“Your place?” I asked, immediately suspicious of her enthusiastic tone. “Why? I mean … not that I’m complaining, but you do realize there would be diapers involved.” I followed her to the kitchen as she helped herself to a cup of coffee and a handful of dry cereal from the pantry.
“Nick called me this morning. He told me that someone wants to off your ex-husband. And while I imagine the list of candidates must be pretty long, he’s got some theory that Feliks Zhirov is connected to the whole thing. Something about a post he found online.”
The ad. Nick must have found the forum last night. Georgia shrugged, popping a handful of Cheerios in her mouth and talking around it. “Nick’s got good instincts. If he’s worried enough to put an officer on your house, then it’s probably smart to have the kids stay somewhere else for a while. Nick’s got his partner covering Steven’s place and he can’t afford the manpower to put another rotation at Mom and Dad’s, so he suggested I keep the kids for a couple of days until he can get the whole thing sorted out.”
“And that’s all he mentioned?” I asked cautiously.
“That and some tirade about a website disappearing from the internet this morning. He seemed pretty worked up about it.”
The forum. Feliks must have had his people take it down overnight.
It was done. We’d done it. Now all we had to do was track down Theresa and Aimee before Nick did. “Do you know where Nick is now?” If he’d gone home to get some sleep, that would buy us a solid head start.
“He’s chasing down a lead on that missing CI he’s been looking for.”
I set down my coffee. “He has a lead?”
Georgia shrugged. “Sounds like it. He hung up before I had a chance to ask him about it. You know how he gets.”
I knew, all right. Enough to know Nick definitely wasn’t home sleeping.
“I’ll go get the kids.” I excused myself from the kitchen and raced up the stairs, nearly knocking Vero over where she stood eavesdropping in the hall. “Did you hear that?” I asked, dragging her into my bedroom. “Cam probably still has copies of everything he found on that women’s forum. If Nick finds him and gets his hands on those files, everything we risked last night was for nothing.”
“We have to find Cam before Nick does,” Vero whispered.
“But Nick said Cam hasn’t been at home or at school.”
Vero shook her head. “When someone’s in trouble, they don’t hide where they’re supposed to be. Not at home, not with family. They lay low with a friend. Or maybe an accomplice—someone who has just as much to lose if they’re found.”
Like Aimee and Theresa. Or Vero and me. She’d moved into my home right after we’d buried a body. “Who would someone like Cam hide with?”
“Pack up the kids,” Vero said, grabbing a hoodie from my dresser drawer and tossing it in my hands. “I’ll wait for you in the Charger at the playground. Get rid of your sister and leave through the backyard. I’ve got a pretty good idea where to find our missing hacker.”
* * *
An hour later, Vero banged her knuckles on the counter in the tech shop. Derek sat behind the register, staring at his phone.
“We’re looking for Cam,” Vero said brusquely.
“Don’t know him,” Derek replied without looking up.
“Last time we were here, you gave us his card,” I reminded him. “You told us he could help us fix a network problem.”
“Sorry. Doesn’t ring any bells.”
Vero got close to his face and raised her voice. “Let me jog your memory, Derek. He’s about your age. Blond. Skinny. Smart-ass. And, according to you, he has a talent for cleaning up ugly dick pics.”
Two girls in the accessory aisle stood on their toes to peer over the divider at us. Derek ducked lower on his stool. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t know why you’re bothering to cover for that little shit. Especially after he offered to sell me your nudes.”
Derek’s head snapped up. He dropped his phone on the counter, knocking over his stool as he stood and shoved his way through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door behind him. Vero and I rushed after him as he threw open a door to a break area containing a kitchenette and a ratty sofa. Cam was inside, seated at a plastic table, holding a large Slurpee to the side of his face.
“What the hell, man?” Derek shouted.
Cam sprung from his chair. A deep gash sliced across his cheek and his left eye was swollen shut. His other went wide when he saw me. He held his Slurpee protectively close as Derek surged toward him and backed him into the corner.