“The toilet? Shit,” he whispered.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call my mom? She’s probably feeling better by now. I’m sure she’d be happy to come over and help you look.”
“I’m sure, Finn. It’s all under control. Can I call you tomorrow?” He sounded rushed.
“Okay,” I said, feeling guilty for not being there. “Kiss the kids for me.”
“I will. Love you.”
I didn’t get a chance to tell him I loved him, too, before he hung up.
Vero winced. “I’m sure it’s nothing he can’t handle.”
“Let’s just find Theo and get you out of this mess so we canboth get home.” If I had any hesitation about letting Vero try that belt before, they were gone now.
Javi was long gone by the time we got upstairs. Cam was hunched over Ramón’s laptop on the sofa, his face pinched into a grimace of concentration. “This isn’t a software problem. Looks to me like a network problem.”
“It’s a not-for-you problem,” Vero said, slapping Ramón’s laptop shut. “When Ramón gets home, you’re going to make up some highly technical reason his cameras aren’t working. Tell him you couldn’t fix it and you had to order a part. Finlay and I are going out,” she said, holding up her sweatshirt and showing Cam her belt. “I need you to make this thing look like I’m in my room. My bedroom door is locked. If anyone asks, Finn went home to check on the kids and I watched a movie and went to bed early.”
“What movie?” Cam asked.
“I don’t know! Make something up.”
“What if you tell him one movie and I tell him another? He’s gonna know. Our stories have to match.”
“Pick one where a pissed-off woman strangles a hacker.”
“Jeez, I was only trying to be helpful.”
“You can help by making sure no one figures out that we’re gone.”
“What’s in it for me?” Cam asked.
“I’ll let you survive long enough to have breakfast tomorrow.”
“Can I have pancakes?”
“Let’s go,” I said, directing Vero out the back door.
CHAPTER 18
Assuming Vero’s sleuthing had steered us to the right place, it appeared that Theodore Sideris rented a ramshackle house on a lot that could have doubled as a salvage yard. Vero grimaced as she studied it through the binoculars she’d found in my glove box.
“What did you say he majored in again?” I asked, determined not to let my children pursue whatever area of study had landed Theo in a dump like this.
“Business,” Vero said, passing me the binoculars. “We had a lot of classes together freshman year. That’s how we met.” She tapped her fingernails on her armrest as we waited for his BMW to show up. “How long does it take to do a little shopping?” she asked irritably.
“Maybe he stopped at a restaurant to grab something to eat.” We’d been sitting in my minivan staking out his house for almost an hour. We knew exactly where Theo had been all night, thanks to the AirTag on his car, but he hadn’t gone anywhere we could easily corner him and force him to talk to us. We’d tracked his car to a shopping mall forty minutes ago, and it hadn’t movedsince. Rather than tail him from the parking lot and risk being spotted, we decided to lie in wait for him at his house.
“Well, my butt’s asleep, and I have to pee,” she said. Her transmitter belt caught on the door as she started to get out of the van. “I’m going to find a bathroom.”
“We can’t go into Theo’s house!” I called after her. “What if someone reports us to the cops?” It was bad enough that Vero had spoofed her GPS; if she got caught stalking her ex and breaking into his home, that would be a recipe for a much longer sentence.
Vero waddled across the front lawn in her bulky belt and ducked under a window. With a swear, I killed the engine and scrambled out after her. I squatted beside her, inching up on one knee to peer through the gap between the blinds. A dim light was on in Theo’s kitchen. Other than that, the house looked empty.
I followed Vero as she circled around the house to a side door. She knelt in front of it, and I watched in horror as she pulled two slender lockpicks from the front pocket of her sweatshirt.
“Where did you get those?” I hissed at her.
