Page 33 of The Five Year Lie

“Okay, that’s fair,” I grumble. “I’m sure the entire programming staff thought of me as a spoiled brat. They probably still do. Whatever.”

“Nah.” He reaches for the cream and dumps it into his coffee. “They just think you’re hot.”

I ignore that. “So what do you think Drew was doing? Vandalism? Espionage? Stealing corporate secrets?”

“Hard to say at this point. And the tape ends a few weeks after his arrival. I’ll have to swipe another one to keep looking. Or...” He eyes me over the rim of his coffee mug.

“Or?”

“You could steal it,” he says. “They’re on the shelf in Ray’s office. You’re in and out of there a lot more often than I am.”

I hesitate. But only for a second. “Sure. Tell me how to find the right one.”

“Easy peasy. They’re sequentially numbered.” He glances around the patio before fishing the tape he’d stolen out of his pocket and passing it to me. “When I took this one, I nudged the end of the row so that it wasn’t obvious that one was missing. All you have to do is slide the next one out and push this one into the empty slot.”

“Okay. Sure.” I stow the tape in my bag, feeling a weird rush of adrenaline. Digging into Drew’s lies won’t make them less real. But I know I’m not going to be able to walk away. “This feels like looking over Drew’s shoulder.”

“Five years later, but yeah. Isn’t it fun?”

“Sure, sure. The way playing with live grenades is fun.”

He laughs. “It’s fun for me because it’s not my life. I just get to play private investigator.”

The waitress puts two big sandwiches down on the table in front of us, and we pause our conversation just long enough to thank her.

Then I pick up my sandwich, suddenly hungry. “You’d make a good private investigator.”

“Yeah, up until the minute I came face-to-face with a bad guy. He’d just snap me in half.”

I try not to laugh.

I fail.

12

FIVE YEARS AGO, JUNE

“Welcome to the warrant desk. I’m Evan.”

When Evan holds out a hand, Drew shakes it. It’s a Friday afternoon, and they’re standing one floor above Drew’s usual desk.

“I really appreciate you volunteering for this shift. I usually take the Friday night myself, but my niece is having her dance recital, and my sister says I’m an asshole if I don’t show up.”

“Hey, it’s no problem. We’ve all been there.”And you have no idea how eager I was to volunteer.

“Take a seat, and let’s do this.” Evan rubs his hands together. He’s a tanned white guy in his twenties with an easy demeanor. “There are two ways for police to access Chime Co. cameras. The easy way is to request footage from consumers who use the app.”

“Right. PriSys. And most people say yes.” Drew’s been researching this since his chat with Trevor. Police make over a thousand requests each day, and eighty-two percent of their requests for footage are granted.

“Sometimes people say no, though. Or sometimes police don’t want to tip off the neighbors. That’s when they get a warrant instead. The cop fills out an affidavit and submits it to a judge. If the judge signs off on it, that request ends up here.” He pats the monitor. “Our job is to review each one to make sure it’s complete.”

“Huh. So how did you get this job?”

Evan parks his hip against the desk. “I work in marketing as a law enforcement liaison, but I’m also the warrant desk manager.”

No conflict of interest there. Jesus.

“Handling law enforcement requests is a pain. But with great power comes great responsibility.” Evan smirks. “This year we’re on pace to get twelve hundred warrants and court orders—the highest number yet. We’re staffed until eight p.m. every night. Friday is the busiest day of the week, so you’ll get three or four in the next couple of hours. Make yourself comfortable.”