19. Lucy

There wasno official record of Gideon owning a second phone. It wasn't on the list of evidence either.

Who the hell was he talking to and why didn't he want anyone else to know about it?

I took a screenshot of him at the head of the conference table with one phone pressed to his ear and the other innocently resting on the mahogany. I dumped the screenshot into our encrypted drive before pressing play again.

Gideon confirmed he was about to leave, but that was it. He didn't say anyone's name, or where he might be off too. There was just a long pause, and then he agreed before hanging up.

He tucked that phone back into his breast pocket and then grabbed his other phone as he stood, typing something into it as he walked toward the door.

My fingers flew as I pulled up all the footage from that timeframe, following Gideon from the conference room to the elevator, and then all the way down to the garage where Liam's Explorer was kept.

Gideon got into a white Benz and two seconds later his primary phone was turned off. I watched him leave the garage and made another note to track his license plate through the city on that day.

Acheron had cameras on every traffic light. I couldn't search for a specific license plate number and track it through the public website, but I could follow someone in real time if I knew where they were supposed to be.

Thankfully, no one could erase footage from the city without someone noticing. Best thing to do to keep someone from using the traffic cam footage to track you down was to use cars without license plates and heavily tinted windows or…

Glancing over at the giant monitor on the far wall, I typed in the first intersection that Cassius would hit as they left the Lopez compound. I leaned back when I saw nothing but a black screen with a warning that the camera was out of order while they did repairs.

So, the Lopez pack still paid off someone on the inside to make sure no one could see who was coming and going from their compound.

Unlike the Valor estate, the Lopez compound was built with the main house at the front. No one could get to the rest of the property without driving through Francisco's private estate. His house was built like a fucking castle with walls all the way around the land – protecting the weaker pack members.

As an omega, I'd been assigned to a room closest to Frankie and Francisco, but toward the inner part of the house. If someone wanted to get to me, they had to go through the strongest members of the pack.

Every omega in the Lopez pack was assigned to the inner sanctum of the property, but since I was Francisco's unofficial daughter, I'd lived in his house instead of one of the other houses in the pack.

The Valor estate was built differently in the sense that all the betas and single alphas lived on the outskirts of what I would call a small city. They had land between those houses and the walls around the perimeter of their property, but between the betas and single alphas were all the families with children and omegas.

In the center was where their alpha lived so everyone in the pack could easily reach them if they needed to.

I've never seen what the Steele or Grimm packs did with their land, but I could if I felt motivated enough to work on cracking their security.

But these cameras…they were owned and run by the city so there was nothing Francisco could really do about it other than paying them off so people wouldn't be able to track his comings and goings.

Using the public website for access to traffic light footage to get evidence was the legal route, but since I wasn't working for the cops…I wasn't beholden to upholding the law the same way they were.

Nicolette had asked for answers and I was obligated to provide proof for those answers, but she hadn't insisted that proof be acquired legally.

Once I had a real lead, I could start working on evidence. I could ask if she wanted me to make sure it would hold up in court, but I highly doubted she would insist on the kind of justice our legal system would provide.

Someone had killed her child. Nicolette Valor wouldn't let her resources go to waste when she could deliver retribution in a way our judicial system would never be able to. Not to mention, the police were lazy.

If they managed to figure out who killed Gideon, it was unlikely they'd dig deeper than that to see if there was something else going on other than the obvious.

Frankie and I had resources we could access – people on the inside who could get us the footage we needed, but it would have to be through the Lopez pack. That might bring up some shit she didn't want to deal with, but I couldn't know for sure until she got back from the Lopez compound.

I wrote down that question on my notepad as well and pulled out one of my older laptops from under the desk. I set what looked like a piece of crap on my desk and tapped the steel cover with my fingernail as I let the information percolate.

Gideon had two phones, and from what I could tell, they were identical. It was the same make and model, but there was no record of it anywhere. I didn't think there would be either. That would bring too many things into question, so it was probably a burner.

What did he need a second phone for?

I tapped my laptop hard enough my nail broke.

Things were finally starting to get interesting.

A second phone wasn't on the list of evidence and it hadn't been in his office, but I could double check. Maybe there was a secret hiding place I hadn't noticed before.

The other possibility was that safe in Melinda's home behind the painting I kept trying not to think about.

I needed to call Liam and see if he'd gotten the safe open or not.

Remembering that he probably hadn't had time thanks to me was a rude awakening. I grabbed my phone and shoved away from the desk. I couldn't sit here any longer and do nothing. I needed to keep my hands busy so I could think.

Stepping over the books and knick-knacks, I headed for my room. It was the only place left that made any sense because there wasn't shit in my bathroom that a million other people didn't use and taking something from Frankie's room wouldn't fucking tell me anything.

Sure, I could be wrong, but it was far more likely the item was personal.

If I didn't figure out what it was soon, I was going to lose my shit.

Standing in my doorway, I tucked my phone in the pocket of my cardigan and considered the cluttered space I called a bedroom. Had Liam ever mentioned anything about what he'd found in his brother's safe? I didn't think so. He'd been with me pretty much the whole time and it didn't seem like a task he would give someone else.

Maybe Cas would be trusted to get whatever was in there, but my stupid heat had really fucked things up.

Thirteen days was long enough for someone to hide something they didn't want me to find.

Well, I could always call Liam if I really wanted to know.

