Down to the Liar(4)

No offense, Bryn? Murphy and I are white-ass St. Aggie’s students, too, and we’re sitting right here.

“None taken, sweetie.” Bryn side-hugs her.

“I just want to get through this,” Skyla continues. “I don’t want to know anything. I just want you to take care of it.”

I chafe at Skyla’s restrictions. Making concessions is not how I roll. Truthfully, I’d probably pass on the job if it weren’t for Bryn’s personal stake in it. She’s part of the Julep circle of protection whether or not I like to admit there is such a thing. I owe it to her to at least try to solve her friend’s problem. I don’t owe it to her enough to do so for free, though.

“A thousand for the retainer, plus expenses,” I say. “We charge a hundred an hour for J.D. Investigations services. That’s for all of us, not each of us. If we earn out the retainer, I’ll bill you hourly from there. If we don’t, I’ll refund you the remainder.”

“Done,” Skyla says. “I’ll pay whatever it takes. Just fix it.”

“That is, in fact, exactly what we do.”

—

When Dani drops me off that night at the Ramirezes’ house, I ask Mike for information on the aboveboard methods for shutting down cyberattacks. I try not to rely too much on FBI-sanctioned (aka legal) solutions, but sometimes it really is the easiest way to achieve a goal.

“Let me get this straight,” Mike says after demolishing a piece of corn bread. “You’re asking me for advice? Angela, would you check her temperature? She must have been bitten by a zombie or something.”

“Ha. I’m so amused by you right now,” I say, and scarf another spoonful of Angela’s abuela’s famous mole poblano.

Mike and his wife, Angela, both work odd hours—him as a sometimes-undercover FBI agent and her as a nurse—so dinnertime shifts from four in the afternoon to eight-thirty at night depending on the day.

“Knock it off, Ramirez,” Angela says to Mike as she stacks our plates to take to the kitchen. But when she passes me, she rests the back of her free hand against my forehead. “Perfectly normal.”

“I’m surrounded by comedians,” I say.

“Better than being surrounded by teen-eating sharks,” Mike says.

“I’m not sure I’m not surrounded by teen-eating sharks, actually.”

“Explain,” he says, eyeing me sharply.

So I tell them about Skyla. When I’m done, Angela’s expression is a typical momlike mixture of horrified and sympathetic. “That’s awful. That poor girl.”

“The first thing I’d do is report it to Facebook,” Mike says, slathering butter on a second piece of corn bread.

I lean forward to snag another piece myself. “Whoever’s doing this would just create new accounts. We need to shut it down permanently.”

“Then you have to find out who’s doing it,” he says.

“Any ideas on how to do that?” I ask.

“Start with the victim.”

“I did. She says she has no idea who’s behind it.”

“Doesn’t mean following her around won’t give you leads,” he says. “It worked with you.”

I chew on that while he chews on corn bread. He has a point. Following me did lead him to Petrov (the mob boss I mentioned earlier). And I was too big an idiot at the time to realize that was what Mike was up to before Mike took Sam out of the game.

That night I lie in bed, staring up at the ceiling in Mike and Angela’s guest room, flipping through memories of the time before I became Julep Dupree, rescuer of human-trafficking victims. Tyler…I will always regret that I happened to him. But tonight I feel the loss of Sam more. We were in fourth grade when we started running the three-card monte scam on our classmates. I should be brainstorming this job with him, not Mike. We were eleven when we played our first false Good Samaritan scam to get out of gym class. He’s the best hacker I know, wicked smart and sensitive, all of which I desperately need on this job. We were thirteen when my dad disappeared the first time with no explanation, and all that stood between me and panic was a scrawny, half-black kid in a Clone Wars T-shirt. But he’s almost a thousand miles away, being brainwashed by military school. We were fifteen when he confessed that he was in love with me and then put his life on the line to help me save my dad. If he ever comes back, he won’t be my Sam anymore.