Page 72 of Don't Say a Word

“Nothing specific, but I downloaded his search history for you. Good news, bad news there—his history is auto-wiped every fourteen days, so there’s only three days available.”

“What, you can’t undelete his old history?” I teased.

“Well, yes,Ican, but it’ll take more time.”

“I’m kidding! I’ll go through it, see if anything pops.”

“He has a cloud account, which you should be able to access simply by being on his computer. I didn’t have time to see what he had saved up there.”

“Seriously, you’re amazing.”

“If you need me, call. I can come by this afternoon.”

All the praise seemed to roll off her. Did she not know she was amazing? Or did she know and was tired of hearing it?

Who got tired of hearing how brilliant they were?

“Thanks, Lu,” I said. “I’ll let you know what I find.”

I was grinning when I hung up. Computers were not my superpower. I could navigate around a desktop and cyberspace, and I never wanted to throw my smartphone against the wall, but that was the extent of my skills. My little sister? Absolutely incredible.

Black Rock catered to the drive-through coffee crowd, and was my usual go-to for iced coffee when I was in a hurry. Today I parked and went inside. Not a lot of seating, but I got my coffee and sat at a tiny table with three chairs, eyes on the door.

They were a few minutes late and easy to identify. One was tall, gangly with long limbs and shaggy blond hair. The other was not much taller than me, with short dark hair and glasses.

They looked at me, then at each other, and I said, “Andy?”

The short kid nodded. I knew only a little about each kid from Tess’s review of their social media. Andy had three sisters and a large extended family they traveled around the state to visit regularly; his dad had been in the military and now worked security for a convention center. Peter had little on his social media but appeared to have an older brother, and his dad didn’t seem to be in the picture.

I started to get up. “Go get something to eat, I got you.”

“No, that’s okay,” Andy said. He glanced at Peter and they silently communicated, then sat down across from me.

“Angie called last night,” Andy said. “She said you were hired by Elijah’s mom.”

“Correct,” I said.

“So, um, what do you want to know?”

They looked stiff and awkward, so I gave them each my business card and asked them to tell me how they knew Elijah. Andy did most of the talking, explaining that he and Elijah had known each other since first grade and their moms were sort of friends from church. They met Peter when they were freshmen because they were in PE together and none of them were athletic. Peter began his internship right after school started this fall, and Andy worked for his mom on the weekends; she had her own house-cleaning business. But the three of them usually hung out together when they were free. Recently Elijah started bailing on them, saying he was working extra hours.

“Except,” Andy said, then stopped as if wondering if he should keep talking.

“Except what?” I pushed.

They glanced at each other, and then Andy said, “So Elijahsaidhe was working extra hours, but we went by there, like, a week before he died and he wasn’t working, even though he said he would be.”

That was interesting.

“Did you ask him about it?”

“Yeah, and he said he left early to help his mom, but it was a lie.”

“He’s not a good liar,” Peter said. He tapped Andy and said “Tell her about your mom.”

“Well, he talked to my mom a couple weeks before he died.”

“About?”