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Chapter 22
Aria set a box of Chaos Cookies onto the stack holding her daily café order. Hunter had left Bliss Cove three hours ago to drive to San Jose for his flight back to New York. Though he’d return in a few days, the town already felt different without him.Shefelt different without him.
“Did you get everything, honey?” Eleanor pulled a tin of hot muffins from the baker’s rack and started putting them in a basket. “I made some cat cookies for you too.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Aria checked her order form. “Does Rory have a shift today?”
“No, she’s working from home.” Eleanor straightened and wiped her hands on her apron. “I hope all the contract jobs she’s been taking lead to a full-time position. I’ve loved having her here, but she’s too smart to stay working at Sugar Joy and doing remote work. She needs a job that’s worthy of her.”
“If she wants one, she’ll get one.” Of that Aria had no doubt.
Callie had always colored inside the lines, working steadily to advance her career within the rigid structure of academia. But Rory, the messy finger-painter, had thrown herself into the Wild West of the tech industry when she was a freshman in college. She’d been hired at different companies over people with twenty more years of experience. She’d created her own positions, demanded better offers, started her own projects. She was aforce.
It was a little strange that she’d stayed in Bliss Cove for a year and a half, but they’d all dealt with Dad’s death in their own ways. Maybe Rory just needed to behomelonger than she’d expected.
After saying goodbye to her mother, Aria brought the boxes to her van. Since she had a couple of hours before opening—and dealing with Rory alone was easier than confronting both her sisters—she drove to Rory’s apartment building. The curtains of her sister’s apartment were closed, but a flickering light shone behind them and Jimi Hendrix music thumped against the door.
When Aria’s knock went unanswered, she textedOpen the door.
A second later, Rory pulled open the door, her long hair loose and tangled, and her slender figure clad in torn sweats and a T-shirt readingCoders Don’t Byte. “What’re you doing here?”
“Nice to see you, too.” Aria pushed past her sister into the near-empty apartment.
A mattress lay on the floor, and clothes were strewn around, but the only actual “furniture” was a huge desk topped with a shiny, state-of-the-art computer, a monitor the size of a TV screen, and high-level speakers.
“This is me finally responding to your multiple texts.” Aria sat down in the plush office chair. “You told Mom you have a sofa.”
“I told her I wasgettinga sofa. Haven’t gotten around to it yet.” Rory folded her arms, eyeing Aria shrewdly. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
Tension shot down her spine. “He’s not my boyfriend, but he had to go back to New York for a couple of days. If you’re going to lecture me about him, I’m leaving.”
“No lectures. I need to show you something, but be warned that you’re not going to like it.”
Aria frowned. “What?”
“When I was doing the search on Armstrong, I found a bunch of stuff about his Imperial Properties projects.” Rory crossed to the computer and pulled the keyboard closer. Her fingers whisked over the keys. “Pretty straightforward. But then I started digging a little deeper. Bruce Sinclair has had some issues in the past, mostly questionable compliance with zoning, cutting corners, promising one thing, like affordable housing, and failing to deliver. Then I hacked…I mean,foundsome correspondence from Sinclair that indicates Imperial Properties might not be on the straight and narrow about Mariposa.”
“What does that mean?”
“That they don’t intend to stop with Oceanview.” Rory punched another key, and a bunch of email messages popped onto the screen.
Aria scanned the messages. The correspondence was between Bruce Sinclair and several company lawyers about a “Venture project” in Bliss Cove slated to begin next summer.
Massive moneymaker…pristine coastline…exclusive access to private beaches…privatizing sections of the redwood forests…keep out the rabble.
Talk up as “eco-friendly.” Town officials will be easily bribed…have them run interference for getting around zoning and enviro laws. After Marp. St. is finalized, we’ll have them by the balls.
Aria’s blood turned to ice.
Rory closed the screen, regret tightening her mouth. “I knew you wouldn’tnotwant to see these.”
“Was…” She swallowed past the constriction in her throat. “Was Hunter part of the email chain?”
“Not this one.”
“Did you hack his account?”
Rory shook her head. That meant she hadn’t tried. If she’d wanted to get into Hunter’s account, she would have.
