Page 28 of The Wolves Come at Night

Taylor shook it. “Captain Jackson. You can call me Taylor.”

“Got it. Your partner is getting me some water. Nice guy.”

“Detective Wade is one of the good ones.”

Izz gave her a wan smile. “Cute, too.” The girl’s voice rose at the end, making it a hopeful observation.

No way, no how, kid. “Taken, I’m afraid.” Like she was going to encourage an eighteen-year-old first-year to go after a seasoned homicide detective. Marcus was cute, without a doubt, always a hit with the ladies. They used it to their advantage—people opened up easier when you were as charming as Marcus Wade.

The object of their conversation appeared at that moment, two glasses of water balanced in his hands. “Hey, Captain. Here you go, Izz.”

She batted her lashes at him, but he’d already turned to Taylor, his notebook in hand.

“Izz says Carson went to the library after their yoga class last night and didn’t come home. That’s all she knows.”

“That’s all you know?”

Izz nodded. Taylor waited. The girl was building to something. Finally, she said, “She got a phone call that upset her.”

“From who?”

“I don’t know. Seriously, I don’t. She took the call, got all pale, said she had to go to the library, and that was the last I saw of her.”

“We need paper for the phone records,” Taylor said.

“On it already,” Marcus replied. “Also for the cameras in the area, including the road behind us.”

“Good. So, Izz, tell us what else has happened since you two stumbled across Georgia Wray.”

“Simeon Chase hung out with us for a while. That was almost worth it.”

“The GPS game developer,” Marcus reminded, sotto voce.

“And Simeon is a friend?”

“No. He’s, like, unattainable. But he and Carson had lunch yesterday, and she came back looking sort of upset. I mean, it’s not like there’s anything romantic going on, not between her and Simeon, but she was, I don’t know, edgy, all afternoon.” Izz pointed to the desk. “She’d been studying before coming to yoga, her books and laptop were just like that, sitting open, when I got back.”

“Is her laptop password protected?” Taylor asked Marcus, who nodded. “Izz, do you have her password?”

“Mm-hm. But don’t you need, like, a warrant or something for that?” Izz’s eyes were huge and scared. She was just trying to do the right thing. Taylor knew this, but decided to shake her up a bit, just in case.

“Do you genuinely believe your roommate is missing and in trouble?”

“Yes. She’s not the type to just walk off without her stuff.”

“Then we need to get into her laptop and see what she was up to. If you’d be so kind?” Taylor gestured to the laptop, and Izz scrambled to Carson’s desk.

Moments later, the computer was open and Marcus was surfing through Carson’s email and texts. “Here it is. She and Simeon have an exchange going. Just setting up their lunch date, talking about the app, ‘sorry for getting you involved in this.’ And one last message from him, at midnight last night. ‘This is the program I mentioned. Don’t forget to download a VPN, too.’ Here, I’m opening the attachment.”

The screen flashed with a website called MalwareFree.

“Huh. That’s weird. Izz, was Carson having problems with her phone or laptop?”

“Actually, yeah. We had to use my phone for the game because hers wouldn’t work right when she opened Simeon’s app. She thought maybe she’d picked up a virus or something.”

“Interesting,” Marcus said.

Taylor cocked a brow. “Interesting why?”