few seconds.
“Sadly, I don’t think this is enough proof,” Graham said eventually.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Eli muttered, shaking his head. “Though I don’t know what else we can find that would help our case.”
“Not much, I’m sure, but at least we know we’re looking in the right direction.”
Bullshit. I was tired of sitting around and waiting. We needed more proof than this, and we weren’t going to find it here. I walked out of the shed with Graham on my heels.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m going to get into his office and find something substantial,” I said, my voice low.
“You can’t just break into his house.”
“Watch me.”
Eli was also beside us, but he kept quiet.
“What if he’s got alarms? You know a rich guy like him has alarms all over his house.”
I looked at Eli, lifting a brow, and he admitted with a shrug, “I could probably disarm them.”
“No, we can’t do this. We can’t break into this man’s house.”
I was already headed for the house, leaving Graham behind. I was tired of sitting back and letting these rich assholes win. I was tired of Danielle’s life being in limbo, and her living in fear. Jim King had burned down her house to try and take it from her, because he was a greedy asshole or maybe because he was in cahoots with Greg. I wasn’t sure, but nothing about the situation sat right with me.
Eli was by my side, and I turned to him when we reached the window leading to King’s office. “Think you can do it?”
“It’s already done.”
“Thanks, man,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.
All that I had to do now was to get through the window. I was just about to break the glass with my fist when Graham grabbed my arm and held it back. I glared at my older brother.
“Stay out of this.”
“If you’re going to do this, at least be smart about it, Mason,” he said. “You can’t leave broken windows and evidence lying around.”
“But then how—”
“The back door has a touch pad with a code instead of a key,” Eli said, fiddling with the lock attached to his tablet. “One second and I think…yes, there we go. It should open right up for you now.”
“You’re good, Eli. Not sure how I never recognized that before, but you’re scarily good at this stuff.”
Eli gave me a cockeyed grin before I headed for the back door. I didn’t even realize that Eli was following me until he pulled open the door, careful to use his sleeve to leave no fingerprints. Graham stayed back. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want to get him involved with breaking and entering, not when he had a wife and a baby to worry about.
The back door led into a giant kitchen, and we were careful not to make any noise as we walked through it and into a dining area. We found a hall that led to the main entryway, and from there, the hall to the office.
The entire house was silent. Had we tripped any secret alarms, I knew from experience they were likely silent. We’d only find out when the cops came knocking on the door. But I trusted Eli. If he said the alarms were disabled, I believed him.
We reached the office, and I expected the door to be locked. But as I turned the knob, it twisted easily. Amateur, I thought to myself. It was clear to me that even though Jim talked big about having dangerous people at his back, he didn’t have the first clue about running a criminal enterprise. He was simply a man who thought he knew what he was doing, and who had screwed over the wrong person this time.
Entering the office, my heart was racing as I headed to his computer. I moved the mouse and the screen lit up, prompting me to enter a password.
Shit. What would a man like King use as a password?
“Needs a password.”
Eli had programs to guess passwords. “Scoot over,” he whispered, getting in front of the computer. “See if you can find anything on his desk. Guys like him aren’t too tech savvy usually.”
Some files sat on one side. A picture of him with his son, no sign of the mother. A cell phone. A pile of post-its caught my eye, and I picked it up off the desk. A series of random letters and numbers were written on the top.
“Try this,” I said, handing him the post-it.
Eli typed it into