“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.
I dipped the edge of my California roll into the wasabi sauce. I was just starting to eat spicy food again. After Jonah and Amelia died, I ate only bland food, if I ate at all. “I told you. He spooked me.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Daniel said, dunking his sashimi into the wasabi before popping it into his mouth whole.
“It means I don’t trust Brian Sullivan. Why was he in such a hurry to get his hands on the flash drive?”
Daniel washed down his mouthful of sushi with a swallow of beer. “Because he’s been looking for it all this time?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not buying it. If he’d been looking for the flash drive all this time, then why didn’t he ever call me and ask me if I had it?”
“Maybe he didn’t want to disturb you because he knew you were grieving.”
“Not a chance.” Caring about other people’s feelings was not Brian’s M.O. “He had no problem sending someone to my house to pick up Jonah’s laptop a couple of weeks after he died. And I actually was grieving then.”
Daniel shrugged and popped another piece of sashimi into his mouth. After he chewed and swallowed, he said, “I can practically see the wheels turning in your head.”
He was right. My brain was spinning. I felt like I was trapped in a maze trying to find my way out. “They’ve had Jonah’s laptop almost this entire time. If files were missing and Jonah had them, isn’t that where they’d be?”
“If they took the laptop back to give to another employee, then I’m sure they would’ve wiped the hard drive first. That’s standard procedure.”
