The following morning, detective Morgan entered the cramped office looking grim.
The blue light from the monitors reflected in Pala’s glasses as she took the small, phone from his hand.
"Where did you get this?" she asked as she imdiately plugged the device into a universal forensic extractor.
"Doesn’t matter," Morgan replied, her arms crossed tightly. "Just tell what’s on it."
John leaned in, watching as a progress bar flickered to life on the center screen. The specialized software began its deep dive, bypassing encryption layers and pulling raw data from the phone’s internal mory.
Data Extraction in Progress...
Morgan leaned over her shoulder, her eyes scanning the scrolling code. "Anything?" she asked.
"It’s a burner, but they were sloppy," Pala muttered, her fingers dancing across the keyboard to stabilize the feed. "They thought deleting the data would hide them, but the tadata is still sitting in the cache."
The forensic software chirped, a single green line cutting through the complex data on Pala’s screen. She leaned in.
Device ID: Encrypted
Last Active Location: Beta restaurant
Hidden Directories: none
"I’m not seeing much here," Pala muttered, her brow furrowing. "This burner was kept clean. There’s only one consistent point of contact."
"Which is?"
She clicked a button, enlarging a single contact entry that sat at the top of the call log.
Contact Na: Ma
Last Call: 09:45 PM (Last Night)
Total Calls: 4
Duration: All under 30 seconds.
"Ma?" John asked, looking over his shoulder. "That’s it? Could be a mother? Or an alias?"
"It’s not a mother," Morgan said, her eyes fixed on the screen. "Moms don’t call goons late at night to coordinate hits. I want the location of that contact."
Pala nodded, her fingers flying across the keys. "The na is a placeholder, but the SIM card was pinging off a specific tower near the downtown district. I’m pulling the subscriber information now."
The screen flickered as Pala bypassed the burner’s basic security. Because the caller ’Ma’ had called multiple tis in a short window, they had left a digital footprint.
Pings: 3 distinct hits within a two-block radius of the Oaks Apartnt Complex.
Account Status: Pre-paid, purchased with cash at a convenience store.
Last Known Ping: Active as of ten minutes ago.
"The signal is still live," Pala said. "But here’s the weird part. This ’Ma’ didn’t just call the goon. They sent a short-burst data packet right before the last call. It was an image file."
With a final keystroke, the image file materialized on the main monitor. It was grainy, taken from a distance with a long-range lens.
It was a photo of Lyvana. She was walking toward her apartnt, completely unaware she was being watched.
"Wait, that’s Ms. Lyvana," Pala said, looking up at Morgan with a frown.
"Can you get a real na? Or a voice print from the calls?" Morgan asked.
"I’m working on the audio recovery now. Give one minute, and I’ll have the voice from the other end of that ’Ma’ line."
The screen flickered, struggling to reconstruct the damaged audio files. A series of harsh, digital stutters filled the room before the system finally gave up on the sound and spat out a string of text across the primary monitor.
Subscriber Na: George Thompson
Billing Address: 1142 West Oak (Rerouted)
Pala let out a frustrated sigh, tapping her stylus against the desk.
"The audio is a total wash, too much interference to pull a clean voiceprint. But the registration data finally hit. So guy nad George Thompson. The address is a ghost, though; it’s being rerouted through a third-party server to hide the actual physical location."
John’s heart skipped a beat as the na George Thompson flashed in bold white letters across the screen.
Pala and the detective were both staring at the monitor. John tried to keep his face blank. He couldn’t let them see the recognition in his eyes.
George Thompson. It was the specific fake na his brother, El, had used for years. It was their childhood neighbor’s na — a private joke turned into a digital ghost. Every burner SIM, every gray-market rental, every off-the-grid account El ever touched was registered to George.
"John?" Pala asked, glancing at him. "You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost."
He had gone completely pale. He was staring at the na on the screen like it was a death warrant.
"I’m fine," John said, his voice coming out flat. "Just a common na. I was hoping for sothing more unique."
"Pamy, what do you an by ’rerouted’?" Morgan asked her.
"It’s a digital bounce," Pala explained, her fingers already flying across the keyboard to peel back the layers. "The billing address is a dummy. The signal hits a server in the city, jumps to an encrypted VPN, and then lands at the actual physical handset. It’s designed to make the caller invisible."
John stood behind them, his hands shoved deep into his pockets so they wouldn’t see his fingers twitching. His mind was racing. If El was the one calling the goon, then El must have been going after Lyvana once more. Why didn’t this idiot ever listen to him.
"Can you break the reroute?" Morgan asked.
"I’m trying," Pala muttered. "But whoever set this up knows what they’re doing. It’s a professional-grade loop. It’ll take ti to find the terminal point. Give ten minutes."
John didn’t have ti. If El was involved, things were already moving too fast. He needed to get to his brother before the police gets to him.
"I’ll be right back," John said, turning toward the door.
"You’re leaving now?" Pala asked.
"The digital trail is stalled," John lied, not looking back. "I’m going to do so good old-fashioned police work. Call the second you have any real coordinates."
He stepped out of the office and into the hallway. Then he took out his phone and called El.
"El, what the hell, man," John hissed into the receiver. "I told you to fucking stay away from that girl!"
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