Ghost Mortem (Ghost Detective #1) - Jane Hinchey Page 0,47

caught up I began thinking of Ben's case and why I was here. I was convinced the Armstrong case, the Drake case, and the Baxter case were all connected. The common denominator was the Firefly Bay Hotel. But that's where my thought process stopped. All I had to go on was gut instinct that Philip Drake was up to something—I just needed to get a look at his phone and figure out who he'd called when I left his office yesterday. Easy, right?

17

Ben returned and said the coast was clear. I finished breakfast, bolted down my coffee, paid and then made my way to Philip Drake's office, walking with confidence as if I had every right to be wandering the back corridors of the hotel. Of course what I was doing was a huge gamble. I was simply hoping that Drake wouldn't be in his office but his cell phone would be, which, when I thought about it, was madness. What type of hotel manager would he be if he didn't take his cell phone with him? But I remembered, when I met with him yesterday that he'd ushered me into his office and his phone had been on the desk. Most people would automatically pick it up and take it with them wherever they went.

As luck would have it, when I cracked open Drake's door and stuck my head in, I spied his cell phone sitting in exactly the same spot as yesterday. Slipping inside, I quietly closed the door behind me and darted behind his desk. My heart was thumping double time in my chest, adrenaline spiking.

"Keep a lookout," I told Ben, picking up the phone and swiping my hand across the screen. Damn it. Locked. "Use your torch app," Ben said. "Angle it toward his screen. You should be able to make out fingerprints on what buttons he pushes the most."

I gasped. "Is that how you crack a pin code?"

"Sometimes. It would be easier if we had an encryption app on your phone and synced it with his and blah, blah, blah," is what I heard. Ben was using a language I did not speak. Geek. Tuning him out, I did as he suggested and sure enough I could just make out what number he pressed the most. Not numbers, as in plural. Number, as in singular. The number three. Surely his pin wasn't three, three, three, three? It was! I almost squealed when I punched it in and the phone opened. Ben stopped yapping on about whatever it was and peered over my shoulder. "You did it! Well done!"

I couldn't believe it had been that easy. Pulling up his phone log, I began scrolling. "What time were we in here yesterday?" I asked Ben.

"We were at the lawyers at two. That took about an hour, so maybe between three and three thirty?"

"Okay. At three twenty-two he called Sophie." There were no other calls around that time, in or out.

"Sophie's his daughter."

We looked at each other, puzzled. Drake had hired Ben to investigate Sophie's boyfriend. We assumed she didn't know about it, but what if she did? Because why else would Philip call her after my visit?

Two things happened next. One, I realized Ben was not keeping a lookout and two, Drake's phone started to ring. It startled me so bad I tossed it in the air, made a mad scramble to catch it, had just closed my fingers around it when I heard voices outside the door.

"Shit!" I whispered. Ben moved fast, crossing the room and poking his head through the door while I stabbed at the screen to get out of the call log. Pressing the button on the side of the phone, I rejected the call and sent it into sleep mode, then carefully aligned it back on the desk where I'd found it.

"Hide," Ben yelled. "He's coming."

"Where?" I whispered, frantically searching for a hiding spot. I eyeballed the desk. I could hide under it, but if he were to sit down he'd find me straightaway. Behind the curtains was a no go, they were sheer. I wouldn't fit in the filing cabinet, and believe me, I considered that option for a nanosecond, and unless the bookcase hid a secret door behind it, I was screwed.

Hurrying around his desk I eyeballed the sofa pushed back against the far wall. Fake it and pretend I was here searching for something I'd left behind yesterday? But I hadn't been anywhere near the sofa. I'd sat in