The Last Message

Untitled Part 6

Jack didn't go home that night.

He drove until the adrenaline bled into exhaustion, until the black sky lightened to gray. At dawn, he pulled into an empty diner parking lot off Highway 14.

Inside, the place smelled of burnt coffee and fried eggs. A single waitress nodded at him without a word. He took a booth in the back, where no one could see the laptop when he opened it.

Chloe sat across from him, hunched low, her hood up. The flash drive glinted between them on the table.

"You sure about this?" she asked quietly.

Jack nodded. "If Emily trusted you with it, it's all I've got."

He slid it into the USB port. The screen flickered once, then filled with a folder list — encrypted files, odd strings of letters and numbers, some labeled only by dates.

"Open that one," Chloe said, pointing to the most recent timestamp: 9_11_LOGS.

Inside were dozens of chat transcripts.

Jack scrolled, reading quickly: usernames, coded language, fragments of conversations.

Prophet: feed 019 active again.
WatcherX: target returns to routine.
Prophet: maintain surveillance until contact confirmed.
ShadowEye: image archive uploaded.

He stopped, his throat tightening. "Target?"

"People," Chloe said. "They use code names. Every 'target' is someone in town. I matched some of the IP data before Emily disappeared. It traced to municipal servers — local ones."

Jack stared at her. "You mean... government?"

She nodded slowly. "Police, maybe. Public offices. Someone with access to private feeds."

Jack leaned back, the diner's hum fading into a cold silence. "You're telling me whoever's behind this is in law enforcement."

Chloe hesitated, then said, "Not all of them. But one of them, yes. Emily suspected that too. She said someone inside was erasing evidence — pulling down reports before they reached open records."

He thought of Detective Leland — her calm tone, the way she'd said sometimes teenagers just need space.

His gut twisted. Was she trying to slow me down? Or protect me?

He clicked another file — a list of usernames paired with email fragments. Half were blank. But one stood out.

Prophet →

Jack's blood ran cold.

"No," he whispered. "That can't be right."

Chloe looked up, her eyes wide. "You recognize it?"

He didn't answer. He closed the laptop and stood, sliding the flash drive back into his pocket.

"Jack—what are you doing?"

"I need to see her," he said quietly.

"That's insane. If she's involved—"

"Then she's the only one who can tell me where Emily is."

Chloe reached for his arm. "Jack, she could be dangerous."

He pulled free. "So am I."

Outside, the morning air was sharp, heavy with the smell of rain on asphalt.

Jack walked to his truck, the flash drive burning like a brand in his pocket. Every instinct screamed that Chloe might be right — but if Detective Leland really had something to do with it, then Emily's disappearance wasn't random.

It was calculated. Controlled.

And if that was true, then the only way to get her back was to play their game — and make them believe he'd lost.

As he drove toward town, his phone buzzed.

A text. No number. Just a message.

"You shouldn't have opened it."

He looked in the rearview mirror.
Nothing but empty road.

But he could feel it again — that crawling sense of eyes on him, somewhere beyond the trees.

He gripped the wheel tighter, jaw set.

"Then keep watching," he muttered.
"I'll show you what I do when someone takes my daughter."