Page 45 of The Alibi Club

Lorna whispered, “Damn it.”

Kyle turned and took in the sight of Lorna, who was dressed in black leather booties, black denim, and a white and black plaid shirt, her long auburn hair falling around her shoulders as she stared down at her device. She knew she did not look like your typical pub quizzer. She looked up at Kyle, who was open-mouthed, staring at her.

“Oh, I’m sorry, my language.” She pushed her hair behind her ear and continued to stare at the smart phone that was vexing her. “I just can’t get this to work. Technology and I don’t mix.”

Knowing from the file she had on him, Kyle was drawn to tech problems like a moth to flame. He stepped closer to her. “What’s the problem? Maybe I can help.”

“If the experts can’t help, I’m not sure you can,” she said. “But I appreciate that.”

As if on cue, Kyle could not shy away from a tech challenge given his education, profession, and personal hobbies. “No, seriously, I know a thing or two about iPhones, the hardware and the software.”

She looked up at him slowly, with an expression that said he was her knight in shining tech armor, and said, “It’s not your typical problem.” Oh, please be the geek I need you to be.

“All the more intriguing.”

“So, here’s the deal. This is my work phone, but I also have my personal phone. My personal phone has all of my financial data and some very personal details on it.” She cleared her throat, and continued, “I left it at a restaurant in Manhattan Beach, and I need to disable it so no one can access it in any way until I get my hands on it again.”

“Do you have Find My Device activated on your personal phone?”

“No.”

Kyle thought for a second. “Do you have your ID and password for your personal phone?”

“Yep,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “I have that.”

Kyle smiled with confidence. “I can help.” Kyle proceeded to show her how exactly to set up a new way to access her personal phone via a ghost app that was easily downloaded onto her work phone so she could access her personal phone and shut down parts of it. When he was finished he handed her the smart phone and said, “Now you have the ability to shut down that phone in case you leave it somewhere again.”

“Brilliant,” she whispered.

Her hair fell over her eye again as she looked at him, with a smile dripping with gratitude.

“I’m Kyle, by the way.”

“Thank you so much, Kyle, you have no idea how much this means to me.” She held out her hand and said, “I’m Lorna.”

Kyle shook it gently and said, “Nice to meet you, Lorna.”

Lorna kept her eye on him, as if assessing him like a butcher sizes up livestock and asked, knowing the answer before he gave it, “Kyle, by any chance, are you single?”

One more to go.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Old Crew

CLIFF

Cliff walked out to the end of Hermosa Beach Pier to clear his head and wait for the call to come in. A handful of people were casting off their lines into the water to catch passing mackerel, but otherwise, he had the space to talk. The sun had set into the Pacific, leaving a vast beautiful fading canvas of color behind. He sighed heavily as the call came in and the name came up. He had to face it. Now or never. Cliff slid the bar across to answer and said, “Hello,” which was not in the form of a question.

“I was beginning to think you didn’t want to see me.” A low nasally and clipped voice with a New Jersey accent came seeping through the line, dragging menace and looming chaos with it. Cliff could picture short, stout Melvyn Ott just like he’d left him, in a gray jumpsuit, lingering in the hall by the phones, a constant look of suspicion in his beady eyes, drawing tiny circles on his round, hard belly.

“Melvyn. Not at all,” Cliff answered warily.

“I hear you’ve got yourself set up at the beach. Sounds like a nice place.”

Cliff didn’t want Melvyn Ott to know a single thing about what he was doing, so for a moment he didn’t say anything.

Melvyn continued, “I also heard your town is filled with fat cats in fat mansions. Oooh, that must be torture for a thief like you.”