Criminal things.

“Because insurance companies are known for their bleeding hearts,” Zack responded to one of his best friends sarcastically, sitting across the table from Gavin. With most of their social circle absent for one reason or another, largely because of the “accident,” it was just the two of them talking at the moment.

“Hey, fuck insurance companies, but some kind of conspiracy? It sounds like kind of a lot, doesn’t it?” Gavin argued. It’s not so much that he didn’t think people were CAPABLE of it. He just didn’t see the value, especially when a more reasonable solution presented itself. “I really don’t think there’s some kind of a cover-up. It’s too far-fetched. Besides, we should be there for Logan right now.”

“I know that,” Zack continued unabated, “but I’m not doing this because it’s FUN. Something doesn’t feel right. And I’m worried it might fall back on my friend. That’s not insane.”

“It’s not,” Gavin allowed, still guarded.

“No insurance company losing as much money as his parents’ are is going to close the books inside a week on a case like this. Not out of sympathy, anyway.” Gavin made a face that Zack felt a little embarrassed to be receiving. “I’m not saying it’s the insurance company up to no good. I’m saying it’s a sign. It’s worth looking into.”

“Well, my first move would be to check out the crime scene photos. But I don’t think they’re public yet,” Gavin thought out loud. “If they ever will be. If it’s a simple matter, it’ll just go deep in storage. If you’re right, why would they ever get out?”

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” Zack groaned, tilting his head back. “I’m trying to. I was hoping the paper was running something about it, maybe had those. But Victoria said it’d be in poor taste.”

“I mean, yeah.”

“I agree, but it’s not exactly useful for what I’m trying to do.”

“This should be,” a woman’s voice said from beside Zack.

“JESUS!” Zack exclaimed when Grace seemed to appear next to him. Gavin jumped a little, more at his reaction than the tiny blonde’s sudden appearance since he’d seen her walk up.

“Do you want it or not?” Grace asked placidly, seemingly unaffected by the sudden noise. She held her USB stick in her hand, near-perfectly still. “Because I can go do this on my own.”

“I’ll give you a minute,” Gavin interrupted with a small grin, leaving the table. Zack glanced over at him, a little bewildered, then back to Grace. The green-eyed girl hadn’t even moved, stock-still and staring him down.

“What … what is it?” he finally **** out.

“It’s something that should be able to brute-**** into anything the police scanned into their evidence database,” she responded nonchalantly, as if that wasn’t tremendously illegal. “It’ll take a while to crack it, but if you want crime scene photos, you can find them there.”

“I’m not … fuck, really?”

“What is this, amateur hour? Yes, really. And I know you’ve got this whole ‘rogue PI,’ fantasy from your grandad, so don’t tell me you aren’t thinking about it.”

“How do you know that?” Zack asked, tilting his head.

“You’ve mentioned in classes before.” Grace kept her tone even. She wasn’t stalking him or anything, but her memory was an absolute steel trap. At least, for things she cared about. That … might have been a bit too revealing, but not nearly as much as cracking under pressure would be.

“Yeah … should we be talking about this here?” Zack finally answered.

“No. Absolutely not. So, you come by my place tonight, and I’ll walk you through how it works. Deal?” Grace offered her other hand to shake, praying she wasn’t as sweaty as the nervous heat jetting through her made her feel.

“One question?” Grace nodded, allowing Zack to continue. “What do YOU get out of this?”

“Besides the satisfaction of serving justice?”

“Yes, explicitly besides that,” Zack said, quicker than she expected. And with more certainty.

“Look, I have my reasons, you have yours, but we both want to know. I want to know first, you want to know with finality. Is that all that different?” she argued. A partial truth. The online circles she ran in DID tend to make her drift towards the prestige of uncovering information, especially information that was dangerous or revealing. And no, she didn’t REALLY care that much about justice, that was a fair hit. But it would bother her not to know, aside from being an excuse to spend more time with Zack.

“Massively, but I can live with that,” Zack concluded, taking her hand and giving it a single, firm shake. “Your place. 7:00-ish?”

“I’ll be there,” Grace sighed with a disaffected smile before getting up and positively power-walking away. She breathed in and out intently as she made her way back to the library to finish her work, trying to recover from what was, for her, an insanely harrowing social interaction. The last thing he said weighed on her more than she thought it might, the quiet certainty with which he delineated their motivations. Getting back to her computer quieted her mind, letting her ignore the gnawing sense of doubt and guilt it drew up in her, at least for a little while.