Chapter 23
Andy had the beach house to himself. It was his day off, and Tess was still at work. The house was quiet—no dishes clinking in the sink or the low murmur of her on the phone carrying through the rooms. Just the hum of the air conditioner and the occasional gull screeching somewhere outside.
He sprawled across the couch, a video explaining game design running on one side of his screen while he scrolled through a forum debating the pros and cons of the new Ghost Thread expansion.
His fingers tapped restlessly on the keys.
He couldn’t sit still. Not since the run-in with Diego and his crew a few days ago.
He wasn’t scared—okay, he was, but not enough to admit it, even to himself.
Mostly, he was pissed they’d cornered him in front of Kelle.
He’d thought about telling Tess. For maybe three seconds.
Then he imagined the look on her face—fear, worry, the tight edge of disappointment—and that shut him up fast.
His phone buzzed against his thigh.
Unknown Local Number.
His stomach dipped.
He almost let it go to voicemail. Almost.
Instead, he thumbed the green button. “Hello?”
A low chuckle slid through the speaker. Smooth. Confident. Unbothered.
“Afternoon, Bing.”
Andy’s throat closed around the sudden rush of adrenaline. “How’d you get my number?”
“I have my sources.” Diego’s voice was slick as oil. The same voice that had taunted Andy on the sidewalk.
He swallowed hard. “What do you want?”
“Relax. I’m calling with an opportunity.” Diego’s tone changed. Now it was almost friendly, which sent an unwelcome shiver down Andy’s spine. “Heard you’re handy with a computer.”
Andy froze. “How do you know anything about me?”
“I told you. Sources.” The gang leader paused, letting the silence stretch into a threat. “Look, kid. I’ve got a little problem that needs solving. Quick job. Nothing illegal. You get it done, and I’ll put five hundred bucks in your pocket.”
His breath hitched.
Five hundred dollars?
That was enough to take Kelle somewhere nice. Like a real date. Not pizza and a soda. Maybe a seafood place by the water with actual tablecloths, cloth napkins, and candles. She deserved that.
He hesitated. “What’s the job?”
“Just rerouting an IP. Won’t even take you ten minutes. I’ll text instructions.”
Sure, rerouting an IP wasn’t illegal. But it wasn’t smart either. It was like helping someone break into a house and telling yourself that you weren’t involved because you only “held the ladder.” But the way Diego said it... the way he brushed it off like it was nothing...
And why ask Andy to do it?
His instincts screamed for him to hang up.
But the stupid part of him—the part that wanted to impress a girl, the part that wanted control after feeling powerless on the sidewalk—whispered just this once.
“And you’ll pay me in cash?” he asked, trying to sound bored, cool, and in control instead of sixteen and stupid.
Diego laughed. “You do the job, kid? I’ll take care of you.”
The line went dead.
The instructions came through in seconds.
A string of numbers. A temporary login. A short list of steps. It looked harmless. No transfers. No spoofing checks. Just redirecting a routing point through a masked node.
He could do it in his sleep.
Hands shaking a little, he settled his fingers on the keyboard and typed fast, letting muscle memory take over. He pulled up a script he’d thrown together a few months back, tweaked the parameters, and hit run. Lines of code streamed by. Ten minutes later, the job was done.
Clean. Simple. Harmless.
Probably.
He logged out of the remote session first. Deleted the temporary credentials. Closed every window. Cleared his history twice. Then ran a trace—just to confirm it wasn’t bouncing back to him.
Nothing. Clean through.
He frowned while running a secondary trace.
Still nothing.
That wasn’t right.
He sat up straighter and launched a deeper back-end scan, searching for the digital footprints a job like this normally left behind.
There should’ve been something. A breadcrumb. A timestamp. A ghost of the data packet.
Even clean jobs left residue if you knew where to look.
But every trail he followed led to a dead end. No IP residue. No signature. No digital shadow.
“Shit,” he whispered.
This wasn’t clean. It was wiped.
Diego hadn’t just used his work. He’d erased it. Completely.
A cold prickle slid up Andy’s spine. Whatever he’d done, it wasn’t small or harmless, and he would never know what door he’d just unlocked for some scum-bag drug dealer. Fuck!
His heart pounded as his stomach roiled, and he snapped his laptop shut.
Five hundred dollars suddenly seemed like the worst deal of his life.
The atmosphere in the house felt wrong.
Not dangerous. Not loud. Just... off. Like someone had nudged all the furniture a few inches to the left—subtle enough that a stranger wouldn’t notice, but Tess noticed it immediately.
Andy barely spoke through dinner. He pushed peas across his plate like it was a chore, chewing each bite as if it offended him. Normally, he inhaled food. Tonight, he looked like he was eating under protest.
Tess cleared her throat gently. “Andy? Everything okay?”
He didn’t look up. “Yeah.”
Liar.
They were close, and he rarely lied to her—as far as she knew.
But he wasn’t a little kid whose face and tone she could read like an open book anymore.
She remembered herself at that age, not wanting to tell her parents about certain things.
It was a part of growing up and becoming an individual who needed some privacy, even from the people they loved.
But something was bothering him.
She rested her elbows on the table, studying him.
He wasn’t pale. He wasn’t sick. His posture was rigid, his shoulders tight, as if he were bracing against some invisible weight.
His fork kept tapping the plate in an uneven rhythm—a nervous tic she hadn’t seen since months after their parents’ deaths.
“You’ve been quiet all evening,” she tried again, softer this time.
“I’m fine,” he muttered.
“Andy, I know when something’s wrong.”
He jabbed at his chicken. “Nothing’s wrong. Just leave me alone.”
There it was—the defensive snap. Her stomach knotted.
When he got like this, it usually meant he was scared of something.
Cornered. Guilt nipped at her—had she pushed him too much lately?
