Read Online Reclaim: A Recovered Innocence Novel by Beth Yarnall - Free Book Online
Authors: Beth Yarnall
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I move toward the desk, curling my lip at the filth. “I just wish I had a pair of gloves.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of something. “Here. I always carry two pairs.”
It’s then that I realize he’s already wearing what look like surgical gloves. The wrongness of what we’re doing washes over me again. I force myself to take the gloves and struggle to put them on. Nolan is already flipping through the files by the time I manage to get the gloves on. I want to look over his shoulder and at the same time I know that would be a step too far past my law-breaking threshold.
I eye the desk again. Disgusting. There are dried bits of food and liquids all over everything as though he ate every meal at this desk for years and never cleaned up. I lift a stack of folders and leaf through them. None of them have Carla’s name or anything related to her case on them so I put them back, carefully matching them up again with the blank spot in the dust. A tablet of paper rests next to his computer keyboard. I flip the pages that are folded back forward so I can look through them.
Behind me, Nolan closes a file drawer and opens a new one. I turn my attention back to the tablet. Martin’s handwriting is as messy as his work space. On the fourth page in I’m able to decipher a word that looks like
Ruiz
, Carla’s last name.
“I think I’ve got something here,” I tell Nolan.
“Take a picture with your phone and move on. We don’t have a lot of time.”
I snap pics of the page and several more after that, then fold the pages back the way they were and put the tablet back. There’s another scrap of paper with Diego’s name on it half wadded up. I smooth it out and take a picture of it before crumpling it up again. The interior of the desk yields absolutely nothing except an old-fashioned phone book—the kind my parents used to keep our relatives’ addresses and phone numbers in. I photograph every page, having no idea if any of it is even relevant to what we’re looking for.
“What about the computer?” I ask.
He looks up from the file he’s taking pictures of. “Jiggle the mouse. See if it comes to life.”
I do as he says and am shocked that the screen lights up. There’s no password to get into it. I minimize the Word doc Martin had open for a summation he was writing for another case and check out the desktop, looking for something with Carla’s name on it.
Nolan bumps my hip. I look down to find him holding out a thumb drive to me. “Download anything that looks important. Start with his emails if you can.”
Another threshold to cross. I try not to think about it as I take the flash drive, at the same time ignoring how prepared for theft Nolan is. Armed with the little gadget I turn back to the computer. There’s an Outlook icon on the desktop. I click it and am shocked that it’s not password-protected. I make a note to firm up my own security. I bet Nolan could help me with that.
I type Carla’s name into the search box first for his incoming mail, then his outgoing mail and trash folder. As quickly as I can I highlight everything and send a copy of it all to the thumb drive. I close out of that program and send the file marked RUIZ on the desktop to the flash drive without even opening it. We’re running out of time. I can almost hear a clock counting down the minutes until Debbie comes in and catches us.
There’s another folder with a number instead of a name. I send that and just about everything else to the USB drive without even knowing if it’s relevant. When I’m done I pull out the stick and bring the summation back up again. I blow on the dust on a stack of books next to the computer so it scatters across the keyboard, disguising the fact that the computer was tampered with.
“Nice,” Nolan says in approval. “Good thinking.”
I’m not proud that I thought to cover my tracks. Quite the opposite.
“If you’re done there take some pictures of the
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of something. “Here. I always carry two pairs.”
It’s then that I realize he’s already wearing what look like surgical gloves. The wrongness of what we’re doing washes over me again. I force myself to take the gloves and struggle to put them on. Nolan is already flipping through the files by the time I manage to get the gloves on. I want to look over his shoulder and at the same time I know that would be a step too far past my law-breaking threshold.
I eye the desk again. Disgusting. There are dried bits of food and liquids all over everything as though he ate every meal at this desk for years and never cleaned up. I lift a stack of folders and leaf through them. None of them have Carla’s name or anything related to her case on them so I put them back, carefully matching them up again with the blank spot in the dust. A tablet of paper rests next to his computer keyboard. I flip the pages that are folded back forward so I can look through them.
Behind me, Nolan closes a file drawer and opens a new one. I turn my attention back to the tablet. Martin’s handwriting is as messy as his work space. On the fourth page in I’m able to decipher a word that looks like
Ruiz
, Carla’s last name.
“I think I’ve got something here,” I tell Nolan.
“Take a picture with your phone and move on. We don’t have a lot of time.”
I snap pics of the page and several more after that, then fold the pages back the way they were and put the tablet back. There’s another scrap of paper with Diego’s name on it half wadded up. I smooth it out and take a picture of it before crumpling it up again. The interior of the desk yields absolutely nothing except an old-fashioned phone book—the kind my parents used to keep our relatives’ addresses and phone numbers in. I photograph every page, having no idea if any of it is even relevant to what we’re looking for.
“What about the computer?” I ask.
He looks up from the file he’s taking pictures of. “Jiggle the mouse. See if it comes to life.”
I do as he says and am shocked that the screen lights up. There’s no password to get into it. I minimize the Word doc Martin had open for a summation he was writing for another case and check out the desktop, looking for something with Carla’s name on it.
Nolan bumps my hip. I look down to find him holding out a thumb drive to me. “Download anything that looks important. Start with his emails if you can.”
Another threshold to cross. I try not to think about it as I take the flash drive, at the same time ignoring how prepared for theft Nolan is. Armed with the little gadget I turn back to the computer. There’s an Outlook icon on the desktop. I click it and am shocked that it’s not password-protected. I make a note to firm up my own security. I bet Nolan could help me with that.
I type Carla’s name into the search box first for his incoming mail, then his outgoing mail and trash folder. As quickly as I can I highlight everything and send a copy of it all to the thumb drive. I close out of that program and send the file marked RUIZ on the desktop to the flash drive without even opening it. We’re running out of time. I can almost hear a clock counting down the minutes until Debbie comes in and catches us.
There’s another folder with a number instead of a name. I send that and just about everything else to the USB drive without even knowing if it’s relevant. When I’m done I pull out the stick and bring the summation back up again. I blow on the dust on a stack of books next to the computer so it scatters across the keyboard, disguising the fact that the computer was tampered with.
“Nice,” Nolan says in approval. “Good thinking.”
I’m not proud that I thought to cover my tracks. Quite the opposite.
“If you’re done there take some pictures of the
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