“Okay, I got around the basic password protection, but there’s a little extra encryption on this thing,” Zane finally told him. “I would call him paranoid if he hadn’t ended up dead.”
“I can’t believe he was one of Burns’s guys,” Ty said, shaking his head. “Was he recruited before or after Deuce and Livi started dating?”
“I don’t know, Ty,” Zane said without taking his eyes off the laptop screen.
“Would Dick really put a spy into Deacon’s future in-laws?”
Zane glanced at him. “I don’t know, Ty.”
“I mean, that seems like a stretch even for Dick. I wonder if Deuce dating her was what brought Dick’s attention to the Stanton company, or if Milton really did plant that seed?”
“I don’t know, Ty,” Zane repeated obediently. “Why don’t you go ask him? Maybe he’ll tell you more than he told me.”
Ty sighed heavily, shaking his head. “He won’t tell me anything, he’ll just glare at me like he used to when I was little and make me feel like I’m ten. You know who should talk to him? Dad. It’d be just as uncomfortable as it was when Irish was interrogating me; I bet he’d tell Dad anything. Are you listening to me?”
“No, Ty.”
Ty snorted and cocked his head at Zane. His brow was furrowed and his curly hair was a bit awry from running his fingers through it so many times. He had his tongue stuck between his lips and probably didn’t even realize it. Ty stood, stepping behind Zane to massage his tense shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m distracting you. Carry on.”
Zane rolled his neck, leaning into Ty’s hands. Ty was silent, letting him work. He still didn’t understand what Zane was doing, but finally Zane sat back and put both hands in the air triumphantly. “Eat that, DOD!”
“You got through?”
Zane nodded and clicked one more button that turned the blue screen of the laptop into the normal desktop screen Ty was used to seeing. Dozens of files littered the screen, most of them labeled in some sort of numerical code.
Ty rested his chin on Zane’s shoulder, dejected. “This is going to take a while, huh?”
Zane nodded. “Might want to take a seat.”
Nick sifted through the bowl of rice with great care, placing each piece of the cell phone on a microfiber towel he had found in a drawer. Kelly watched over Nick’s shoulder. When they had all the pieces, Nick began putting it back together.
He held the reassembled phone in his palm, and he and Kelly both scowled at it.
“Let’s hope it’s charged,” Kelly said.
Nick turned it on and held his breath. The sound was garbled and the screen was a digitized mess as the phone powered on, but they could sort of make out what they were seeing on it. Nick first went to the list of recent calls. Kelly scrambled to get his own phone out and take pictures of the screen. They got partial lists of Milton’s last calls, then moved on to the text messages. Some of them were beyond comprehension, but others were clear enough to make out. Kelly took photos of all of them.
The phone began to make a metallic whirring sound.
“Oh, that’s a bad sound,” Kelly said.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Just shut up and keep taking pictures.”
“That’s an ‘I’m going to blow up’ sound,” Kelly insisted.
“I know, but we only have one chance to get this shit.”
The phone popped, and they both jumped. The smell of burning electronics accompanied a sizzling sound, and after the first threat of fire, Nick dropped the phone into the bowl of rice. It sparked and fizzled, and the smell of burning rice mingled with the lingering aroma of industrial-strength cleanser in the kitchen.
Kelly huffed and sniffed at the bowl of rice. “Told you.”
Nick glared at his profile. “What did we get?”
Kelly flipped through the photos of the text messages on his phone. “It looks like he was setting up a meeting, maybe. These times are from the other night. How the hell was he getting service to send these texts?”
Nick leaned over and squinted at the photos. They were basically poor copies of a rough original, and some of the words were unintelligible. But reading through the last dozen or so texts painted a pretty clear picture, and it wasn’t hard to fill in the blanks. “He was setting up a buy.”
“A buy? Like, what, he was selling something?”
Nick nodded and pointed at the text message. “It’s shorthand. He was meeting a buyer at eleven last night, and he wanted money wired. Apparently his buyer had cash instead and they were arguing over payment. I can’t tell more, it’s too fuzzy.”