Ian stared at his phone.
The Mirror: We see you, Ian. And we're not the only ones. You're being watched, just like you watched her.
His breath caught—just for a second.
Then he smiled.
It was small, bitter. He whispered to no one, "Finally, someone wants to play."
He moved fast.
Phone unlocked. VPN cracked. His own system—a patchwork of stolen code and proxy filters—spun into action. Within minutes, he rerouted the metadata, isolated the incoming signal, and triangulated the IP address.
Location: A quiet suburb.
Household network registered to: The Patel family.
He leaned back in his chair.
"Not Harper," he murmured. "Not her husband. Not a cop. Too sloppy."
He opened a private browser and pulled up public profiles linked to the Patel home. A realtor. A pediatrician. A daughter.
Naomi Patel.
He narrowed his eyes.
He scanned through their social media finally locking on to Naomi.
Her Instagram was protected, but her old Facebook profile wasn't. Scrolling revealed pictures from last summer — Naomi at a beach bonfire with friends. He paused when he saw Sofia.
The caption read:
"Camp chaos with my favorite disaster 💀🖤 #rideordie"
Ian's expression shifted.
From calm… to cold.
So that's it. Little Naomi. Loyal Naomi. Cleaning up after Sofia's lies.
He stood slowly, the room around him dim. On the wall, Harper's face looked back at him from a dozen photos — pinned to corkboard with thread connecting locations, dates, patterns. Below, in a locked display case: a small collection of her belongings.
Ian reached for his phone.
No more hiding.
Back at home, Sofia was pacing. The burner phone lay on her desk. Naomi was still on the call, tense and whispering instructions.
"Don't respond yet," she said. "Let him squirm."
But the burner buzzed before they could react.
Sofia's heart jumped.
A new message.
IanKeller_83: Got you, liar.
She dropped the phone like it burned her.
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