© 2025 J. J. Hanna
It usually takes a lot to surprise me. The way my mind works often puts me five steps ahead, which means I see the surprise coming while people around me plan it. It’s gotten so bad that my children and grandchildren don’t even wrap presents for me anymore, because I can’t help but to guess the items they got me. We all collectively decided it was better not to waste the wrapping paper.
I tell you this because I need you to understand exactly what I mean when I say I was surprised by the phone call I received. It was a restricted number, which I usually wouldn’t answer, but the way the last few days had gone I figured it may be worth it.
I was right.
“Olivia. Are you at work?”
It took me a moment to place the voice as the woman who’d taken Amanda yesterday. “Why does that matter to you?”
“I need you to look into something for me, specifically a phone number. I need a full work up on who owns that phone.”
“You’re not my boss.”
“You want to crack the case, right?”
I was torn. Misuse of police resources could lead to all sorts of disciplinary action and possible criminal charges. I’d already done it once to find Amanda. Doing it again would outweigh the benefits.
“Olivia, consider this an anonymous tip. Don’t worry about the red tape. I’ll handle that. I just need you to get everything you can discreetly.”
It was like she could read my mind. But an anonymous tip would make this official. “Okay. What’s going on?”
“That’s need to know.”
“You said I could crack the case.”
“Yes I did,” the agent’s voice held a smile. She gave me the number to research. “Call me when you have a report.” Then she hung up.
I took a breath, stretched my hands, and then got to work, running that number through every database I had access to in order to track down who owned it. It was tricky because the data kept coming up as incomplete. But eventually I tracked the phone back to when it was purchased at a gas station. And gas stations have surprisingly good security coverage. The man paid in cash and wore his hat and sunglasses for the whole interaction, but I was still able to get a few angles on his face. He’d taken an taxi, so I couldn’t track him from his car, but I was able to narrow down his neighborhood based on which towers his phone pinged off of when he made calls. That phone was busy. Four or five calls to one number every day, another two or three to a four different numbers depending on the day. It wasn’t until I ran the partial images of his face through facial recognition that I realized why he looked vaguely familiar.
So that’s why the agent was interested.
This man had been at Amanda’s apartment twice in one day—once in the morning, as a delivery man, and once late in the evening. That shot gave me a perfect image of his face, which got me his identity.
“Have a good night, Olivia. Don’t stay too long.” Angela’s voice pulled me from my focus. I looked at the clock. 8:06 p.m. I never stayed this late.
“Thanks, Angela. Drive safe,” I said.
She waved over her shoulder as she left. I stood to stretch. Was this enough? I had his name, his listed address, his recent whereabouts. I could get his list of known associates as well, since his movements put him in range of a number of recent crimes. Harassment was enough to bring him in if Amanda filed a report. He didn’t live there and he wasn’t a delivery man, which meant he was most likely casing her place in order to commit a crime. Which, he was leaving late at night after she got home, so he probably had committed a crime.
I shook my head. How many crimes like this went on without a report? How many people got away with it? I checked the call logs. There had been no reports that night of a break-in at Amanda’s complex. No one should have to deal with that alone.
But maybe she wasn’t alone. Maybe she just hadn’t called the police. That would explain why the agent had called me, if Amanda had contacted her.
Regardless, he wasn’t going to get away with it. I just hoped he hadn’t hurt her.
I ran through my mental checklist. We had evidence that he’d been there. We might have testimony from a witness, if Amanda was involved. I could tie his movements to various unsolved crimes. I ran the numbers he’d called. Most of them were far less secure than his line had been. Finding them took half the time. All had open arrest warrants. One was a name I recognized, since I’d tied him to Metgov myself.
Had we really cracked the case? It felt unlikely, but every criminal screwed up eventually. That’s when we caught the good ones—by waiting for a single screw up. One time of them not covering their tracks perfectly, one time of their emotions getting the better of them. It wasn’t usually a guilty conscience. More often, they fell in love or made a human attachment to someone in their daily routine, because no human could ever function long without routine. Especially in a criminal lifestyle, if you were to maintain an alibi you had to have consistent people who could vouch for you.
Adam Jenkins had been quiet for the last twenty-four hours. We’d caught him because of his IP address. I’d finally unwound all the layers of security that had been around the Metgov case to clear up his computer. And now he had been silent.
A sinking feeling in my gut told me to cross check Adam’s home address with Axel’s movements.
I looked up the case notes to see if Adam was in custody. What I found made my blood boil. Today, when the detectives had gone to arrest him, they’d found him dead in his bathtub. Now it was a homicide case, which meant there were new detectives on the case. I found their numbers and called them.
“Williams,” the detective answered.
“Hi. This is Officer Webster from the cyber crimes unit. You recently caught a homicide from one of our investigations—Adam Jenkins.”
“Officer Webster. This is no longer your case.”
“It is, actually. The robbery and the murder shouldn’t be looked at independently. And I think I know who did it.”
There was silence for a moment. Then, “I’m listening.”
“Axel Silvario. I got an anonymous tip, and his movements have lined up with four active investigations. I’ll send you what I have.”
“Thank you. Honestly we were struggling to find a motive. The guy was a loner. He seemed to hole up in his house and waste his days with video games. The initial investigation seemed like a suicide, but but once the coronor’s report came in it was pretty clear someone put him in that bathtub.”
“Look into this guy. There’s a good chance he’s not the boss—there’s another number he calls multiple times per day. But he’s definitely a foot soldier, if you know what I mean.”
“You’re thinking organized crime?”
“I’m not sure what I’m thinking. But this guy has a lot more incoming calls than outgoing, and his outgoing calls are only ever to that one number. Looks to me like he’s reporting to someone.”
“We’ll keep that in mind. Good work, Webster.”
I smiled. “Just nail him, okay?”
“We’ll do our best.”
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Please note: This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real life events is unintended by the author.
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J. J. Hanna is a writer and reader from Colorado. She loves suspense stories above all else, and is currently working on a debut novel. When she’s not writing, you can find her making YouTube videos and Online Courses about the publishing industry. Go find her on social media @authorjjhanna and @jjhannaacademy to keep track of her most recent reads, current adventures, and to get the most up-to-date news on all things publishing. She also runs a freelance marketing business to help authors achieve their own goals. Learn more or hire her at Hanna Book Solutions.
J. J. Hanna, Author 