Page 39 of Sinful Attraction

I get back to work as soon as I have coffee in me. Focusing on solving these problems becomes a refuge. I start to understand why Arya gets like this. How much pain is she carrying that she has to distract herself like this?

I have a growing list of people to investigate, including Maria’sfriend. My only leads are his face, the story from my dad that he’s helping her with her computer, and my suspicion that he’s selling her drugs. I start with isolating images of him and running high-level image searches on them.

There are a whole hell of a lot of average-to-fat, unkempt, beardy guys out there with computer expertise, bland features, brown hair, and pervy tendencies.If only I knew this guy’s name!

As it is, I have a lot of narrowing down to do, so I automate that as much as I can and go to run searches on the few others.

Three hours of that nets me a big fat zero. Annoying but not all that unexpected. I continue narrowing the search down on our mystery creep. I don’t like the idea that I can’t find anything on him. It’s like his Internet presence has been...

Scrubbed. Like that maid. But in his case, actually, scrubbed well.

But that just makes me even more suspicious. This guy seems pretty anonymous, pretty dull... but if he really were, my sisterwould never bother with him. He has something that makes him stand out to her, and I don’t think she’d put up with his weird behavior just for good weed.

I’m overthinking this.But what if I’m not? The guy’s creepy and bland and looks like he should be incompetent. But maybe he isn’t incompetent. Maybe he used my sister, who is an idiot, to get into our system somehow and rob us blind.

“How likely is this? The guy looks like a dork,” I mutter to myself.

So do some serial killers.The thought makes me tense a little. There’s really no bottom to how much of an airhead my sister is, so I don’t know how dangerous this guy really is or what he could get her to do.

It’s just a theory, but it’s setting off alarm bells in my head.Why is this nondescript weirdo such a ghost online?

I need to find out more about him, but I have to do it without setting off alarm bells in my family, and that’s going to be tough, especially if Maria is protective of him.

What I want to do is confront her directly and demand to know who the hell the guy is and what he’s talked her into doing. But that’s a good way to stir up a gigantic Maria tantrum.

Billy, on the other hand, is easygoing and charming and has mostly been able to stay on Maria’s good side in spite of her being a gigantic pain in everyone’s ass. He’s also better atbullshitting than I am. If anyone can get in under Maria’s guard, it’s my little bro.

I phone him up and hear classic metal in the background when he picks up. “Yo,” he says, sounding a little distracted.

“Hey, bro. I have more information, and I need to talk to you about it.”

He cuts me off gently. “Okay, but it might have to wait a bit. I’m out with my girl.”

Ouch. “Oh, shit, sorry.”

“That’s cool. Leave the details in an email for me if it’s urgent. I’ll call you back tomorrow morning.”

I sign off and mutter a curse as I shove my phone into my pocket. The last thing I want right now is to be left alone with my thoughts, waiting on other people. But here I am.

I spend the night going through the evidence and trying to chase Maria’s phantom friend down on the Internet. Nothing, nothing, and nothing.

It hurts my pride that I couldn’t find anything. It pisses me off that I am so incapable of catching up to him. Is this guy simply so nondescript and under the radar that he has no online profile to speak of? Are his features too bland and repeatable to be caught by my program? Or am I once again missing something?

Arya would know. Either she would point it out, or we’d figure it out together. God, we were such a good team. I was better around her. More focused, more skilled. Now that she is gone, all I really think of clearly is her.

I just hope that, wherever she is, she’s doing okay and plans to come back.

Chapter 18

Arya

It hurts to walk away from Michael, get in my car, keep my head up and my nerves together, and fight the San Francisco traffic until I make it across the bridge into Oakland. I know, somewhere in the back of my head, that I am overreacting a little bit. But I just keep driving, holding in my tears, curses, and regret over leaving until I can think about my next move.

I’m now parked on a hillside overlooking the spread of Oakland. Up here in the rolling hills, the dry grass is starting to green up out of season from the rain. The city sprawls out below, so different from how it had been when I was a kid. So much changed in only 10 years here, in San Francisco, in the South Bay.

Tent cities. People with three jobs, living in four- to two-bedroom apartments. Crime rates jumping, mostly upstarts who have nothing to do with the Families, blundering around and causing problems for everyone.

It’s rough out here. Rents through the roof, good jobs hard to come by, and whole cities where just parking on the street will get your car broken into or stolen at least a few times a year.

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