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“Honestly, Keegan, when have you had a chance to call them? You literally just sat down a few minutes ago,” I reminded her.

“I know,” she conceded. “This whole situation is just awful.”

“Tell me about it,” I commiserated. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get the image of her appearing at the back door covered in blood out of my head. And then Patch,” I paused and shook my head. “I knew he was hurt worse than Gabby, but I had no idea how bad it was.”

“I hate that she was hurt, but I’m so damn proud of her,” Keegan beamed.

“Me, too,” I agreed and nudged Keegan with my elbow. “Eat your sandwich.”

“Fine,” she huffed and took an exaggerated bite. “Happy now?” she asked with a mouthful of food.

She’d almost finished the entire sub when Jake, Quincy, and Flint arrived. “Mom,” Quincy cried and rushed into Keegan’s arms. “Are they going to be okay?”

“Yes,” Keegan assured. “They’re both going to be just fine. Patch is already out of surgery, and Gabby should be out soon.”

Flint filled the empty chair beside me and handed me my laptop. “I’ll swing back by your place on my way home to let Shadow out and put the chickens up for the night.”

“Thanks, brother,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” he said. “I heard Gabby took down the shooter and saved Patch’s life.”

“She did,” I said proudly. “Word travels fast around here.”

He shrugged. “My dad’s the president. I tend to hear things before the others do.” He shifted in his seat and gestured toward my laptop. “You need any help with anything?”

Suddenly, I recalled all the times he’d asked me that same question and felt like an asshole for not asking sooner. “Are you interested in computers?”

“Not the shit they were teaching at school, but the stuff you do looks interesting,” he said.

“If you want to learn, I’ll be happy to teach you,” I offered.

“You sure? Because I’m going to take you up on that offer.”

“I’m sure,” I said and handed my laptop back to him. “In fact, you can have your first lesson now.”

“Really?” he asked excitedly and opened the computer. “What are we looking for?”

“We need to find out who Lauren Wiener’s biological parents are,” I said and started explaining how we were going to go about it.

Flint was able to follow my instructions with little to no difficulty. There were even a handful of times where he knew what to do next without direction from me. He definitely had a knack for information retrieval, or as some liked to call it, hacking.

“I’ve got it,” he said. “Here are her birth records. Diana Wiener is listed as her mother. The father’s information is blank.”

“Yeah, I was kind of expecting that,” I grumbled. “We’ll come back to the father. Let’s see if we can find out where the mother is.”

Flint opened a new tab and started typing. “Is this her?” he asked moments later.

“I think so. Click on the details and see why she’s incarcerated.”

“Human trafficking and kidnapping,” Flint said.

“Open a new page and type her name and Lawrence Hastings,” I instructed.

Flint did as I said and brought up numerous articles listing Diana Wiener as an accomplice in Lawrence Hastings’s and Harold Hensley’s human trafficking operation.

“Of all the things you learn from me, what I’m about to tell you will be one of the most important. I’ve seen numerous hackers go down because they didn’t follow this one rule. If you can get the information by another means, do it. I don’t care if hacking will take less time. If you have another option, take it. Especially if it involves anything with high-level security, like government websites,” I explained.

“Is that what we need to do now?” Flint asked.

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