My brother actually laughed at dinner and said, ‘I sold that useless laptop of yours for five hundred bucks. Finally got rid of your junk.’ My cousins cheered him on. Then he added, almost proudly, ‘Already handed it off to the buyer.’ I got up, stepped outside, and called my supervisor. By the time I made the report, the FBI cyber team was already tracking the device…
He looked awful. Uneven stubble. Red-rimmed eyes. The kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from labor, because work had never exhausted Derek this way. This was the fatigue of a man running out of versions of himself.
“You look good,” he said automatically.
It was such an absurd opening line I almost laughed.
