I brought my newly purchased flash drive to the office and googled instructions for how to add a password. It looked simple enough, but lots of things with technology that were supposed to be simple never seemed to work that easily for me, so I decided to wait for MJ. I ambushed him as soon as he walked through the front door.

“Do you know how to add a password to a flash drive?”

He slipped his backpack off his shoulders and sat down at the reception desk. “No, but I bet I can figure it out.”

“Can you figure it out quickly?” Brian’s messenger was scheduled to arrive in half an hour.

MJ followed me into my office and plugged the flash drive into my computer.

“What are you putting on here you don’t want anyone to see?” he asked as he moved the mouse around the screen with dizzying speed.

“Nothing.”

“Then why you adding a password?”

He was right. It would look odd if I sent Brian an empty flash drive. Although without my password, he wouldn’t be able to open it, so how would he know? But unlike me, Brian had an IT person and that person might have a way of figuring it out. Even I knew it was possible to check how much memory had been used, even if I didn’t know how to check it myself. I tapped the photo app on my phone and turned the screen toward MJ. “Can you transfer these pictures to the flash drive?”

“Sure. Are they saved in the cloud?”

“How would I know?”

MJ rolled his eyes.

“You know I’m bad at this stuff. Here,” I said and handed him my phone. “You figure it out.”

Half an hour later Brian Sullivan’s messenger left my office with a flash drive containing 212 photos mostly of Amelia, but a handful with me and Jonah too. I’d sealed it in an envelope with a note asking Brian to return it to me with the recovery key if he found anything personal on it. I didn’t actually care if he returned it. I just figured that’s what an innocent person would say.

MJ waited until the messenger had sped away on his motorcycle before he said, “Can I ask why you gave that guy all your photos?”

I pulled Jonah’s flash drive out of the zippered compartment of my purse. “No, but can you break the password on this one?”

MJ let out a laugh. “I can fix your printer when it’s jammed, but I ain’t no hacker.”

Normally, I’d be happy to hear MJ wasn’t breaking the law, but not today. “Do you know any hackers? Maybe a kid at your school?”

“At the Winston Academy? Are you kidding me?”

This time I was the one who rolled my eyes. His classmates were privileged; that didn’t mean they were saints. “Someone at your old school then? I’ll pay. I’m not asking anyone to work for free.”

“You shoulda said that to begin with.” MJ opened his palm, and I placed the flash drive in his hand. He plugged it into my computer and started zooming the mouse around the screen again. “What’s on here that’s so important?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I need a hacker. So I can find out.”

After ten minutes, MJ ejected the flash drive and handed it back to me. “Sorry, Grace, hacking ain’t my thing.”

“Any idea where I can find a hacker?” I didn’t think they advertised, but maybe they did if you knew where to look.

“No, but my uncle might.”

Chapter 14

I drove MJ back to Tim and Richard’s house. Usually I just dropped him off, but today I parked and went inside because I wanted to meet baby Aaron. He was adorable. Pudgy with light brown skin and a scalp full of fuzzy black hair. The last baby I’d held in my arms was Amelia. I was afraid holding Aaron would trigger me, but it didn’t. Maybe if he’d been a pink-cheeked girl with a smattering of dark blonde hair, I would’ve gotten upset, but holding this tiny brown boy just made me smile.

I stayed long enough to watch Tim feed Aaron, change him, and rock him to sleep. Then I drove home and called MJ’s uncle.

Alex picked up on the second ring. “Yo, counselor.”

He must’ve had my number programmed into his phone. It had been months since we’d spoken. “Hi, Alex. How are you?”

“Can’t complain. Everything okay? Kids alright?”

“Yeah, I just dropped MJ off at home. Have you met his dads yet?”

“Nope.”

“You should. They’re really nice people.”

“Is that why you called? To tell me I need to meet the gay guys raising my niece and nephew?”

I gritted my teeth. “You should be thanking those gay guys. If it wasn’t for them, god knows where MJ and Sofia would’ve ended up.”

“They could’ve just stayed with you and your aunt.”

“You know if it was up to me, they would have.” He’d been at my aunt’s house the day she decided to give them up.

“But you had to follow the law.”

“Yes, Alex, I’m a lawyer. That’s what lawyers do. And if you were a law-abiding citizen, they could be living with you.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“No.” It was my office landlord, Mike Murphy, who’d told me Alex was a big-time drug dealer in LA. But I’d never asked Alex, mainly because I didn’t want to know.

After an uncomfortable silence, he said, “So what do you want? You didn’t call just to say hi.”

“No,” I admitted. “MJ thought you might be able to help me with something.”

“Help with what?”

“I need to hire a hacker.”

“Sorry, counselor, not my area. And for a smart lady, you’re pretty fucking stupid sometimes.” Then the line went dead.

A minute later I received a text from an unknown number. Not a conversation you have over the phone. Saturday@2. Your house.

“I still don’t understand why you switched out the flash drives,” Daniel said.

We were having dinner at his apartment—sushi and Japanese lager, presumably with sex to follow. At least, I hoped there would be sex to follow since it was the only reason I’d agreed to come to his house again tonight.