Crossfire (Cross Duet #1)

8. IVY

8

IVY

Don’t do this, Ivy.

Detective Mitchell was looking into the guy; he and his team were far more skilled than I was at trying to uncover his identity.

And yet…I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t even wait until I got home.

Call it morbid curiosity, call it a desperate need for answers, but I had to know why.

When you spend time building up a relationship with someone and they manipulate you and trick you with the intent of ending your life, it’s not as easy to let it go as you would think.

I opened my favorite browser on my phone and typed my first prompt into the search.

How to find the identity of a person using a phone number

Maybe you should have done this BEFORE almost getting murdered, Ivy.

Seriously, as someone with a bachelor’s degree in Dateline and 48 Hours episodes, I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for this crap.

After perusing through several results, I clicked on one that looked legitimate and typed in the phone number “Bob” had been using to text me.

When the reverse lookup came back empty, though, frustration bubbled up inside me. I tried several other sites, including combinations of Bob and Robert with the number.

Damn it. Nothing.

On a whim, I typed in my phone number.

Like a serial killer’s wet dream, the very first site revealed my name and, even more unsettlingly, my address.

But with Bob’s, nada.

Search: Why wouldn’t a person’s information come up with a reverse phone number search?

Answer, after reading several posts: Likely a burner phone.

Search: How can you track the identity of someone who purchased a burner phone?

Answer: Virtually impossible.

Clenching my jaw, I opened Instagram and went to the direct messages where Bob and I had first started talking. When he had first reached out to me, I had done a cursory look, but once he and I got deeper into conversations about my father, I had let my guard down like a naive schoolgirl.

Today, I clicked on his profile and began to search that information online much deeper. The link, the profile picture, the name, everything. But it was like he was a ghost.

If I didn’t have the text messages proving otherwise, I’d almost accuse myself of having hallucinated the entire thing.

Speaking of text messages…

What would happen if…

No, that won’t work. I’d literally beaten the crap out of him, and while he’d still been alive when I ran away, it wasn’t that long after that the bomb went off. Had Bob been killed in the blast? Or had he set it off as he fled the scene of his crime?

And even if Bob was still alive, it’s not like he would suddenly grow a conscience and come clean about why he’d done this. Plus, contacting the guy that tried to kill me couldn’t be safe.

Don’t, Ivy.

My heart thundered in my chest, and my thumbs trembled, but I swallowed it back with determination as I fired off a text.

Me: Who are you, Bob?

I stared at the screen, waiting for the indication to change from Delivered to Read , as it had done in all our other communications, and I also watched for the three dots to indicate he was responding. A long shot? Yes, especially when you consider that if he was alive, he’d be royally pissed at having taken a beating. But surely, he’d also be pissed I was alive, so maybe he’d be stupid enough to try and convince me to talk to him again.

In which case, I could come with a swarm of cops.

Two blocks away, the city bus appeared, hurtling toward me as I pulled up his contact and hovered my thumb over the Call button. My fingers trembled, a mixture of dread and hope taking flight in my stomach, making me want to hurl.

What would he say?

What would I say?

I swallowed over the sudden tightness in my throat and pushed the button.

When it went straight to voice mail, I let out a shuddering breath.

Search: What does it mean if messages are not showing a read receipt and your call to that number goes right to voice mail?

Answer: Most likely, the person has blocked you.

My gut twisted as every last hope that this had been some sort of colossal mistake died a slow, painful death. And with it came three crushing truths I could no longer deny:

Bob had tried to kill me.

He might still be alive.

Now that he failed, I had no idea what he’d do next.