I check the rearview mirror again. We’ve gone around the curve and there’s a moment I can’t see Blair. When her headlights come into view, I breathe easy. Santi’s quiet is making me anxious. Shaking my head, I try to dislodge the feeling.
“Santi?” I snap, frustrated as the silence stretches.
“This… it doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?”
“I, um…” he starts, but stops as he continues reading. With a sigh, he looks up at me. “Alright, let me see if I can explainthis. Ledger used to use a specific website on the dark web to communicate about potential work. Think of it as a large, open chat room. In that space, Ledger had his own private room that he coded himself where he’d direct potential employers so the two of them could communicate about a job. That room is secure and only Ledger has access to let people in and out of it. Also, he’s the only one with the proper coding to maintain this room.”
I nod slowly. “Ah… okay?”
“Before he gave me his laptop, he trashed most of the conversations in his room—probably for his clients' privacy. However, in order to understand his particular set of coding, I needed some of it to dump into my decryption program, so I dug some stuff out of his hard drive’s trash. I found old chats, threw them into my program, then waited for my software to create a resource reference bible.”
I check the rearview mirror. The headlights from Blair’s car are still there, right behind me.
“I…There’s…” Santi looks at me anxiously then back down at his phone.
“Spit it out, Santi.”
“My software uncoded Ledger’s chat first. It had to in order for it to be able to search for a similar code in the larger open chat space. One of those messages from Ledger’s trash pinged as something for me to check,” he says slowly, his voice low. “There’s a conversation between someone named Sparrow and Earwig—I’m assuming those are codenames—where Sparrow offers Earwig a hundred grand for a father-daughter hit.”
My heart skips a beat as alarm sends a chill down my spine.
“Shit.” I shoot Santi a worried glance. “Earwig is the name of the guy the hitman told us about who reached out to Dixie looking for backup or some shit because he knew about Blair’s dad’s reputation.”
He looks at me, his eyes widening in alarm. My stomach drops as I look back at the road.
“So…” I shake my head, confused. “Sparrow was the original person to put a hit out on Blair and her dad?”
Santi swallows hard. “Yeah. That seems to be the case.”
“And you found that in Ledger’s personal chat room? So he would’ve known about this, right?”
“Yeah…”
Why wouldn’t Ledger have said anything about this earlier? That night in the basement, as he beat a man to death, why hadn’t he mentioned to me—or afterwards when he gave the laptop to Santi—that he knew who originally sent out the hit? Wouldn’t that have been good to know?
I take one of my bottom lip piercings into my mouth as I stare out at the road. My thoughts are miles away as I try to piece together this puzzle. We go around another bend in the road. My eyes flick to the mirror and I slow, waiting for Blair’s headlights to come into view. When they do, I refocus on my conversation with Santi.
“Rhett, before I continue, I need to tell you something.”
I don’t like the sound of that.
“Rip the band-aid off, Santi.”
“A few years ago a woman in Caddawalk went missing. She was gone for months and everyone was sure she was dead. Turns out, she wasn’t, and reappeared healthy as a horse. She claimed she was visiting family.”
I shake my head, confused as to where this is going. “Santi, what does anything of this have to do with?—”
“The woman, her name was Ashleigh Burr and there were pictures of her on Ledger’s laptop in a hidden folder. She was locked in that cage you told us about.”
I stiffen before shooting him a worried look. “What?”
“And get this; I found her contact information and called her. I know that’s probably weird or whatever but Ineededto talk to her, to understand why Ledger had pictures of her sitting in a cage inourbasement.” Santi sucks in a shaky breath. “She told me that she’s upholding her deal withSparrowabout keeping her mouth shut and to leave her alone.”
My mouth pops open. “She made a deal withSparrow? The same Sparrow that was mentioned inLedger’s laptop? No, maybe you misheard her or there’s someone else?—”
“You think there’s someone else with the nameSparrow?” Santi shakes his head. “Yeah, no. It’s the same one. And what’s more? ‘Sparrow’ is Ledger’s handle in his private chatroom, Rhett.”
