I slid the phone across the counter to Liv and plugged my food processor in on the peninsula as she scrolled through the entries on the phone.

“He only got eight calls in the last week, two of them from the same number. And he only made three calls. Not exactly a social butterfly.” She pulled my laptop closer and started typing. “With your computer, my credit card and an online reverse phone book, I should be able to put a name with most of these numbers.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to just call them?”

“Definitely.” She glanced at me over the screen. “And calling his friends, relatives and ‘professional’ associates would also be the easier, cheaper way to raise a bunch of red flags, put Tower’s men on our tail and get us both shot for our troubles.” I stared at her, and Liv laughed. “New to this part of the game, huh?”

“Yeah.” I dug three tomatoes from the vegetable drawer and rinsed them in the sink. “Most of my work involves name-tracking, not computer snooping. I usually call in Van for that kind of thing.”

Liv’s fingers attacked the keyboard, rapid-fire clacking, as if she could pound the answers from the internet by force. “I think we should leave Van out of this, for her own safety.”

“Agreed.” I cored the tomatoes on the cutting board, then dropped them into the food processor and started on the cilantro. “Any luck?”

“Yeah.” More clacking, then she picked up the notepad and spoke as she scribbled. “One of the outgoing calls was to his bank, on the day of the big deposit. I assume he was calling to make sure the money landed safely.”

I nodded and scooped the leftover onion into the food processor with the cilantro and tomatoes.

“The second call went to a man named Gavin Payne, no address listed.” Liv glanced up when I started chopping again. “I hate jalapeños. They’re all heat but no flavor.”

I kept chopping. “This is a smoked poblano. You’ll like it. Trust me.”

She looked skeptical, but went back to her typing with no complaint. I ran the food processor, and a few minutes later, I poured fresh salsa into a bowl shaped like a hollowed-out red pepper.

Livn the cut when I pushed the bowl toward her. “Okay, I can’t find anything on the third number, even on four different sites claiming to have access to unlisted landlines and cell-phone numbers.” She picked up a corn chip from another bowl and dipped it into the salsa. “Wow.” She finished the chip and dipped a second. “When we were together, it was all takeout, all the time.”

“I’ve had some free time lately.”

“Well, it’s paid off.” She turned back to the screen, crunching into another chip. “Of the numbers that called Hunter’s phone, two look like they’re from his mother, calling once from her home phone and once from her cell. I wonder if Mrs. Hunter has any idea that her little boy grew up to be an attempted murderer of small children?”

I shrugged and turned off the stove. “I blame the parents.”

“Me, too.” Liv snagged another chip while I pulled the steak from the skillet to slice on a fresh cutting board. “The repeated incoming number was Gavin Payne, and the one that called most recently was the same unidentifiable number Hunter dialed last night. The other three incoming calls were from his building superintendent, his pharmacy and a telephone survey company.”

“Bastards. They always call during dinner.”

Liv laughed as I slid the sliced steak onto a platter and topped it with the sautéed vegetables. “Forget crime lords and corrupt politicians—telemarketers are the root of all evil.”

“Now you’re getting it.” I took a twist tie off a bag of flour tortillas and set a clean plate in front of her. “So, unless he’s in cahoots with Walgreens or his landlord, the only real possibilities are this Gavin Payne and the unknown number.”

“Yeah. But I still have to check his texts.”

“Let me.” I took the phone from her and replaced it with her empty plate. “You eat.”

Liv hesitated, then reached for a tortilla.

Hunter hadn’t sent any texts in the past week, and he’d only received one, a couple of days earlier. An address. “Shit.”

“What?” Liv looked up from her empty fajita, and I turned the phone around for her to see.

“That’s Anne’s address,” I said, when she showed no recognition. “I was there with her this morning when she gathered the blood samples.” Was that really less than a day ago? It felt like a week.

Liv took the phone from me and compared it to the notes she’d taken. “It’s from that same unidentified number. Let me see your cell,” she said, her dinner already forgotten.

“Why?”

“Because I know you’re not allowed to tell me if you know whose number that is. But if you do, it might be in your phone. Right?”

Smart girl. “In theory. But I actually don’t know that number.”

“And you won’t care if I verify that, right?”

I handed her my phone. “Do you mind if I eat while you openly distrust me and invade my privacy?”

“I’m sorry, Cam.” But she pressed a button to wake my phone up, without hesitation. Not that I could blame her. “Password?” she said, eyeing me expectantly.

I piled steak and peppers onto a tortilla and answered without looking up. “Zero-one-zero-four.”