What She Forgot (What She 2)

She finally looked up. Then she looked down at her watch. “Now?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” She blew an errant lock of hair from her eyes.

“I forgot that I need to be home early.”

She shook her head, like she was trying to focus on me, when she really wanted to go back to what she was doing.

“MeeMaw is cooking,” I said.

“MeeMaw’s fine. I just checked on her a few minutes ago.”

I shrugged into my jacket. But then I stopped. “Wait. How did you check on MeeMaw?”

She opened a tab on her laptop and showed me the screen. “Your home security system. I checked in on her an hour ago. She was cooking.” She smiled. “And she was singing a rather bawdy song as she danced around the kitchen.” Her brow furrowed with confusion again. “But she was fine.”

“Did I give you the password to my security system?” I asked, knowing good and well that I did not.

“Well, no, but I didn’t think you’d mind.” She looked everywhere but at me.

“How did you get it?” Dumb question, I knew.

She heaved out a sigh. “Really?” She raised her eyebrows at me.

I growled low in my throat. “Shelly, you can’t just hack into accounts.”

She rolled her eyes, and on anyone else, it wouldn’t have been quite so adorable. “I didn’t hack. I guessed.” She tilted her head and smirked at me. “Your email was easy, and your password was Channing. You could have made it a little more difficult.”

“Shelly,” I began, but I had no idea what else to say.

“I just wanted to check on her,” she said quietly.

“You could have just asked me for the information.”

She looked at me like I had grown two heads. “That would be a waste of your time and mine, particularly since it was so easy.” She stared at me. “Are you annoyed?”

Actually, I wasn’t. I was enthralled.

“MeeMaw was fine?” I asked.

She nodded. “Cooking. Dancing. Singing. Happy.” Her cheeks grew rosy. “I might have watched her for a few minutes. She just looked so content.”

“Thank you for checking on her.”

She smiled. “You’re welcome.”

“Are you ready to go?”

“Sure,” she said, as she closed her laptop and stuck her loose papers in a folder. She picked it all up to take it with her. “I can work on this when we get home. I think I am on to something.”

“With the vigilante murders?”

“Yes.”

Now I was curious. “What have you found?”

“Well, I made a spreadsheet so I could add the data from all the police reports and see if there were any commonalities.”