Because one thing had crystallized for me overnight. It wasn’t just Gabe that Cole and his friends in high places had feared. It was also me. I didn’t buy Cole’s story for a second—sending me to prison to protect me from the reach of some shadowy gang? Bullshit. Whoever was behind this, they were pros. Either serious organized crime, or worse—perhaps even a government agency. If a group like that wanted me dead, they would have staked out the house and picked a time when we were both home—and I would be dead right now. As for prison as some kind of protective custody beyond the reach of the bad guys—it was laughable. People were always dying in prison—in fights, of suicide, from improper restraint. If an outside agency wanted a prisoner to die in mysterious circumstances, it would be child’s play to make it happen.
No, Cole’s story made zero sense—which meant that he must have framed me for some other reason, either off his own bat or at the suggestion of his bosses. The only question was why. The first possibility was that they had wanted a distraction from the killing. After all, if the police were busy scrutinizing me and my motives, they’d be far less likely to go probing about in Gabe’s history for other enemies with a grudge big enough to kill for.
But they could have created a distraction without implicating me—they could have made Gabe’s death look more like a burglary gone wrong, or a heart attack. They could have run him over outside our house and disguised it as a hit-and-run. There were a hundred ways of killing people that didn’t look like a straight-up contract killing. So why had they gone for a method that was so obviously murder?
The answer to that question surely had to be the second reason—they’d done it this way because implicating me was part of the point. They had to get me out of the way too, locked up far beyond reach of my home and Gabe’s possessions. Not dead—because with me dead they would be back to square one, with the police looking for a motive for both our killings. No, alive but incarcerated, and safely out of the way.
All of which brought me to the conclusion that even though they had taken his hard drive, they must have a strong suspicion that Gabe had made a record of the exploit—a record which his wife might stumble across.
If that was true, I had to find that record.
The problem was that their plan had worked. Okay, I wasn’t actually in custody. But the police had seized all Gabe’s devices and most of mine, putting his backups far beyond where I could reach them.
Given that my chances of successfully breaking into a Metropolitan Police evidence locker were basically nil—I was good, but not that good—my only realistic hope was the cloud. Gabe did occasionally back up online—not full backups, he tended to use a physical drive for those, but important documents or things he wanted to be able to access from multiple locations, those he did save to his online drive. But I couldn’t log into Gabe’s cloud backups without one of his devices. I was fairly sure I knew what the password was, but his accounts were almost all locked with two-step verification. Logging in from an unfamiliar device would trigger a text message to his phone with a code, and without that code, I wouldn’t be able to get any further. And Gabe’s phone was currently in the possession of the police.
Fuck. Fuck.
I had to get that phone. The only question was how.
It was eight a.m., and I’d forced down a nauseating breakfast of energy bars and water before I finally dug my mobile out of my pocket and turned it on. I had only a few percent of battery left. I just had to hope it was enough for what I needed.
I had come to the conclusion that I had to get Gabe’s phone—or at least the code from it. And there was only one person I could think of who might help me to do it. The problem was, the idea made me feel even sicker than when I woke up.
I had deleted the number I was about to dial off my contact list years ago, but I knew it by heart, much as I’d tried to forget it, and now I opened Signal and stared at the screen. Every nerve ending in my body was screaming at me not to do this, reminding me of what was at stake. My pride, for sure. My self-respect. Maybe even my freedom, if Cole had led me astray about the security of the app—and he’d lied to me about everything else.
But at the end of the day, the words I had said to Cole kept echoing in my ears: nothing mattered, apart from finding out who had done this to Gabe. Nothing. Not my past. Not my wounded feelings. Not even my life. If this call got me closer to finding out the truth, I had to make it. I had to swallow my pride. For Gabe.
Fucking make the call, I told myself savagely. Gabe would do it for you, and you know it.
The battery ticked down one more percent.
I twisted the ring on my finger, thinking of Gabe. He wouldn’t have wanted me to do this. If he were here, he would have taken that phone and stamped on it before he let me. But he wasn’t here. And I had no other choice. I took a deep breath, forcing down the sickness, and dialed.
He picked up on the first ring, his voice far too cocky and drawling for so early in the morning.
