Gabby drove Darcy’s car a few blocks away, out of view of nosy eStocks employees, aka Fran. On the passenger seat, she set up Kyle’s laptop and inserted the flash drive. Then she pulled the cartoon bunny head off Kyle’s flash drive and shoved it into the remaining USB port. Eat your heart out, James Bond.
Not surprisingly, whatever was supposed to happen when she put in the flash drive didn’t, and because she didn’t have anything but a surface understanding of anything technical, she couldn’t troubleshoot. Damn her for letting Phil do all of the finances and tech stuff for the last fifteen years. Damn her for always taking the easy path. It was not fucking paying off.
She drummed her keys on the steering wheel. Markus texted.U ok?
IBS.A sexier lie would have been nice, but that was all she had.
“Siri, call Queen Palm Elementary and Middle School.” There was nothing to do but to get tech support on the line.
“Hi, Shamika. This is Gabby, Kyle and Lucas’s mom.”
“Oooh, hi, Gabby.” Shamika sounded amused. “Who was that who dropped off Lucas’s lunch the other day, because whoo-eeeee.”
Gabby was breathing too fast. She didn’t have time at the moment to gossip about the hot EOD agent who had inexplicably dropped off her kid’s allergy-friendly lunch. “He’s cute, isn’t he? Can you get Kyle on the phone for me? It’s sort of an emergency.”
“Okay.” She paused for a second and said, “It looks like she’s in PE.” To someone else, she called, “Wayne, can you run and grab Kyle from the gym?”
Gabby wanted to knock her head into the steering wheel. Wayne was the kid who was always at the principal’s office because he could not follow directions. Her family’s safety and a delicate national security mission now rested on Wayne’s shoulders. The child had pulled the fire alarm twice in the last year, and Kyle reported that Wayne was the one who had plugged the boy’s toilets with Orbeez in the epic plumbing fiasco of 2021. The school had been shut down for a week.
Shamika said, “So about that fine-ass man…”
Before Gabby was forced to answer any more questions, she heard Kyle’s voice, and Shamika, sounding disappointed, said, “Kyle, it’s your mom on the phone.”
She was going to buy Wayne a pizza.
“Mom?” Kyle said her name as a question.
“Sweetie. I need your help. It’s sort of an emergency.”
“Okay,” Kyle said, her voice tinged with confusion.
“Nothing to worry about. I’m just trying to impress my boss, and I can’t get that flash drive to work. Can you walk me through it?”
“Okay. They were making us do a sit-up challenge, so this is great.”
Kyle proceeded to walk her through transferring the files. “Insert both flash drives.”
“At the same time?”
“Yes, Mom.”
Kyle made it sound easy, but Gabby had never had a computer issue go smoothly.
“Is there supposed to be a box that pops up?”
“Yes. And then you drag and drop the files where you want them.”
“Ohmygod, I only see one.”
“Seriously, Mom?” Kyle groaned. “Just take it out and put it back in. See if it pops up this time.”
“Child, give that phone here,” Shamika said loudly in the background.
“Bye, Mom.”
“Gabby—” Shamika sounded impatient, as if she were actually involved in the mission rather than just bored at work and getting involved in everyone’s business. “Are you on a Mac?” Shamika asked. Before Gabby could answer, she got sassy. “Why did I ask? Of course it is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
