She waved a hand over it all. “At least I don’t need nearly this much for survival, so I wouldn’t have to procure as much food.”
“True. We would be hunting all the time or lose weight fast.” He laughed.
“Would you ever live off-grid if given the choice?” she asked as Colin and Micha passed her with armloads of wood.
“Not out of choice.”
She faced the fireplace. “What about you guys?”
“Give up computers and the internet?” Colin mocked a horrified expression. “No way.”
“Not my first choice either.” Micha looked at her. “I like teaching it, and I like having the skills to succeed at it if I had to. I would do it though. If someone I loved needed me to.”
Was he hinting that if they followed this interest in each other, he would consider living here with her if they didn’t clear her name?
“What about you?” Colin asked. “Now that you’ve experienced a bit of it, are you wanting to move here full-time?”
“Are you kidding?” She mocked horror. “Not in these conditions. I can leave the city behind, no problem. But I need electricity and running water, and I am certain getting to the outhouse in the rain will get old real fast.”
“I spotted rain gear on the hook by the door,” Colin said. “I hope it’ll fit, and we can share it.”
“It should fit you guys. Belonged to my cousin Danny, and he was a big guy.”
Micha raised an eyebrow and looked at her. “Then you’ll drown in it.”
“I’d rather drown in that than a torrential downpour.” She laughed. “Can we check that ancestry site now?”
“Let’s use my laptop. I can connect it to my phone and use it for WiFi.” Colin picked up his bag and took it to the couch where he sat next to her.
“By the way,” he said as he got out his computer. “I infiltrated the LARPing Discord group. Buck lied about being in this group. In fact, he and Jamal have known each other for years.”
“I wonder why he lied about it,” she said.
“Maybe to cover his tracks on the weapons,” Colin said. “The group is seriously into weapons and threatening all kinds of actions. Nothing to do with our investigation, but I figure when this is over, if Buck isn’t our guy, I’ll turn him in from the info I found. He mentions his cache in his backyard, bragging about the quantity of guns. I can bring him to the attention of my cyber contacts at the bureau, and I’m sure they’d be all over him and end up correlating with the ATF contact who Reid has helping.”
“Good job,” Micha said. “Seriously, I don’t think I could live with myself if we didn’t find a way to get those weapons away from him.”
“Couldn’t agree more.” Colin woke up his phone, and his fingers flew over the keyboard. “Login info?”
Micha took out his phone and scrolled down to share it as he stepped behind them, with Dev joining too.
“Okay, I’m in.” Colin used his trackpad to move down pages. “No matches.”
Ava reached over him and tapped the DNA button. “That’s because he never uploaded the DNA report.”
Colin nodded. “That’s what it looks like.”
“I wonder why,” she said. “If you go through all the trouble and pay the price for a test, why not finish and see if there’s a match?”
Colin clicked the button for account information. “He set this up about the same time he sent the DNA in. Maybe he held off when his mom got sick.”
“Maybe,” she said. “We need to upload it now. Find out if any family members might have it out for Holly.”
Micha nodded. “It’s an invasion of his privacy, but then he invaded your life, so payback is only fair.”
Ava’s phone rang from her backpack, startling her. She snatched the bag up and looked at the screen. “Another number I don’t recognize.”
“Why don’t you give it to me to answer?” Micha asked.
