Page 48 of Byte

“I’ll call her now,” I said and headed for the stairs.

16

BYTE

While Gabby went upstairs to call her sister, I grabbed a beer from the fridge and dropped onto the couch in the living room.

“Why do you think this girl is trying to sabotage Gabby?” Flint asked.

“I’ve been thinking about that, and I honestly don’t know. Initially, I thought it might be because of jealousy, but that doesn’t make sense. They don’t work together. They aren’t in classes together. I’m Gabby’s boyfriend, so it’s not a jealous ex thing,” I explained.

“Wait. You two are together?”

“Yeah,” I grinned. “I’m surprised word hasn’t gotten around. It’s not a secret.”

“What about the guy who broke into Gabby’s house? Could he be connected to this Lauren chick?”

“At this point, I think anything’s possible,” I said and went to the kitchen to grab my laptop. Then I sent a quick text to Gabby.

Byte:What’s Lauren’s last name?

Gabby:Wiener

I tried not to laugh. I really did. But I failed miserably.

“What’s so funny?” Flint asked.

“I asked Gabby for Lauren’s last name,” I said and tried to compose myself. “It’s Wiener.”

“Wiener? Like a hot dog?” Flint chuckled.

“Yep,” I laughed. “And normally, I wouldn’t make fun of a person’s name, but she deserves it. So, from this point on, I will only refer to her as Wiener. Maybe Weenie, on occasion.”

“No judgment here. She fucked with a member of our family. The rules no longer apply to her,” he said seriously.

“Well,” I said and opened up my laptop. “Let’s see what we can find.”

Finding information on Wiener was much easier than finding information on Chad. Within seconds of typing her name and pressing enter, I knew her full name, age, date of birth, and address. A few clicks later, I had her phone number, email address, a list of previous addresses, and a list of potential relatives.

Flint joined me on the couch and watched my screen intently. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You can take notes for me,” I said and handed him a notebook and pen.

We spent the next hour digging into the life of Lauren Wiener. And we uncovered quite a bit of pertinent information.

“What are you two doing?” Gabby asked when she came back downstairs.

“Checking into Wiener,” I said, causing Flint to chuckle. “How did Keegan take the news?”

“Oh, she’s pissed,” Gabby said. “And I mean really pissed. She wanted to call Papa and tell him so he could ‘put his rifleto good use.’ Thankfully, Jacob and I were able to convince her otherwise.”

“Oh, hell. I didn’t even think about how Ranger would react. You, Keegan, and Quincy are the only ones he’ll listen to. Seriously, you may have to ask him to stand down.”

“What about Phoenix?”

“Do you know how many times I’ve heard Ranger say he was around when Phoenix was in diapers? He respects the hell out of Phoenix, but no one is going to stop that man if he thinks he’s doing the right thing for his family. Remember when I told you he almost shot an FBI agent? It wasn’t Phoenix that stopped him. It was Keegan.”

“That was when my father kidnapped her, right?”

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