“But wouldn’t they have checked the hard drive before they wiped it?”
“Checked it for what? If they didn’t know anything was missing, then they wouldn’t have known to look.”
“Exactly!”
Daniel stared at me blankly.
“You just said it made sense for Brian to be in a rush to get the flash drive because he’d been looking for these missing files the whole time. Now you’re saying he didn’t know they were missing until recently. Which is it, Daniel? It can’t be both.”
“Whoa.” He held his hands up. “Back down. I don’t have a dog in this fight.”
“Well, I do. My family was murdered. I need to know why.”
“You already do. Some crazy guy shot them.”
I stared down at my plate.
“Well, that’s what happened, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” That’s what the police told me at the time, and I had no reason not to believe them. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling there was more—and the flash drive was the key.
Chapter 15
I was pacing my living room at 2:23 p.m. on Saturday when Alex’s black BMW pulled up in front of my house. I opened my front door while he was still walking up the flagstone path. “I was starting to wonder if that text was really from you.”
Alex was wearing his usual black jeans, black T-shirt, and black leather jacket, despite it being sunny and seventy-eight degrees outside. Someday I wanted to peek in his closet to see if he even owned any clothing in another color. “I took the kids to see Maria. They wanted to stop for lunch on the way back.”
“How’s she doing?” I said, shutting the door behind him.
“Okay,” he said as he glanced around. “For now.”
“Did they say how long she’d be there?” I’d asked Dr. Simpson last week but she’d said she couldn’t disclose any information to me because I wasn’t a family member. But when I’d asked MJ, he didn’t know either.
“No, but I’m sure they’ll get rid of her as soon as possible. They don’t like to keep the poor people any longer than they have to.”
I wanted to object but assumed he was right. I doubted the government paid the Wellstone Center as much as private insurance companies did, so naturally they’d want to release those patients as soon as it was legal for them to do so.
“Where will she live when she gets out?” I knew she couldn’t go back to her apartment because she’d been evicted. Her belongings were still sitting in two garbage bags inside my aunt’s garage.
He shrugged.
“What about MJ and Sofia? They can’t move back in with her if she doesn’t have a place to live.”
“You tell me, counselor.”
I was still new to practicing family law. I’d been working with Janelle for several months but, so far, she’d only handed me the minor’s counsel cases, which meant upper income kids. The children I represented may have been emotionally abandoned by their parents, but they all had a place to sleep.
“I’ll ask Janelle. You want something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Water?”
“Coffee. Black.”
“I remember.”
Alex smiled, apparently recalling our first meeting at Starbucks too. It was only six months ago but felt like another lifetime.
I headed into the kitchen, but Alex didn’t follow. He lingered in the hallway. The Keurig had just finished spitting out the second cup of coffee when Alex appeared holding the framed wedding photo that usually hung on my wall.
“One of these your husband?” Alex asked. It was a picture of me, Jonah, and Jake. I was in the center with the men on either side.
“Yes. My husband’s the one on the left wearing the silver cummerbund and tie.” Jake’s cummerbund and tie were black.
He nodded and returned the photograph to its spot on the wall.
I handed Alex his coffee and he followed me into the living room. I settled onto the couch and Alex sat down on the chair across from me.
“Nice house,” he said, glancing around the room.
I was surprised he hadn’t commented on the size of the television since everyone else did. Maybe he had a giant TV of his own. “Thanks,” I said. “I assume MJ filled you in.” And had given him my home address since Alex hadn’t asked me for it, although I supposed he could’ve found it online.
“All he told me was you were looking for someone to hack a flash drive.”
“Yes. I can’t open it without the password, which I don’t have, nor do I have the recovery key. Do you know anyone who could hack into it for me?”
He held the coffee mug in both hands and looked at me. “Is it yours?”
I wasn’t expecting that question, although maybe I should have. “Does it matter?”
“It might.”
