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As we walk through the front doors, dumping our stuff and all of our new treasures, starting to head further into the house, either to go to bed or, in Atlas’s case, get a snack, Jensen suddenly curses.
“What?” I ask.
“We forgot to tell you,” he says, rolling his eyes and looking at Cash.
Cash shakes his head and then looks at the rest of us. “We got distracted by Lyric giving birth..”
“Knox called me,” Jensen blurts out.
“Wait, what?” Riot asks, rubbing a hand over his face. “Knox from Serendipity?”
Jensen nods. “Yeah. He called while we were staking out Linda’s place, but the signal kept going in and out.”
“We didn’t have any bars there,” Rage points out. Looking confused.
“No, we didn’t,” Cash replies somewhat cryptically.
Luc shakes his head. “Guys, I’m going to need you to start making more sense because I am far too tired to try and make sense of it myself.”
Atlas points at Luc, yawns, and then says, “What he said.”
“Sorry, it’s just really weird,” Jensen admits with a frown.
“If I hadn’t witnessed it myself, I would have said that Jensen was seeing things,” Cash adds, looking confused.
Instantly, my interest is piqued even more.
“I didn’t have any bars, you’re right. None of us had any. Then Knox rang me. It kept cutting out. I only heard him say my name and a couple of other words that didn’t really mean anything, and then the line went dead. I showed Cash the screen, and it said unknown, no number. Although now that I think about it, that doesn’t make much sense either because I immediately tried to call it back when it cut off, and it just rang out. I shouldn’t have been able to do that.”
“I didn’t realize that you called him back,” Cash says his frown deepening.
“That’s really weird,” Trick says, his eyebrows high on his forehead.
“That’s not the weirdest part,” Jensen replies and then carries on explaining, “I was explaining that it was Knox to Cash, and I showed him my phone screen to prove that someone had just rung me despite there being no signal, and then we watched the number disappear.”
I stare at him. Not sure that I heard him right.
“I’m sorry, did you just say it disappeared?” Atlas asks. “You mean you deleted it accidentally?”
Cash shakes his head. “Nope, I was watching the screen the whole time. It just disappeared.”
“How did he get my number?” Jensen asks, pointing out something that none of us have realized yet. “Our numbers are encrypted, our phones are unhackable, Pete’s built so much security into them, and they aren’t even the ones that all the agents get. They’re completely bespoke. We’re the only people who have them.”
“I have no idea how to respond to that,” Luc says honestly and rubs a hand over his beard. “It’s impossible.”
“It should be,” Cash agrees.
Rage looks at Jensen. “Are you sure that it was him? Could it have been a voice that just sounded like him?”
Jensen shakes his head. “No. I always remember voices, especially those of people who are important to me, and Knox was important to me. I didn’t like how he just disappeared. I still have the letter he left me at his cabin.”
“You do?” Atlas asks with surprise.
Jensen nods. “It’s a mystery, and it’s bugged me for ages. I couldn’t get rid of it.”
“We need to ask Pete about it and see if there is any way that someone could have not only hacked the phone, but somehow given it a signal strong enough to receive and make a call,” Riot suggests. “It’s going to have to wait until the morning though.”
“Agreed,” Trick says with a nod. “I think it’s really interesting that Knox has come up so much recently. We haven’t spoken about him for years, and yet in the space of a week we’ve had the reminder of him at Raid’s place and now this phone call.”
