Page 16 of Watch Me Burn

“Yup. But this isn’t some nugget that just dropped onto the web a week ago. The high school website is stripped and revamped every year, so it’s hard to find old teachers if you don’t know where to search.” Popping up the tab with my dad’s Facebook friend list, I explained, “A bit of synchronization helped me pick out the right guy. Turns out one of my dad’s friends is still teaching, thankfully.”

Ethan clicked his tongue. Would it kill him to not be passive-aggressive for two seconds?

Anyway, I was proud to make some progress in our investigation. Which wasn’t so hard to do when the last PC I touched wasn’t a Windows XP from a rusty attic.

Back when I was little, I remember my dad mentioning Mr. Lautner as one of his buddies that’d go with him for coffee on break. He even donated to a fund that was used toward buying me a car when I turned sixteen—something that any regular old friend wouldn’t do.

“Well?” Ethan cut the silence, staring at me expectantly. “Are we going to contact him or what?”

I blinked out of my self-praising daze, sputtering, “Oh, yeah. Let me go do that, too.” I could hear a groan come out of his mouth, but where was his place to judge? I was the one who actually found something. Even if I wasn’t too sure still why we were looking into my dad’s old friends anyway.

“I’m still not so sure though why we are chasing old teachers down. None of them had any reason to hurt my dad.”

“Agreed. But we need to rebuild your dad’s whole world. To find cracks. Anything out of the ordinary at work or at home could help make sense of all of this.”

“Well, there were no fractures at my home.”

“Some might be smaller than others, but there is no home without cracks,” he countered. I decided to leave that one alone, as he was right.

Hovering my mouse over as many prompts as I could find, I mumbled, “Huh . . . I think Lautner’s page is deactivated.”

“Why do you think that?” Ethan asked.

I struggled through the page for a bit longer before saying, “There isn’t anywhere for me to send him a message. It’s usually not like this for me when I’m trying to reach out to someone.”

Ethan knit his eyebrows, then leaned closer to my laptop. “May I?” he asked, hands inches from the laptop’s keyboard.

Not like he’d find anything, but it was worth a shot. “Sure,” I said. I instantly regretted sliding it over, knowing he hadn’t operated a computer in a decade. He probably still thought those “free movie” download websites were legitimate forms of philanthropy.

After clicking around a few times, he reclined back in his stool. “You need to add him as a friend. Happens for a lot of old and private people.”

My cheeks flushed. Well, there was to being the technologically advanced one. “Oh,” I said.

Clicking the mouse, Ethan quipped, “Got it handled. He should be replying soon.”

I nodded, rising from my seat. “We had a good run today,” I commented while shutting my laptop and securing it under my arms. “I’ll need to review some work stuff now that we’re pretty much in the wait-and-see period. But I’ll update you if anything crops up. You are more than welcome to wait, although might take a while.”

He looked around my apartment as if it was a castle with a private butler. Prison must have really been hell if he thought my place fancy.

“I’ll stick around and watch TV if that’s okay.”

“Sure, but no more sneaky showers.”

Ethan saluted my way, and with that, I shut myself in my bedroom.

Hopefully, Mr. Lautner would open up to us. He was our brightest glimmer of hope.

Chapter 7

Ethan

“EEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Anna squealed from her room. I sprang out of her den’s beanbag, rushing to her bedroom.

She was already skipping out of her bedroom, a grin plastered across her rouge face.

“What happened?” I asked in an eager tone. Seeing her happy naturally lightened my mood, especially since most of our encounters had faced a bitter undertone to them for the past week. I understood the dynamics of my presence here, but the constant fights just weren’t fun.

Bursting with excitement, Anna exclaimed, “Guess who got their friend request accepted today?!” She was still in her work clothes, a navy bodycon snug against her sexy butt as she bent to place her laptop on the table.

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