Page 48 of The Five Year Lie

I sit down and start my day, but Zain does not appear. And as the morning wears on, it makes me increasingly anxious. Zain doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’s ever late for work. Maybe his buddy found something and Zain doesn’t want to tell me.

Or maybe he’s at the dentist and I’ve completely lost my sense of perspective.

By ten a.m. I’m just about to send out a search party when he heaves himself into his chair with a sigh and peeks into the bakery bag. “Any chance this is for me?”

“It is,” I say, sounding irked. “But the coffee is cold. Since when are you late for work?”

“Since I had to go to the Portland PD and fill out a lengthy report of all the shit that was stolen from my home this weekend.”

“What? Seriously?”

He nods, miserable. “Last night I went out to play D&D—don’t judge—and when I came home at twelve thirty, the place was trashed.”

A chill runs up my spine. “What did they take?”

“Computers. Five of them, all expensive. Including my, uh, air gap.”

“You mean the one you used...?”

He gives a jerky nod, like he’s embarrassed.

Then I have a truly awful thought. “What about the...” My eyes dart toward Ray’s office, where the tapes live.

“No, no,” he says quickly. “I had it in my pack. Still have it.”

I almost melt with relief.

“The data was still on that machine. But it wouldn’t look interesting to a thief.”

This doesn’t make me feel much better. “Have you ever gotten robbed before?”

“No.” Zain pauses to pop the top on his cold coffee and take a gulp. “But my stuff is worth some serious money, and anyone could see my setup through the basement windows. That’s how they got in—breaking a window and jumping down. Then they just carried my stuff out the door.”

“I’m sorry.” That’s what I should have led with. Oops. “Are you out a lot of money?”

“I do some crypto mining, and I have a lot of gear. But I also havegood insurance. And they didn’t take my monitors, which seems weird to me. Those are spendy. But they’re also big and bulky.” He shrugs. “The cops think they went out through the backyard. My mom heard them, actually. But my place has a separate entrance, and she just thought it was me.”

“Oh man.”

He shakes his mouse and turns his attention to his two giant computer monitors. There’s a hierarchy in this room—the more important the programmer, the more square feet of monitor space. Zain doesn’t want to talk about his theft anymore, I guess. “Did some work on our project, though,” he says.

“Yeah? Any news?” I try not to sound as desperate as I feel.

He stares up at his screen and starts typing in that manic way he has. “His computer password was Harrietta. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing,” I whisper. “That’s it? Just one word?”

“Well, theIwas the number one, and there’s a period at the end. Because he wasn’t born yesterday. But yeah, just that word. Maybe it was his great-aunt’s name or something?”

I make a mental note to look it up later. “What else?”

“He spent a lot of time opening search warrants and reading them. He looked at every search warrant in Maine in 2016. Then he stopped when he got to, like, May or June, and started over at the beginning.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, where a headache is forming. “Any idea why?”

Zain shakes his head. And then his foot nudges mine. Hard.

I look up to see my uncle approaching my desk. “Morning!” he says. “Thanks for breakfast. Could I ask you to get out the projector for the Monday meeting? We’re giving a presentation.”