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“I don’t have a lot of time.” I keep packing while we talk, adding enough clothes to stay away from this apartment for more than a night. “Someone’s coming after Duncan, and whoever it is has already broken into my place twice to make sure I’m part of it. I want to know why.”
“I’ll send you whatever I find.”
I look at the photographs spread across the bed before he can hang up. “One more thing. Go backward through Maria’s life and pull everyone connected to her—family, friends, anyone who came to the States with her or stayed in contact afterward. Then see if any of them connect to Daniela Norris.”
“The woman Duncan was seeing?”
“The woman using Daniela Norris’s name. Ronan confirmed the real Daniela exists, but they haven’t figured out who’s using her identity. I want to know if Maria gets us there.”
Zee is quiet for a second, and when he answers, I can already hear him typing. “I’ll see what I can find. Check your email.”
By the time security takes me back to Duncan’s penthouse, I have enough clothes packed that I won’t need to return anytime soon. I drop my bag beside the island and open my laptop, but there isn’t much I can do with a disappearance from twenty-two years ago while Zee works. Most of the places I normally start didn’t exist then, and although MySpace technically did, picturing Duncan carefully arranging his top eight friends is almost enough to make me laugh.
I’m considering calling him when the news alerts on my screen start stacking up.
Murphy Enterprises Set to Lose Millions as Partner Companies Pull Out in Wake of Pending Sexual Assault Charges.
Just How Much of a Sexual Predator Is Duncan Murphy?
I open several more, and it doesn’t take long to see the same information being recycled with increasingly ugly headlines. A scandal involving a billionaire would get attention without anyone helping it along, but this is too coordinated. Different publications push the same details and the same assumptions, each article making Duncan sound guiltier than the last. Then another headline appears.
Where Is Duncan Murphy’s Ex-Wife?
That one makes me sit up. The article takes the assault allegations and drags Maria’s disappearance into them, asking whether a supposed history of mistreating women goes back decades. There’s no evidence connecting the two, but there doesn’t need to be if the goal is to make people wonder. The photographs in my bedroom did the same thing on a much more personal level.
Someone isn’t simply trying to damage Duncan’s company. They’re building a version of him piece by piece, and they made sure I received the part involving Maria directly. I still don’t understand why they need me involved.
What I still don’t understand is why.
The woman we’ve been calling Daniela could have sent those photographs to a reporter or left them somewhere Duncan would find them. Instead, someone entered my apartment again and covered my bedroom with them. Whoever is behind this wants me looking at Duncan’s past, and considering what Ronan discovered about the stolen identity, I’m starting to wonder whether Maria is the reason.
Zee still hasn’t contacted me several hours later, and sitting in front of the laptop gets me nowhere. I unroll my yoga mat in the living room and work through a routine while I wait, giving my body something to do so I can stop pacing holes into Duncan’s floor. I’m halfway through when my phone starts ringing.
Seeing Zee’s name makes me straighten immediately. He said he’d email me whatever he found, so I wasn’t expecting a call. If he’s decided this needs a conversation instead of dropping the information into my inbox, he found something worth talking about.
“I find it strange that you have me digging into Duncan Murphy’s past at the same time he’s being labeled a rapist in the media,” Zee says as soon as I answer. “Before I give you anything else, I need you to think about what you’re doing. You’re already connected to him, and now someone is watching you closely enough to get inside your apartment.”
The warning immediately puts me on edge. “Duncan isn’t a target.”
Zee has been helping me almost since the beginning. When I was bouncing between dark web chat rooms and chasing scraps of information with more determination than skill, he figured out what I was looking for and reached out first. He’s warned me when I was getting sloppy and helped me disappear when I needed to, but he’s never tried to tell me who belongs on my list. Hearing him question Duncan now gets my attention.
“Then what is he to you?”
I don’t have a clean answer for that yet. Calling Duncan my boyfriend feels almost ridiculous after a matter of days, but calling him anything less doesn’t fit either. He’s already pushed his way into parts of my life I don’t let anyone near, and apparently I’ve done the same to him.
“He’s innocent, Zee. Someone’s framing him, and whoever’s doing it has decided I’m useful.”
“You’re sure about that? Because his name is all over the news for sexual assault, and you asked me to dig into a wife who disappeared twenty-two years ago. I need to know you aren’t ignoring something because you’re involved with him.”
That explains the attitude, even if I don’t appreciate it. “I’m not ignoring anything. I’ve spent five years researching men who hurt people, and I’m telling you Duncan didn’t do this. Someone broke into my apartment twice. The first time they left surveillance photographs of us. This morning they covered my bedroom with pictures of Duncan, Maria and Declan and left a message accusing him of killing her. They involved me before I ever asked you to look into Maria.”
Zee is quiet for a moment before asking, “And you’re certain he’s innocent?”
“Yes. I need information, not protection from Duncan.”
“All right. Check your email. There’s a lot.”
He ends the call, and I open my laptop at the kitchen island. Zee wasn’t exaggerating. The first file contains records showing Duncan and Declan were both taken to the hospital twenty-two years ago on the same day Maria disappeared. Their medical records are sealed tightly enough that even Zee couldn’t get farther than confirming the hospitalization.
