Page 102 of Wells

Nothing.

I set the phone face down on the desk and lean back in my chair, forcing myself to breathe evenly. This is not a crisis. People do not answer texts immediately all the time. She could be in the middle of something, caught up in her own day, completely unaware I am sitting here watching my phone like it holds answers.

Thirty more minutes crawl by.

I grab the phone and call her directly.

The line rings once. Twice. Three times. The fourth ring cuts off and her voicemail picks up.

Hey, you've reached Cera. Leave a message and I'll get back to you.

I end the call without leaving anything.

The quiet in my office is deafening now.

I could find her in thirty seconds. The tools are already running on my system. I know her address, her phone's IMEI number, the location services tied to her accounts. I could pull up her current position, see exactly where she is, and confirm she is safe.

I have done it a thousand times before. Surveillance is what I do. Tracing is second nature. I find people who do not want to be found, pull information out of systems that were built to keep it hidden. Locating Cera would take less effort than making coffee.

But I made a vow to myself surrounding her, and I won't break it again. I can't.

I set the phone down and close my eyes, forcing my hands to stay flat on the desk.

Ask and wait. That is what normal people do. They trust, they give space. They don't hunt the person they love because silence feels uncomfortable.

By four thirty, I break. I've been completely useless today. I can't concentrate on anything. Both things hit at once, and all I can do is sit here with my thumb up my ass.

My hands move before I can stop them. I enter two commands and feed in her IMEI, the one logged in the company directory like every employee's, and the location pings back in under five seconds.

A map loads on my secondary screen. A red dot blinks on North Broad Street, stationary, inside the building I already know is hers.

Home.

The relief hits first. She's alive, not in a hospital. She's not bleeding out somewhere while I sit here staring at my phone.

Then the relief twists.

If she's home, and has been for hours, she read my texts, ignored my calls, and chose silence.

Something is wrong.

I grab my keys and leave.

Traffic crawls through the Quarter, tourists crossing against the lights, delivery trucks double-parked and blocking lanes. My hands stay locked on the wheel, knuckles white. Somehow, I catch every red light, like it means to hold me in place. My mind runs through scenarios, each one worse than the last.

The trace said she was there. It didn't tell me whether she was okay.

I take the turn onto North Broad too fast, my tires catching rough on the asphalt. Her building sits three blocks down, with brick and iron balconies, the kind of place that looks charming until you notice the paint peeling around the window frames.

I park in a loading zone and don't care.

The front door is propped open with a brick. I take the stairs two at a time, counting floors until I hit the third landing. Her apartment is at the end of the hall, number thirty-two, the brass numbers tarnished and hanging slightly crooked.

I knock.

No answer.

The hall smells like cooking oil and old carpet. A dog barks somewhere below me. I knock again, harder this time.