Defending Everly (Mountain Mercenaries #5)(15)

She couldn’t argue the “full belly” thing. She let the “your man” thing go.

Everly had woken up feeling more refreshed than she had in a very long time. She’d immediately known where she was—and whose arms she was in. Sometime during the night, Ball had turned onto his back, and she’d woken up using his chest as her pillow. His arm was around her shoulders, and she’d been in a tight little ball, curled up next to his side. It was disconcerting how comfortable she’d been.

She’d slipped out of bed, grabbed her stuff, and headed to the bathroom, glad he hadn’t been awake. She quickly showered, only thinking a little bit about whether Elise had been able to do the same since she’d disappeared, and by the time she’d arrived in the kitchen, Ball was already there. Dressed and looking as awake as ever . . . damn him.

She just hoped that Me-Maw hadn’t seen him coming out of Elise’s room. Hopefully he’d been smart enough to muss up the guest bed so as not to let on where he’d actually slept. Her grandmother would never let her hear the end of it if she knew Everly and Ball had shared a bed last night, after all.

They’d made small talk, avoiding the heavy topic that was on all their minds as they ate. As soon as Me-Maw disappeared back into the kitchen with the dishes, Ball had called his teammate.

“Don’t make us wait,” he scolded Meat. “Spit it out.”

They had Meat on speakerphone. Even though Everly had wanted to spare Me-Maw the details, she wanted even more to hear firsthand what Meat had discovered.

“I was able to get into her Facebook account, but she doesn’t use it very much. There were a few messages, but nothing exciting.”

“And?” Everly asked impatiently.

“Hang on, I’m getting there. There were a ton of other apps on the computer, though. Instagram, Snapchat, Sarahah, Yubo, Musical.ly, Kik, WhatsApp . . . those are the main ones it looks like she’s used in the past.”

“I haven’t even heard of some of those,” Everly said, stunned.

“Kids are resourceful, and they’ll use whatever their friends are using. Anyway, the thing is, a lot of these apps are so attractive because they don’t keep a record of conversations between two people, or they’re even totally anonymous.”

“Even if they’re anonymous, there’s still some IP addresses and things to follow up on, right?” Ball asked.

“Well, yeah, but it doesn’t look like Elise really used the computer for talking to her friends,” Meat said.

“She used her phone,” Allison guessed.

Everly turned to look at her grandmother. She was standing at the end of the kitchen nearest them, listening.

“That’s my assumption, yes,” Meat said.

“She did. She was always tapping away at it,” Allison said sadly. “Said she was talking to her friends, and we didn’t really think much about it. Didn’t think that she might be lying or anything. We told her she wasn’t allowed to use it at the dinner table and insisted she finish her homework first, but the second she was done, her face was buried in that thing.”

Everly didn’t even think about it; she began signing to her me-maw: It’s not your fault.

Isn’t it? Me-Maw signed back.

No. Believe me, every teen is obsessed with their phone. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad guardian, Everly signed.

I bet it wouldn’t have happened if she was with you. You would’ve been on her. Asked more questions.

Stop, Everly signed.

“What’s going on?” Meat asked from the speaker of Ball’s phone.

“Everly and her me-maw are having a discussion,” Ball told his teammate.

“But . . . I don’t hear them talking,” Meat replied.

“Oh, they are,” Ball said.

Everly couldn’t read his tone. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Meat, I was talking to Me-Maw in sign language. She thinks this is her fault.”

“It’s not,” Ball said immediately.

“And I was telling my granddaughter that she would’ve been more strict with Elise. Everly wouldn’t have let her talk to strangers on the internet.”

“Me-Maw, you know that’s not true, and you don’t even know that she was talking to strangers. Why do you think these apps exist? Because teens want a way to get around their parents. If Elise wanted to chat online, she would’ve found a way. Stop beating yourself up about it. Meat?”

“Yeah?”

“So there’s no information on the computer?”

“I didn’t say that exactly. I’ve got a few conversations that she had with people on WhatsApp on the computer, and the pictures she posted on her story on Snapchat. For some reason, probably by design, no conversations from her phone have carried over to the apps on her laptop. So I’ll need her phone to track down any conversations she had on it. And if she used Kik, it’ll be really hard to find out who she was talking to. The biggest lure of that site is how private and anonymous things are.”

“But you can figure it out?” Everly asked.

“Given enough time, yes.”

She understood what he was saying. They might not have the time they needed for him to track down her sister’s conversation partners . . . but worse, if they didn’t have the phone, they might not even get to try. “Can we subpoena her phone records and get the data that way?”