Chapter 12: The Backup

"Nothing," I said. "He wiped everything."

Ronan came across the loft with a mug in each hand and put them down very slowly.

"The family cloud," he said. "Your account was a guest on theirs. He's the administrator."

"I should have known."

"You couldn't have."

He looked at the empty folders on my screen, and I saw him go through it.

Then he said, "Get your coat."

"Where are we going?"

"To the hardware store."

Keogh and Daughter opened at seven.

His uncle was at the register with a pencil behind his ear, and he lifted two fingers at Ronan and did not ask anything.

We went down a flight of stairs at the back of the store, past shelves of paint cans and a rack of garden hoses.

At the bottom was a steel cabinet.

Ronan took a key off a cord around his neck.

I had not noticed the cord.

Inside the cabinet was a gray metal box with a combination lock, and he spun the dial twice before it clicked.

There was one hard drive inside, wrapped in a clean dish towel.

A strip of masking tape ran across the top.

It had a date on it, from two years ago.

Under the date, in his square handwriting, it said: NESSA, if she asks.

I stood there and looked at the tape.

"You wrote that two years ago," I said.

"The week of the coat."

"You didn't know me."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Five People, Four Rejections, They Voted to Erase Me, So I Erased Them from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.