I headed straight to one of my armoires and yanked the doors open. The shelf in the middle had all the little toys displayed that I'd collected of my favorite animal, but there wasn't a single axolotl missing.

Just thinking about Liam was making it impossible to ignore the fact that he'd taken something from my apartment – something that would supposedly answer all my questions if I could just figure out what it was.

I pulled open the top drawer under the shelves where my little axolotl figurines were and eyed the graphic tees folded in a way that allowed me to see what was on the front of each one.

Traces of oranges wafted up from the fabric, but it was so faint I could tell that Liam hadn't dug through this whole drawer, but he had touched the shirts on top. Weeks ago from the smell of it.

I considered the one on top that had a cute, purple axolotl with a knife and the phrase ‘you axolotl questions' under it and decided I would have one of the interns cross reference Gideon's schedule with Melinda's. I highly doubted she was the one he was secretly talking to, but I wanted to be sure.

Something occurred to me then, and I pulled my phone out of my pocket. The screen lit up when the front-facing camera recognized me and unlocked itself. At the top right of the screen were the bars to indicate I had service here, but next to it was the Wi-Fi symbol.

Once a network has been accessed, my phone would automatically connect to it in the future unless I had it set to ask me to join every time. The only network I let it do that with was the one in our apartment.

If Gideon was smart, he wouldn't ever connect his burner phone to any Wi-Fi he didn't control, and even then, it would be a risk if there was something he was doing that he didn't want anyone to know about.

The problem with accessing Wi-Fi was that every device that had ever connected to the modem would be recorded. The right person could even see who he was sending files to, what kind of files, and where they were going.

Unless that information was deleted, I could trace his footsteps and figure out what he was doing, but even if someone deleted it, I could restore the information as long as I had the original modem.

Since he had an unregistered phone, it would be difficult to find anything on it if he never once connected to a single network. If I wanted to see what was on that phone, I needed to get my hands on it.

I suppose I could ask every provider in the city if they had an account for Gideon Valor, but the smartest way to make sure no one could access what was on there was for it to be prepaid.

Those kinds of phones could be paid for in cash without having to set up an account with the provider, but since it was unusual to offer such a high-end phone as a burner, it was more likely he'd gotten a prepaid sim card.

Hm….

What were the chances he'd connected to the Wi-Fi at Valor Enterprises? Or maybe even his Wi-Fi at home? If he was smart, he wouldn't have, but there was always a chance…

That was another thing I'd have to ask Liam for if I didn't want to waste my time hacking into their security and potentially triggering some sort of erasure program.

I tapped on my contacts and scrolled through until I reached the ‘V's and my thumb hovered over the name Liam Valor.

Why was I hesitating? I needed this information to make progress on the case and he'd promised me access to whatever I wanted. He didn't necessarily have to be there to give me the account information.

This shouldn't be hard. I shouldn't be afraid of what I would do or say the second I heard his voice, but I wasn't stupid. The reason I was afraid to call him was obvious.

I wanted to hear his voice.

No matter how annoyed I was about this little game he was playing with me, or how scared I was to find out if all his promises really were because of the pheromones, I still wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to hear him reassure me, and tell me he would make whatever crazy thing I'd asked for happen.

I missed him. I missed Cas too, but it wasn't quite as bad with him since I was tracking Frankie's location and he was still with her.

Cas cared enough about me that he didn't hesitate when I asked if he could go with Frankie to a rival pack's estate. This man had broken into my apartment so he could set up hidden cameras and watch me. It was kind of romantic how much he paid attention.

That was psychotic to even think, let alone say.

Their surveillance of my entire life should scare me. Any normal person would be rightfully terrified, but I'd instantly understood why they'd done it. Knowing where I was made them feel less anxious, even if it was an anxiety induced by my pheromones.

It was real for them until suddenly it wasn't.

The freedom I had right now to be alone in my apartment, the safety I felt…it was all because they were watching me and I didn't think I could ever stand here in this apartment again without those eyes following my every move.

I should be angrier about the violation of my privacy but it was kind of hard to commit to the emotion. I knew it wasn't normal to be like this, but it was hard not to feel a little giddy about it when no one else had ever put so much effort in for me before other than Frankie.

Not even my overprotective father had gone this far, and he was the reason I could take care of myself, even against an alpha.

Why should I be mad when those two had gone above and beyond to make sure I was safe?

Maybe I should just give up and accept Liam and Cas as my alphas, because I had a bad feeling that I'd be comparing every alpha I ever met to them from now on and no one else could ever really compare.

How could they when Liam and Cas had a very specific way of showing how much they cared?

They were deranged.

I sighed, knowing that's exactly what I liked about them.

I couldn't help but wonder what his mother would think about all this. She was the alpha of the entire Valor legacy pack with the kind of power and resources that made even Francisco Lopez cautious.

Would she take one look at my tattoos and tell her son she would absolutely not allow him to even entertain the idea?

I kind of hoped she would, just to see what he would do.

Clearly, I was just as deranged as they were.

What happened when they detoxed and didn't want me anymore? Could I handle it? Would I be able to just let them go after everything?

Could I really leave this city once the case was done and pretend like none of this had ever happened?

I tried not to panic and refocused on my phone and the reason I even had Liam's contact up. My hand shook as I reminded myself this time apart was what I'd wanted.

So, why did it feel like I'd made the biggest mistake of my life?