Clutching at Straws

EPISODE 1 PART 4:

It was an incessant knock that woke me up.I got up with a start.This weekend has been extremely lazy apart from this whole solving a disappearance thing by "hacking" into someone's personal information.

I opened the door to find Chris,the creepy grocery store dude, standing there looking awkward.

"Sorry,I just got done with my shift.You actually dropped your id card at the store.I thought you would realize and come back.But..anyway", He said as he extended his hands to give me back my driver's license

"Thanks,I didn't even know that I dropped it.Its fine I'm Julia.But you already know that now, among other things," I tried to joke waving the license around.

He chuckled lightly.

."I am really sorry if I was a bit too forward earlier.My intention was just to introduce myself. Now that we are neighbors, I don't really know how to do this thing.Seems like I should have a pie for this neighborly introduction"

I smiled lightly.

"Let's save that for the next time", He said as he winked and turned around and left.

Yeah, sure, next time. I rolled my eyes as I slammed the door shut.

Just then, my phone vibrated.

Q: "Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. Discovery number 3?"

"You're late"

"I have been busy. I will try to extract useful information from these pictures"

"Like what?"

My notification bar lit up to announce Cleo had updated her status to read "off running".

I returned to Q's chat to find they had already sent so many texts with so much useful information, along with a ‌possible lead's number. It's almost like Q is the opposite of Thomas.

"The police are currently focused on Thomas. You should focus on someone else"

"Why should I?"

"As I told you before.You have piqued my interest. That's all you need to know at the moment"

Why does he say these things like that? And he went offline. I rolled my eyes.

I added the new number, only to find it was Dan's. So Q wants me to focus on Dan as a suspect. Dan seemed pretty annoyed with everything, and that chat with Jessy was extremely suspicious.

Anyways,Dan was offline, so there was no point in texting him. Plus, I felt extremely lightheaded because of hunger. As I moved towards the kitchen to make some eggs, I cracked Grace's door open to check on Luna.She looked startled even though I cracked the door ever so slowly. She came out wagging her tail as if to admonish me for invading her privacy and followed me to the kitchen where she continued to roam around as I made my eggs.I made some toast too to make up for the lost breakfast and poured myself a drink to go with it.I would have to restock my liquor cabinet too.it's a small top shelf by the way.nothing fancy, but serves the purpose.I brought all of my dinner and settled on the table.Another file was in the process of decrypting.Luna came curled up on the stool beside me.

My phone started vibrating not like a call, but like a barrage of angry texts.

I guess Dan came online.

"Oh no"

"No no no"

So dramatic.And so suspicious.

"What's no no no", I wrote back.

"Who sent you after me"

"This Hacker"

I see no point in being coy about this.How the hell does he think I got his number?