Chapter 3 - The Digital Ghost
My heart hammered against my ribs.
Lily had carried that rabbit every single day for three years.
Mark had given it to her the night before he disappeared.
“He hid it in her toy,” I whispered in disbelief.
“He turned our daughter into a target.”
Dominic slipped the drive into his pocket.
“We need to view this right now,” he commanded.
“My office is in the back of this building.”
He stood up and shielded us with his broad shoulders as we walked toward the kitchen.
I glanced back at the window.
The men outside were walking toward the front doors.
Dominic’s bodyguards materialized from the shadows and locked the main entrance.
We hurried down a narrow hallway into a lavish, windowless office.
Dominic locked the heavy steel door behind us.
He booted up a sleek laptop on his desk.
He plugged in the black USB drive.
The screen flickered to life, requiring a password.
“Try her birthday,” Dominic suggested.
I typed in Lily’s birthday with shaking fingers.
Access denied.
“Try your anniversary,” he said.
Access denied.
Panic clawed at my throat as the system warned we had one attempt left.
“Think, Sarah,” Dominic urged.
“What did he value most?”
I looked down at the ruined rabbit in Lily’s hands.
“Mr. Buttons,” I typed.
The screen turned green.
A single video file sat in the center of the folder.
Dominic clicked it.
The grainy video showed Mark sitting in our old basement.
He looked terrified and exhausted.
“Sarah, if you are seeing this, I am already dead,” Mark’s voice echoed in the room.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
“I tried to buy our freedom from Dominic Moretti,” Mark confessed on screen.
“But I was double-crossed by the police.”
Mark leaned closer to the camera.
“Do not trust the NYPD, Sarah.”
“The man hunting me is Detective Reynolds.”
I stopped breathing.
Detective Reynolds was the officer who had investigated Mark’s death.
He had held my hand at the memorial service.
“Reynolds is the real boss of the underworld,” Mark’s video continued.
“And Sarah, he knows where you work.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket violently.
May you like
I pulled it out and looked at the caller ID.
It was Detective Reynolds.
