Page 32 of Hacking His Code

“What is so pressing that—”

Her eyes grow frantic. “I have one week. One week. If I can just figure this out, not only will I give your family peace, but I can make most of my troubles disappear.”

I give a short nod. “I see. What have you found?”

“I couldn’t get into the file addressed to your father, so I took a break from it. I did manage to find where Lucy’s personal trainer was during his unaccounted for time gap.”

My brow shoots upward. “I’m all ears.”

“He had a secret email that no one knew about, even the police. It was telling.”

“How’d you find that?”

“He emails things to himself under the email catching-you-at-aero-net-dot-com. He’s had the email for almost thirty years. Come to find out, he was doing gay porn at the time of your aunt’s disappearance.”

“Wow…Ari, you’ve really gone above and beyond.”

“When your aunt went missing. He was actually down in Brazil filming, having flown by way of private jet.”

“May I have a look?” I nod to the screen.

She pushes the laptop toward me, and I click through the various emails, scanning the dates.

“Oh, shit!” Ari pulls the laptop from me, slamming it shut.

I blink, trying to register what just happened.

“Sorry, but there’s something you shouldn’t see.”

“Ari, what have you been doing on my computer? And how worried should I be?”

“It’s nothing?”

“Did that porn lead to other porn? Scared I’ll find out your…type?”

“No! It’s regarding the case, but it’s not something you need to know.”

“This is my investigation, so nothing should be off-limits.”

“Trust me…you do not want to see what’s in those emails…”

“Is it gay pics or something?”

“Let’s just leave it at it will in no way change the investigation.”

“That’s not good enough, Ari.”

Her shoulders slump. “Okay, but don’t be mad at me. There are naked pictures of your aunt.”

“Jesus…”

“They’re just personal pics, and he hasn’t distributed them as far as I can tell. From what I gather, he didn’t want his gay porn secret getting out, so he never told investigators that he was out of the country during the time gap.”

“Shit…they’ve been investigating him for years, and it’s all been for nothing.”

If I’m not mistaken, Arinessa’s looking rather cocky with her find. I like a woman who’s proud of her work. It’s sexy.

“It seems like I’m off to a promising start,” Ari says smugly. “Who knows what else we’ll find.”