“Yello?”
Even just saying his name made me want to throw up, but I swallowed back the saliva pooling behind my teeth and spoke.
“Jeff. It’s me.”
There was a long silence, and then he began to laugh, long and slow.
“Jack Cross. Well, well, well. You’ve got some fucking balls, girl, I’ll give you that. You know I can see your number?”
“This isn’t my number,” I said tersely. “Listen, Jeff, I don’t have much time—but I need—” Oh God, this was hard. For Gabe. Do it for Gabe. I forced the words out. “I need to ask you a favor.”
“Ask away,” he said. It sounded like he was grinning at the other end of the phone. “Can’t say I’ll necessarily grant it, mind, but it’s free to ask.”
“I need a code off Gabe’s phone. Just a code—that’s it.”
“The phone that’s currently in the evidence locker down the nick?”
“That phone, yes.”
“You don’t ask much, do you? How the flip am I supposed to get in there?”
“Can you do it?”
“Maybe.” He sounded intensely amused. “You know me, I’m a man of many resources. But what’s in it for me?”
“Jeff.” I knew what he wanted, and I didn’t try to keep the desperation out of my voice. He wanted me to beg. He wanted me to plead. It was what he got off on, he always had. Even in the early days, before it all went south, he’d enjoyed hearing me beg. He’d played it like a game then, of course, tickling me until I choked with laughter and begged him to stop, jumping out at me as I walked home on dark nights and laughing at my momentary terror and subsequent relief when I realized it was him. Now I saw those “jokes” for what they were—mind games, played by someone who enjoyed watching women squirm. Well, if I wanted that code I had no choice now but to squirm for him. “Jeff, listen to me, you know me. You know I didn’t kill Gabe. And I think I can prove it. I just need that code off his phone.”
“What do you need it for? To wipe one of his accounts? You know it’s pointless, right? The digital forensics boys have been all over that shit, it’s backed up from here to kingdom come.”
“Jeff.” I forced the words out. “Jeff, please. I’m begging you. Please.”
There was a long, long silence. Then Jeff let out a martyred sigh.
“Fuck me, Cross. You always did know how to play me.”
“You’ll do it?”
“I’ll do it.”
“Oh my God.” I didn’t try to keep the relief out of my voice. “Jeff, I—” I knew I had to say it, much as it made me want to puke. “Thank you. Listen, if I call you—”
“No,” he broke in with finality. “I’m not giving this stuff out over the phone. If you want that code, I’ll give it to you in person.”
Now the silence was at my end of the line.
“You want it or not?” Jeff said, and I could tell he knew exactly how horrifyingly torn I was, and was enjoying the moment of power.
“I can’t meet you,” I said at last. “I can’t, Jeff. You know that.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to do without the code,” Jeff said. His voice was smug.
Fuck.
“How can I trust you?” I said at last. I could almost hear his shrug from the other end of the line.
“I dunno. How can I trust you aren’t going to do something dodgy with that code? I guess we’ll just have to trust each other.”
He had a point. The problem was, I didn’t trust him. Not for one second. I didn’t trust Jeff Leadbetter as far as I could throw him.
“Okay, I’ll meet you,” I said at last, reluctantly, my mind whirling and trying to figure out options. “But I’ll choose the place.”
“All right,” Jeff said, surprising me. “But it’s gotta be London. I’m not schlepping out to some pisspot town in Wales just to give you a piece of paper.”
“Okay,” I said again. I was thinking hard. Where? Where should I pick? Somewhere central, with lots of exits and clear lines of sight so I could check that Jeff had come alone. Not somewhere a person could get trapped. My mind went to places that were likely to be sparsely populated—London Fields in Hackney, Finsbury Park after dusk… but then it occurred to me… maybe there was safety in numbers? If Jeff did try anything, perhaps it would be harder to do it surrounded by people?
Trafalgar Square? But no. There was usually at least a handful of police patrolling there, and sometimes a lot more if there was a protest going on. If Jeff brought a buddy, I would never be able to spot them.
Leicester Square? No, too few exits, and too many of the lanes that did lead out of it were narrow pedestrian thoroughfares, easy to block.