And it was almost two o’clock. Ariel would wake shortly.Merde.
With most of his programs transferred from his laptop into one of Ariel’s computers, he finished a data run, closed down, and logged out. He could hear the shower running, so he limped for the kitchen.
It was like living with a spook. A spooked spook. Like a fragile fawn, she shied away anytime he came near. Jax had explained her disabilities, but Roark wasn’t a tip-toe kind of person. He respected her difference. He just couldn’t handle it.
Until he could dig his family out of whatever hole they’d fallen into, he had to.
He made some of the funky herbal tea that Ariel liked, fried an egg, set it on some toast, and left it on her computer desk. She ought to eat before going to work.
It was too early to hit the sack. He’d have to use this time for collating data. But eventually he’d have to set up a VPN to see if Da’s scammers had set up again. For that, he’d need a credit card.
That problem rumbled around in the back of his mind while he worked over the data collected so far. The porch was steamy, but the shade allowed him to see his monitor. He’d learned to work like this in Afghanistan. He could do it, even if he didn’t like it.
He heard Ariel enter the front room. Resentfully, he tossed some slugs at the pampered, greedy turtle poking its head from his little house. Turtles ought to eat vegetables and feed themselves.
He crosschecked the list of phone bank calls against any that went to his father and brothers and removed those to one side of the matrix. The idiots knew nothing about security.
That still left him with hundreds of victims to identify.
He was lining up the phone numbers Ariel had related to bank accounts when he heard footsteps inside and the front door opened. Ariel had tied all her long sable hair with a zip tie. In one lush swoop, it fell over breasts concealed by a white shirt when she set an iced glass of tea on his makeshift desk.
Saying nothing, she returned inside. A text message followed.bank crooks
At the same time, an email appeared in his computer mailbox. Roark sipped his icy drink, opened the email, and downloaded a matrix even more elaborate than his own.
He was more interested in the fact that the autistic angel had lowered herself to bringing him a cold drink than in the complicated intersections of banks and crooks. He assumed these names werecrooks. Where did she get that language? Old movies?
He ran a few of the names through his networks, and his eyes nearly crossed.
She’d literally meantbankcrooks. Half these names were associated with the banks in the region where his father operated. Leave it to Da to corrupt bank officials.
Nine
Jax spentthe morning worrying about Evie and Loretta loose in Savannah. Reuben didn’t have a caretaking bone in his body. The engineering nerd was all about the goal. That was great in a work environment—not so much around kids and danger-prone females.
As he finished up a basic contract for one of his clients, he tried to convince himself he was being sexist. Evie wasn’t helpless by any means. She’d proved that often enough over these last—what?—five months or so. She didn’t do things the way he did was all.
She was half his size and twice as breakable.
He gritted his teeth and shot the document over to his client. He jotted down his billable hours and wished for an intern to do the basic grunt work. Writing wills and contracts was way below his pay grade.
He didn’t earn enough to pay an intern or even a secretary. Suing the former mayor put serious dents in his ability to attract paying clients. Suing a company owned by powerful politicians for unpaid royalties on his father’s patents occupied too much of his time. He couldn’t eat personal satisfaction. He needed to be thinking of expanding his business, not about Evie.
Considering taking lunch with the courthouse crowd, Jax checked the tracer app on Loretta’s phone. The responsibility of taking care of a kid worth millions weighed on his conscience.
She was apparently right where Evie had promised to take her—an expensive children’s boutique on the edge of the historic district. They’d probably do lunch next, and then... Evie would almost certainly take Loretta ghost hunting.
He buzzed Reuben. “Bored yet?”
“These are my people, bro,” Reuben replied with a hint of puzzlement. “Granny was stealing the identities of middle-class ladies like my mom, living in those 60s housing developments with big houses and yards and broken-down fences and high taxes. Does that even make sense?”
“Little old ladies in big houses have pensions and savings accounts and no mortgage. Makes perfect sense, especially if they’re widows. Rich ladies have brokers and lawyers and probably hungry families guarding their assets.”
“But these ones are all white. I can’t go in there and start asking questions without them calling the cops. I’m not picking up any signal from any of them either. No wi-fi, no phone calls. Maybe they’re all dead.”
“In which case, you need to get your ass outta there. But think about it—how old are these women? In their eighties like Granny Gump? Most of their friends and half their families have probably passed on. Who are they going to call? They’re unlikely to own computers and are probably not driving or socializing much more than church on Sunday. They’re lonely. If they had anyone watching over them, they wouldn’t be prone to phone scams.”
“Huh. Well, guess I’ll go get lunch and wait for Evie to get herself in trouble. How long you think that’ll take?”