.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“How did he find you?” Callie asked, echoing the question Daphne had asked the night before.
“James thinks it was my car,” Daphne replied. They were sitting in Callie and Gabe’s kitchen, drinking tea and eating molten chocolate cake topped with ice cream and caramel sauce. The guys were outside chopping wood in preparation for the coming storm. Daphne wouldn’t have minded watching, but Callie’s eyes had already darted between her and James several times. Suggesting they watch the two men play lumberjack would raise her suspicions even more.
Callie’s spoon dangled from her hand as she stared at Daphne. They hadn’t broached the subject of James, but Daphne didn’t fool herself; it was coming.
With a small shake of her head, Callie scooped up another bite. “He thinks Weeks was just hanging around, hoping to find you, then followed you without Lovell noticing, all while his picture is plastered all over town?”
“I forgot about that last part, but yes, that’s what he thinks,” she said, taking another bite.
Callie’s gaze grew distant, the way it did when she was thinking, working out a problem. “Hand me my phone,” she said, gesturing to the device that sat on the kitchen counter.
Reaching behind her, Daphne snagged it. “What are you doing?”
“Texting Ava an idea.”
“Don’t make me pull teeth, Calypso.”
Callie flashed her a grin, finished her text, then set it aside. “I don’t buy Lovell’s theory. It’s possible they tracked your connection to Harper, then Harper’s ownership of the cabin, but that’s even less likely than finding a needle in a haystack.”
“And?”
“And it’s much more likely that someone is tracking you. Or, more likely, Lovell.”
She paused, spoon halfway to her mouth. “You mean like a tracking device on my car?”
“Or on your phones. His phone.”
She frowned. “Wouldn’t they need to put a tracking app on the device or something? I can see getting access to my car, but not our phones. They hardly ever leave our sight.”
“There are lots of ways to access things,” Callie said. “Including remotely.”
“Are you saying they could have, I don’t know, planted a bug in James’s phone remotely that’s been tracking him?”
“It’s not as complicated as that,” Callie replied. “Our phones ping cell towers all the time. It’s how we have instant weather or emails. Things like that. If someone has your number and the right skills, they can track you that way.”
“Or through IP addresses or Wi-Fi signals,” Daphne said, sitting back in her chair. “The internet at Harper’s cabin.”
“Possibly. It’s not my wheelhouse, so I texted Ava.” Her phone dinged with a response. Callie glanced at the message. “She’ll look into it tomorrow. It’s a slow process because she’ll belooking for someone who’s watching you, or Lovell, and will have to weed through how all the signals are flowing, but she’ll keep us posted.”
“I remember talking to one of my CIA contacts ten years or so ago about this. He told me that what you described, people being tracked through their phones, would become one of the biggest security threats to everyday people. I’d forgotten about that conversation. The government was doing it back then, but that’s it. I guess we’re beyond that now,” she said, setting her spoon down as the delicious dessert started churning in her stomach.
“If it makes you feel better, without putting an app on your phone, it’s not that easy. Your average Joe couldn’t do it,” Callie countered, not making Daphne feel all that much better.
