His hands flew over the track pad. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“What were you doing? Paying bills, sending emails, surfing for porn…？” His disinterested gaze climbed to Vero’s chest. By the look on his face, it hadn’t been worth the effort.
I maneuvered between Vero and the counter before she decided to smash my laptop over his head. “Let’s say I was on a chat board, and I posted a message anonymously. Would someone be able to trace that message back to this computer?”
He shrugged. “Some rando in the seat next to you? Probably not. Someone who knows what they’re doing? Maybe.”
“Let’s assume it’s someone who knows what they’re doing. How long would it take them to trace that post back to me?”
“Don’t know,” he said as he clicked through my device. Derek barely had time to pull back his hands before Vero reached across the counter and slammed my laptop closed. He shook out a fingertip, glaring at her. “It’s not a simple question, lady! The answer depends on a lot of things.”
“What things?” she asked.
He huffed, as if the answers should be obvious. “I don’t know. Like, a lot of things: the browser, the network, the website, how your computer is registered…”
“Is there a way to keep someone from finding out it was me?”
“Look,” he said, raising his hands, “I’m just a hardware guy. You’d need to talk to someone who knows networking and shit.”
“Is there someone like that here?” I asked. “Someone who could … you know … make a problem like this go away?”
Derek looked back and forth between us, his gaze lingering on Vero’s designer sunglasses, then to the Charger logo on the fancy key fob dangling from her knockoff Prada purse. His pudgy index finger absently traced the Apple insignia on the cover of my laptop as he darted a glance at the EMPLOYEES ONLY door behind him and lowered his voice. “I might know a guy.” He fished a worn leather wallet on a chain from his back pocket, retrieving a business card from its folds. He pushed it across the counter. There was no name on either side when I turned it over. Just a phone number on plain white card stock. “Ask for Cam.”
Vero studied her nails and muttered, “Is he twelve, too?”
I shot her a look. “She means, is he any good?”
Derek glanced once more to the door behind him, then rested his elbows on the counter and whispered, “Last year, I got catfished by some chick online. She talked me into sending her a dick pic.” Vero made a gagging sound, and I stepped hard on her toe. “This chick posted it on a bunch of sites,” he continued. “She thought she’d covered her tracks, but Cam found her in less than an hour. He hacked into her accounts and pulled down all the pics before too many people saw my junk.” The kid nodded, a hushed reverence in his voice when he said, “Yeah, he’s good.”
Vero didn’t look convinced, but I didn’t care how old Cam was. Good was what I needed right now.
Derek held out a hand. “That’ll be forty bucks.”
“Forty?” Vero tore off her sunglasses, her eyes bugging out of her head. “Are you kidding?”
I pulled my credit card from my wallet, eager to get my computer back and leave.
“Sorry,” he said. “Card reader’s down. Cash only.”
“You’re a tech repair shop! How is your card reader down?” Vero tacked on a few expletives as I scraped two twenties from the bottom of the diaper bag. The kid took them without offering a receipt. “Let me guess,” she deadpanned. “Your printer’s down, too. Help desk, my ass,” she grumbled.
Derek smirked and stuffed the bills in his pocket. “Good luck,” he said as he dumped the laptop in my hands.
My answering laugh was wry. Luck and I? We didn’t exactly have the best track record.
I tucked Cam’s card in my pocket, hoping he was lucky enough for both of us.
CHAPTER 12
Vero wrestled the key into the lock to Ramón’s garage, her breath billowing out in quick bursts around her quiet swears when the key stuck. With a final wrench, we tumbled inside, rubbing our arms against the cold night air. My sister had agreed to keep Delia and Zach for the night, payback for sending Nick to Career Day. I could think of a million other things I’d rather be doing on my child-free night, most of them involving Julian and body heat under a pile of warm blankets, but he was still incommunicado on a hot beach in Florida, and I was freezing my ass off with Vero in an empty garage.