Page 74 of S.O.S. Perk

“Friendly, as in…?”

Yeah. He hadn’t yet told Sloane how he’d had to avoid the handsy woman.

“She, uh, thinks I’m good boy-toy material, and she’s let it be known that she wouldn’t mind getting…frisky with me.”

“Ewww,” Sloane responded. “That’s gross. You’re supposed to be seventeen.”

“I know. Itispretty skeevy, and I’ve managed to put her off so far.” Perk quickly revealed how he’d made up an STD to keep the woman at bay.

Sloane threw back her head and laughed. “That was quick thinking, Perk. How long do you think that excuse will hold?”

“I looked it up. Cure time with meds is seven days, but since I only just ‘found out’ about it, and it’s supposedly been hanging on for a while, I’m going to tell her the doc is giving me a full ten days until he considers me cured. At that point I’ll be off the hook because I told her I’m headed back to Cincinnati for the holidays.”

“Right. To share the game with your ‘old friends’,” Sloane confirmed. “I hear Smalley and Sarge have set up a bunch of phony names, purchasing phones under those IDs, and when you ‘give them the game’ the guys will download it onto the monitored devices.”

“Yup. And those fake people will all have lots of dough in a local Cincinnati Credit Union that Smalley fake-established, so when Jeremy tries to access the funds, cash will come through, but attached to it will be some kind of markers that I don’t quite understand. Those will hopefully trace where the funds go next.”

“You mean into crypto.”

“Exactly. Sarge and Smalley are fairly confident over some AI thing they’ve set up.”

“And if it doesn’t work, what’s your next step when you ‘come back’?” Sloane made air quotes around the words, because Perk wasn’t really going anywhere. He and his fake parents would just be lying low in places that weren’t the house where they supposedly lived.

“I’ll go back into the Nelsin household wearing a wire, so when I have to play nice with Mrs. Nelsin, she’ll hopefully let something drop that will incriminate her.”

“Going with the assumption that sheisthe kingpin here,” Sloane warned. “And that it’s not the missing husband or the computer teacher.”

“My gut says she’s behind it,” Perk responded, “but your office isn’t ruling the other two out, and they’re still trying to locate Felix Nelsin.”

“Right.I’veactually been on that one, and I feel like I’m getting close to finding him.”

“Good. The faster this is wrapped up, the sooner I can get back to my real life. Which includes dating you, meeting your friend Melissa as my true self, and introducing you to my family.”

“You…want me to meet your folks?” she squeaked, startling the horse who had just been nudging her for more carrots.

She reached into her pocket and procured another one to make up for the scare.

It did the trick.

“I do,” Perk answered, turning his head to look at her; growing serious. “I’ve been thinking about this. You’ve faced your troubles, now it’s time for me to face mine. My family needs to smarten up, and start treating me like an adult.”

“Which is where I come in?” Sloane asked.

“That’s right. I want the take-charge, no-nonsense Agent Vessers to inform them in no uncertain terms that their little boy has reached maturity.”

Sloane nodded, meeting his gaze with a steady one of her own.

“Gladly.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Sloane had followed Felix Nelsin’s physical and digital footprints as far as they took her, which clearly wasn’t far enough.

Sitting back in her chair, she let out a huge sigh. The last person to have seen the man had been his dry-cleaner. He’d dropped off a bunch of dress shirts at the local place five weeks prior, then never came back for a pickup.

His cell phone hadn’t been used during that period of time, either, and his car had disappeared from every traffic camera in and around the city shortly after the dry-cleaners had been visited. Monitors last had Nelsin driving south, for what Sloane had uncovered via phone records, was an interview with a gaming company on the Cape.

According to the CEO there, Nelsin had never arrived.

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