Unhinged (Necessary Evils #1)(19)

Adam leaned in. “Instinctively, what do you think you should do?”

“Run fast and far away from you,” Noah said without thought.

Adam grinned like he’d just somehow put Noah in check mate. “Then, by your own logic, you should do the opposite. And stay. With me.”

“This is crazy.”

“All the best things are.”





Adam was well versed in being where he didn’t belong. He’d been breaking into people’s houses almost since he was old enough to cross the street unassisted. Noah clearly had not. He sat beside Adam in the car, staring at Gary’s front door like he expected a SWAT team waited on the other side.

Noah’s worried face made Adam want to forget all about the plan. He was sure he could think of something else for the two of them to do, something that didn’t involve triggering Noah’s worst memories. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Adam sighed, looking out across the well-manicured lawn of Gary’s ranch style home. The guy was paranoid, but he wasn’t very bright. He had surveillance at every corner of his house. Hell, even his doorbell had a camera, but they were all on his wi-fi. His easily hackable wi-fi. It had only taken Calliope minutes to take control of his feeds and loop them so he’d never know they were there. She’d also run a background check, looked at his bank accounts, and attempted to access his laptop.

That was where they’d run into an issue. Gary had NSA-level encryption software, making his system unhackable from the outside. So, not that stupid, Adam supposed. Still, he had more than one computer, so all they could do was clone whichever computer Gary had left behind and hope there was something incriminating behind that encryption software.

“You ready?” Adam asked.

Noah worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “What if we get caught?”

“We won’t get caught. The cameras are looped, the alarm is deactivated. We have the key to his front door. Just look like we belong here and nobody is going to bat an eye. We’re just friends watering his plants.”

“So, we just go in and ransack his house? Won’t he know we’ve been there?”

“No, we go in and you carefully look through his stuff for anything related to his…extracurricular activities. I’m going to clone his hard drive and give it to Calliope so she can take her time cracking it. Chances are Gary has been doing this so long he thinks he’s untouchable. That’s what happens with all these guys. Eventually, they get lazy, and that’s how they get caught.”

Noah swallowed audibly, giving a nervous nod. “Yeah, okay.”

“Hey, you good?” Adam asked, gripping Noah’s chin and tipping it upwards, examining his face. Most people were easy to read, but Noah’s face either said nothing or everything, just like Noah himself. Adam merely wanted to give him what he needed.

“Yeah. Part of me is just afraid of what I’ll find in there.”

Adam leaned into Noah’s space, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck and tugging him in close. “Listen, there’s a good chance that while we’re in there, we’ll find something you can’t unsee. So, look but don’t absorb. Got it? Turn your brain off. Take pictures of whatever you think is important, but don’t look at any one thing for too long. Don’t let anything in.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Let’s do this.” Noah pulled the handle, swinging the passenger door wide.

Adam snagged his arm before he could leave. “I can go alone if you want me to?”

Noah’s eyes widened, then went kind of soft. “No. I need to do this.”

Adam got that. He did. But he also didn’t want to see Noah break under the weight of what he learned. There was already a strange hollow look in his eyes, a kind of misery that came from years of struggle and disappointment, like an animal that had been beaten enough to never trust another human. Adam didn’t want one more thing to disappoint Noah, but he also knew this crusade was going to be a burden he carried for life.

Noah was already learning that he’d endured the worst kind of abuse at a young age. No matter how much he thought he could shut down any memories from surfacing in the future, it just wasn’t possible. The more he poked at his past, the more likely he was going to remember the minute details. And that was going to hurt more than he knew.

They’d dressed in civilian clothes, jeans and t-shirts, making sure to look like two regular guys with every right to be in this surprisingly upper class suburban neighborhood. The only precautions they’d taken in advance were the thin medical grade gloves they’d donned in the car, but they’d be undetected at a distance.

They used the keys to enter the house, closing the door and locking it behind them. There were two open rooms off the foyer, one which held a pool table, the other office equipment.

Adam pointed to the desktop computer and then his backpack. “I’m going to get this started. I’ll come find you in a few minutes. I know you said we have all night, but the faster we’re in and out the better.”

Noah nodded, moving deeper into the darkened recesses of the house.

Once Adam began cloning the hard drive of Gary’s desktop computer, a window popped up telling him it would take approximately fifteen minutes, standard for an average home computer. He spent those fifteen minutes rifling through Gary’s desk drawers, finding little of interest in the top two. The bottom drawer was locked. Interesting. Adam opened the top drawer, searching for something to pick the lock, rolling his eyes when he saw the key under a desk organizer tray. The man really was stupid. Adam unlocked the drawer, heart rate accelerating as he saw the laptop inside.