red herring [h.s.]

4.

Harry.

"Are you fucking kidding me." Matt deadpanned from behind his desk as I stood in front of him, sheepishly admitting that I had... sort of... lost... Stella.

Dominic and Mike were snickering near the door, clearly happy about my slip-up and watching their dad scold me.

I held my hands up in defence, "I have a way to get to her."

"So for the next few... days? Weeks? She'll be running around New York City without any of us knowing where?!"

I sighed, "Can't you like... track her? Or something?"

"Harry, if it was that easy we wouldn't have fucking searched her for a year." He barked back and I pressed my lips together as he continued, "If maybe you would've taken a picture of her ID, I could track her like that but you didn't."

"I was in the middle of a dark club." I frowned, "A flash like that would've alerted a lot of people."

Matt palmed his face with a groan, "So... this way of you to get to her... explain it."

"Her friend was there and when I realized Stella left, I asked her friend for her number. But her friend was really fucking drunk and told me to DM her on Instagram or something." I rolled my eyes in annoyance. Both Erin and Stella had frustrated me to the core last night. Erin was piss drunk and instead of just giving out her friend's number like I had asked, I had to stalk her fucking Instagram like a teenager.

And I didn't even have Instagram.

"Well, this could be a good start for your cover. Stella needs to trust you, you're going to need an Instagram with believable pictures of friends and whatever you do in your free time."

I frowned, "Really?"

Dominic piped up from behind me, "Yeah, girls find it suspicious if you're not on social media."

I rolled my eyes at him without turning around and Matt shot me a look before letting out another sigh, "This is fucking amateur work, Harry."

"Hey, at least I found her!" I defended and Matt cocked up his brows, "Did you?"

Knowing Matt, he already knew the truth and was testing me to see how I'd answer, so I dropped my eyes and clenched my jaw together, "Liam did."

"Hmm, that's right. Liam did." He sternly answered.

There was a brief pause before I spoke again, "So these men that I've got to my availability to tail her... who are they?"

"Some low rank guys who need to do some street work." Matt explained before rummaging his drawers, "Here's a spare phone to use for your new persona. Their numbers are the only ones you've got in there right now but please add like fake contacts to make it more believable. Here's a file with everything we know of her so far." He handed me the folder which was just one page and I frowned, "That's it?"

"Yep. Stella Cameron is an enigma, Harry. That's why we need you on this, you're our best guy. You know Tomlinson or Horan would just fuck it up."

I tilted my head to the side and nodded, "Very true. By the way... what should I do about Zayn?"

"Nothing." Matt quickly answered and I frowned at him, "Nothing?"

"He's just doing his job. From what I've heard from both you and Liam, he and Stella are friends. It would be very suspicious if he were to disappear. We don't do anything until we further find out what their relationship is and how well they know each other." Matt instructed and I bit my tongue as I slowly nodded, much to my displeasure, "Fine."