I’d smiled at the concern that showed through her sternness and agreed, perhaps foolishly, to go to the gym with her later in the week or at the weekend. Anything to burn off some of my excess energy sounded like a good idea at this point, but I knew how hard Sam pushed herself, so I might regret that later.
The phone continued to ring in my ear as my thoughts drifted towards Sam and running, and I frowned as Mickey failed to pick up. Eventually, the call switched to voicemail, and I hung up. I didn’t want to leave a recording on Mickey’s phone that could land him in trouble if one of the others in the gang happened to hear it or pick his phone up. Still, I hoped he’d see the missed call and get back to me soon because we could really do with his input.
Stephen didn’t look too surprised when I told him that Mickey hadn’t picked up my call, lifting one eyebrow as if to say, ‘what did you think would happen?’ His doubt in the teen was annoying, but unfortunately, completely justified.
“He’s not the most reliable,” I agreed out loud, giving a sigh. “Okay, I reckon we might as well do a drive-by past the address where the petrol is being stored. Just in case there’s anything we can see there which could tell us more.”
Stephen drove us over to Acomb to drive by the house. The car’s air conditioning was a pleasant break from the overheated station, but in terms of useful information, the trip yielded nothing. The house looked almost exactly as it had on google street view, and there was nothing to indicate whether or not Alistair or the other teenagers were based there. I considered knocking on the door to see who answered but decided that it was too much of a risk.
We returned to the station, and as we considered our next steps, my phone rang in my pocket.
“Can you get it?” I asked Stephen, focusing on the driving. Despite living in York for over a year now, I still had to concentrate when the city traffic got busy.
He tugged my phone from my pocket and picked it up.
“Adams, it’s Huxley,” I heard him say before I had to pay attention to the other cars on the roundabout and lost track of what Stephen was saying.
“She wants us back at the station,” he explained unprompted when he came off the phone. He didn’t need me to tell him that I hadn’t been listening because he knew already.
“What for? Has she got news?”
“Yeah, and she said it’s urgent.”
“Urgent enough for sirens?” I asked, concerned.
He hesitated. “I’d say so. She said she was concerned for Mickey’s safety and that we should call him ASAP.”
I swore quietly, flicking the sirens on and putting my foot down as soon as the way ahead was clear.
“Call him,” I instructed. “He’s in my contacts.”
Stephen got on the phone, but I could hear it ringing and ringing. My hands tightened on the steering wheel, and I thought about how I’d tried to call the kid earlier this morning. He’d not answered then, either, but I’d not been especially concerned since the teen had a record of ignoring my calls. I’d not even considered that he might be in danger, but I definitely worried about it now.
“Dammit,” I muttered.
“It’ll be fine,” Stephen said firmly as if he could will the fact into being just by stating it.
I didn’t reply.
Despite the cool air con, I was sweating even before we got out of the car at Hewford and jogged across the car park. The running jarred my ribs, but I winced and ignored it.
“What’s happening?” I demanded from Keira when we arrived, slightly out of breath.
“I found another messaging site,” she explained, her expression serious. “There’s more chatter on it than the one I sent-”
“And Mickey’s in danger?” I cut in, feeling too worried for the kid to focus on anything else.
For once, Keira didn’t frown at my interruption. “Yes, I believe so. There’s talk of a ‘traitor’ on the chat and some threats towards them.”
“Jesus,” Stephen muttered, and I swore.
“How’d they know? What’re they saying?”
“I’ve sent you the link, Mitchell. You’re welcome to go and read it yourself.”
“Do you know anything else?” I pressed, reluctant to leave without having any other information. “Where he might be, for example? Can you track his phone?”
“Anybody in here can try to track his phone, ask one of them, alright?”
“Okay,” I sighed before thanking her.
I strode over to the nearest tech team member who looked free and cajoled them into dropping what they’d been doing in order to find Mickey’s phone.
“There’s nothing. The GPS is off, or the SIM card’s been crushed, but there’s nothing coming back.”
I dragged a hand through my unruly hair. Part of me wanted to call Mickey repeatedly, bombarding his phone with calls, but that wouldn’t help. We needed to be smart about this.
I gave the tech a nod of thanks, and Stephen and I left, heading for our desks so that we could study this other messaging site that Keira had turned up. The conversation was far busier than the one we’d been looking at up until now, and I chewed my lip as I scanned over it. Keira was right about their talk focusing around a traitor and what they’d do to him, and the threats honestly scared me. From the talk itself, I wasn’t sure that the teenagers on the chat knew who this traitor was exactly, but that didn’t mean that Jules didn’t know. It was worrying, to say the least.
“Call Mickey’s parents, will you?” I asked Stephen. “If we don’t get an answer, we can go around to the house.”
While Stephen did that, I chased up any leads that might give us