Was it something at work? With Kelle? Or was he wrestling with one of those invisible teenage storms she couldn’t see coming?
She reached for her water glass, giving herself a chance to breathe. “Okay. But you can talk to me. About anything.”
He lifted one shoulder in a jerky half-shrug. Not in agreement. Not in dismissal. Just avoidance.
Her phone came to life on the counter.
She didn’t even have to look to see who it was—the ringtone told her.
Brian.
She stood to grab it, not wanting to let it ring and risk him thinking something was wrong after she’d told him about the Escalade yesterday. But before she took a step, Andy’s head snapped up so fast she froze.
His glare hit like a slap.
“Oh, great. Is that him?” His voice held a sharpness she hadn’t heard since he’d gone through puberty. “You gonna run off and answer because God forbid you miss your detective boyfriend calling?”
The word dripped sarcasm.
Tess’s breath stalled. “Andy—”
“You two screwing around or something?”
Shock punched her lungs empty. “Excuse me?”
He pushed away from the table so hard that the chair screeched against the floor, unexplained rage twisting his expression into something raw. “Forget it. Do whatever you want.”
Before she could react—before she could even form words—he stormed down the hall and slammed his bedroom door. The sound rattled the picture frames on the wall.
Tess stood there, one hand pressed to her chest, her pulse hammering. Humiliation, hurt, and anger tangled in her throat. Her face burned.
What the hell is going on with him?
After a moment, her brain registered that the phone had stopped ringing. She picked it up with shaking fingers and stepped onto the back porch. The screen door creaked behind her, the evening breeze brushing against her heated skin.
The ocean’s faint roar usually calmed her, but not tonight.
She hit “Call Back.”
Brian answered quickly, voice warm with concern. “Hey. Everything alright?”
Glancing over her shoulder at the closed door, she swallowed hard. “It’s Andy. He just... he said some horrible things. I don’t know what’s gotten into him today.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s upset about something—irritable—but wouldn’t tell me what. When you called, he snapped and asked if we were sleeping together.” Heat rushed up her neck again. “And he said it like I’d done something wrong.”
Brian exhaled slowly, thoughtfully. She could almost picture him rubbing the bridge of his nose, choosing his words. “Tess, he’s probably overwhelmed. When changes are made without their input, teens can lash out when they don’t know how to express their feelings.”
“It felt personal,” she whispered, sinking onto the porch swing. “Like he resents me. Or thinks I’m choosing you over him.”
“I doubt that’s what he meant.” His tone was steady, anchoring. “He’s scared of something. Maybe not us. Maybe something else. But it’s not you. He loves you—that’s obvious to anyone.”
She pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “I don’t know how to help him if he won’t talk to me.”
“You will, sweetheart. Give him a little space. Then try again. You’ll eventually get through to him.”
His confidence soothed her more than she expected. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
She let out a soft, strained laugh. “You’re annoyingly good at calming me down.”
“That’s my charm.” The humor in his tone drained a little of the tension coursing through her. She smiled despite herself. After a few more minutes of chatting, she was centered enough to end the call. She stood, squared her shoulders, and went inside.
Andy’s bedroom door was still closed, and she knocked softly. “Andy? Can I come in?”
He didn’t answer.
She eased the door open.
He was at his desk, hunched over his computer, his face tinted blue by the monitor. His eyes flickered toward her, guilt flashing before he schooled it into indifference. He slammed a window closed faster than she could identify it, but at least she’d seen enough to know it hadn’t been porn.
“What?” he asked flatly.
She sat on the edge of the bed, pulling her legs close like she used to when she’d read him bedtime stories when they were younger. “We need to talk.”
He rolled his eyes—but turned in his chair to face her.
“Tess, I’m sorry,” he muttered, words stiff, as they scraped on the way out.
She inhaled slowly. “I know you’re upset about something. But what you said hurt.”
“I know.”
“And Brian isn’t—” She hesitated, searching for the right words. “He’s good to me. He makes me happy. And he’s trying really hard for you to like him.”
Andy’s jaw flexed. Not anger—shame. “I just... I don’t like cops.”
“That’s fair,” she said gently. “Especially after what happened a few weeks ago. But this isn’t about the police.
It’s about Brian. He’s a nice guy. I thought everything was good between you two after the other night, with those tickets he offered you and the three of us watching the movie together. What changed?”
“Nothing. And you’re right. He isn’t a bad guy. I guess I’m still annoyed he hauled me in that day.” He fidgeted with a loose thread on his jeans. “I’ll try to get past that.”
Her heart squeezed. “Thank you.”
After a beat, she asked lightly, “So... how’s Kelle?”
His entire face turned crimson. “Tess!”
She laughed quietly. “What? I can’t ask?”
“No.”
“Is she your girlfriend?”
“Tess!”
Thankfully, she didn’t need to have the sex talk with him.
Their neighbor Al had taken that burden off her shoulders a couple of years ago—pulling Andy aside with all the confidence of a man who’d survived raising two teens of his own.
Since then, Al had slipped into a quiet father-figure role for Andy, teaching him how to change the oil in a car, showing him the difference between a good wrench and a useless one, and dragging him to the occasional ballgame or camping trip with his kids.
Tess had been grateful for every bit of it.
Grinning, she shifted and used her foot to nudge his arm. “I’m happy for you. And I’m also proud of you. Mom and Dad would be proud too. You’re a good kid—don’t ever forget that.”
He huffed, clearly embarrassed but no longer angry. “Can I go back to my game now?”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Just remember... I love you, and I’ll always be there for you. You can talk to me about anything. All right?”
He nodded.
She stood, ruffled his hair, then headed for the door. As she stepped into the hallway, the knot in her chest loosened—but only a little because he was still hiding something.
And she didn’t know how big it was yet.