She snapped on a light in the waiting room. It was as stark and uninviting as I remembered—a handful of plastic chairs around a low, wobbly table and fluorescent lights framed in a ceiling of yellowing dropped tiles. Ramón’s shop had closed two hours ago, but Vero had a copy of his key and insisted her cousin wouldn’t mind if we used it after hours; I had no intention of inviting a mysterious hacker to my house.
Vero rubbed her arms, making a beeline for the thermostat. A moment later, the heat clicked on, the smell of propane sifting through the duct above my head, the memories it stirred making me shudder.
I gasped and clutched my chest when a notification pinged on my phone.
“Someone’s a little jumpy,” Vero said, rubbing her hands together for warmth.
“Can you blame me?” The last time I’d been in this room, Feliks Zhirov’s goon had pressed a knife to my throat and forced me into an interrogation with his boss. I’d avoided the garage since. I tapped my screen, hoping to find a pleasantly distracting message from Julian, but it was only a text from Aimee, thanking me for letting her spend time with the kids and confirming that she’d come by the house on Saturday.
A car door slammed outside. Knuckles rapped against the front window. I tucked away my phone and opened the door, frowning at the lanky teenage boy waiting on the step under the security light. Oily blond bangs swept over his eyes. He shook them aside to glare at me.
“You want to take a picture or something?” His hands were tucked into the pockets of an old army jacket that had been inked all over in Sharpie, the name above the breast pocket completely blacked out.
“You must be Cam?” I asked, hoping I was wrong.
“And you must be a genius. You gonna let me in?”
“Right.” I stepped aside. His light eyes raked over the hot rod magazines, the water cooler, and the shadowy hall that led to Ramón’s office before he came inside.
“We alone?” he asked. He didn’t give off any threatening vibes. If anything, he seemed jumpier than I did, careful to leave a few feet between us as he scanned his surroundings.
The heels of Vero’s boots clicked down the hall toward us and Cam inched back a step. “She’s a friend,” I said.
Vero came to an abrupt halt in front of him, hands planted on her hips, her long ponytail tipped to one side. “This is Cam? He’s a freaking kid.”
Cam gestured between us. “You two must be in Mensa together.”
I shot Vero a look, warning her not to say whatever was about to fly out of her mouth. “We can talk in the office,” I suggested.
“I’ll talk here.” The metal legs of a chair screeched as Cam dragged it a short distance from the others before sitting down. He slouched in his seat, the outline of his tight fists clear against the inside of his pockets. Vero and I sat across the low melamine table from him.
“You got my number from the shop?”
“The one in the mall,” I clarified. “The young man working behind the counter said you helped him with a rather sensitive privacy issue. I’m hoping you can help me with more of a security problem.”
Cam sucked a tooth, watching us from under his bangs. He leaned back, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. “I get two hundred for the house call, plus fifty per hour. Hardware and software installs cost an extra hundred per hour, plus parts.”
Vero’s jaw fell open. I thought she might come out of her chair. “Two hundred dollars just to show up?”
“Two fifty,” he corrected her. “Your hour started three minutes ago.”
“That’s some first-class, grade A bull—”
I slapped a hand over Vero’s lap, holding her down. “That’s fine. I have cash.” I just needed this problem to go away. I dug in my purse for his two hundred and fifty dollars and reached across the table, crumpling it into his hand.
He stuffed the money in the front pocket of his jeans. Arms crossed, he looked down his nose at me. “What kind of security problem?”
“There’s a forum,” I explained. “A message board I read sometimes. I don’t normally post there, but—”
“Is it private?” he cut in. “You log in to it with a password?”
“Yes. But I made an anonymous username.”
“Tied to your real email address?”
“No, I used a dummy account.”
He tipped his head. “Where were you when you set up the dummy email account?”
“The public library.”