The small light from the old desk lamp flashed above Mira's head as she sat facing her laptop, the typing of the keyboard and the click of mouse sounded in the quiet of her apartment. The air was unfriendly and it was also filled with tension, each breath she took felt like she was trying to get air in a room full of smoke.
The conversation with Dane still troubled her thoughts. His warnings, his insistence that she forget what she had seen, it was all too much. He had tried to convince her to back off, but Mira wasn't the type to let things go. She couldn't. Not when she was this close to uncovering the truth.
Her eyes checked around the screen, the shining documents reflecting in her eyes. The trail was leading her to Dane's properties. It wasn't just his high-end real estate investments that picked her interest; it was the missing people. There were reports of people disappearing without a trace, and each time, the last known location of the victims pointed to properties owned by none other than Dane Voss.
Mira felt her body system was off as she dug deeper into the records. She had found an old, well-hidden database. It was hidden inside some encrypted files, but Mira had managed to crack it. She had spent hours going through police reports, missing persons cases, and suspicious incidents, each one scarier than the last. But there was a pattern, a disturbing one. The people who had gone missing had been connected to various properties owned by Dane Voss. Some had worked for his companies, some had been tenants, and others had been business partners.
The more she read, the more her stomach turned. The connection was clear now, too clear. It wasn't just the disappearances; it was the fact that Dane had been involved either directly or indirectly.
Either his company or his properties had been involved. There were notes from private investigators who had been hired to look into the cases, but they had all mysteriously disappeared, their investigations left unfinished.
Mira relaxed properly in her chair, rubbing her forehead as a headache threatened to form. What was going on? She had to know. The more questions she had. The more dangerous it became. But this was bigger than anything she had imagined. The people who had gone missing weren't just victims, they were pieces of what was happening. A puzzle that involved Dane Voss and whatever dark secrets he was hiding.
Her phone rang on the desk and it disturbed her thought. Mira looked at the screen, but it wasn't a message she was expecting. It was a call from an unknown number.
Her heart seized in her chest. It was too risky to answer, not after what had happened with the strange voice following her. But she couldn't ignore it. She couldn't back down now.
With shaky hands, she answered the call.
"Hello?" she said, her voice calm despite the fear inside her.
A familiar voice sounded from the other side of the call.
"Mira," Dane's voice was low, urgent. "You need to stop digging. You're going to get yourself killed."
She froze. It was him. Again.
"I already made it clear to you that am not going to drop this," Mira replied immediately, her voice firm. She wasn't going to let him threaten her. "I am going to find out the truth no matter what you say."
There was a serious silence on the other side of the call. Mira could notice some form of frustration in his tone.
"You don't understand I believe?" Dane finally replied. "You're not just investigating a few missing people. You're digging into something bigger than both of us. If you continue with all this, they will come hard for your head and I won't be able to protect you."
Mira's mind raced. Who was they? What could be so dangerous about her uncovering the truth?
"I don't need your protection," she replied, though the truth was she was afraid but wasn't ready to show it. This is a serious case and not the regular criminal case she handles. This was a war, one that she had no idea how to fight. And Dane—he was at the center of it.
"I'm warning you," Dane said again, his voice filled with a kind of finality. "Stop. For your own sake."
But before Mira could respond, the line went off.
Her heart was beating fast in her chest. She looked closely at the phone in her hand, her mind became divided. She didn't want to trust him but she felt a form of honesty in his voice.
But then the screen of her laptop came to life, which made her divert her attention back to what she was doing before the call. The pages she had been working on had disappeared, the data, the documents, everything disappeared while she was looking at her laptop.
She tried to refresh the page, but it was no use. Her fingers were disturbing the keyboard desperately trying to recover the files, but they were gone. Completely erased.
Her blood became cold and her heart seized.
Someone had hacked into her computer.
When the realization got to her, hands dropped to her side while sitting. Whoever it was, they knew what she was looking for. They knew she was getting too close.
She rushed to shut down the computer, but the screen flashed one more time before it went completely blank. The room was silent and the silence became scary.
Someone was watching her. Someone who didn't want her to know the truth.
Mira stood up, she was scared to her bones as she checked around the room. Her room became smaller and darker for her. She thought maybe, she had made a mistake by pushing too hard and guess now she is paying the price for her inquisitiveness.
But there was no time to fear or regret. She couldn't stop now. She had to find the missing files, no matter what. They were the key to everything, the missing people, the connections to Dane's properties, everything.
But how could she trust that her files were safe again? How could she even be sure that Dane wasn't somehow involved in this? Had he set her up?
While she was deep in her thinking, suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
Mira's heart went off for a moment. Who could it be? The knock sounded urgent and fast.
She didn't want to open it initially, then she crawled toward the door, her hand shaking as she held the handle of the door. Was it him? Was Dane outside, trying to warn her again? Or was it something worse?
She pulled the door open, pushed her head out and her eyes checked around the hallway. But it wasn't Dane. It was someone else, a man who stood in the darkness. His face was not clear, but she got scared by the presence of the person in the darkness.
"Who are you?" she asked, but the man refused to respond but he instead just moved forward with his hand stretched towards her.
Without thinking, Mira shut the door in his face, her heart racing. She couldn't let him in. She couldn't trust anyone.
But as she moved away from the door, her phone rang again. She checked the screen, and this time it was someone else and not Dane. It was a number she didn't know again.
Her heart seized.
"Hello?" she said with a low voice.
"You should have left the door closed," the voice was calm. "You have made a dangerous mistake, Mira. And now, there's no going back."
Mira's blood ran cold as the call ended abruptly, leaving her in the dead silence of the apartment.
Her computer crashed, and someone hacked her files.