Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
After nearly two hours of typing and switching places twice so Daisy could eat, Roma felt like her eyes were going square.
Daisy had insisted on adding the names of the people they could identify.
It had taken an extra thirty minutes of stalking the Neighborhood Knows app to see which neighbors had posted pictures—either shots of their own cars in thinly veiled bragging or, more often, pictures of other people’s cars parked on the street, asking if anyone else thought the car looked suspicious.
Luckily, the latter type of post almost always included the owner angrily claiming ownership and saying that the original poster could always just look for the resident permit sticker on the windshield.
The latest annoyed commenter they found had received more than usual support from other users, who suggested that anyone worried enough to take a picture and post about it should—at the very least—check the car for the silver tag.
“He’s right,” Daisy said. “They could, but I think they prefer posting about it and keeping themselves wondering. It’s like their very own police procedural.”
Giggling, Roma nodded. “I think you might be spot on there. So, what are we going to do with all of this impressive information we just turned into pictures and now into words?”
“Just you wait,” Daisy said, concentrating as she typed a bunch of what looked like nonsense into one of the cells.
Triumphantly hitting enter, each line of the last column populated.
Daisy clicked on one of the icons along the top of the page and grinned. “Timeline,” she announced, gesturing to the newly created graph. “Each license plate has its own unique ID, and this chart shows the time each ID has spent inside the gates over the last six months. And as we can see?—“
“Whoa,” Roma said as Daisy scrolled down the page to a solid line of deep green. There were a few cars that had been inside for more than a day or two, but almost none of them were inside for longer than a week at a time.
“The car Matthias drove in with has no exit date. So, as far as the formula is concerned—it’s still inside.”
“We could be wrong, though,” Roma said. “There was a car service car after this one, and it came back out again. What if I misremembered the time? Or what if the gate guard genuinely just forgot to write it down? Or was paid to forget. I mean, it’s not like the gatehouse staff can’t be bought.”
Her face turned warm as Daisy eyed her disapprovingly. “Maybe, but I still think it’s worth looking into it. We can’t just assume it’s nothing.”
“Where do you think it is? It can’t just be parked on the street, or it would’ve been towed. And we know they record non-residential tows as exiting thanks to Ms. Medina’s weekend friend on page nine and her subsequent rage post on Neighborhood Knows calling out her jealous neighbors.”
Her suggestive tone and eyebrow wriggling were probably overkill, but it made Daisy laugh, so it felt worth it to her.
“True, they are thorough when it comes to calculating the fines for infringements. But it could be hidden away in a holiday home garage,” Daisy said. “Or even just down one of the driveways, out of sight.”
“Or at Shar’s place,” Roma added before noticing Daisy’s confused expression. “Oh! I saw footage that showed Matthias going in one direction, then Shar speeding past in the other soon after.”
“Okay, but why would you think they knew each other?” Daisy asked nervously.
Weighing up how honest to be made Roma’s stomach tighten uncomfortably; she didn’t like dishonesty at the best of times.
“Well, I kind of went snooping around Shar’s office and found a photo.
It was out in the open! I didn’t riffle.
But there’s a picture of them together, from a long time ago, with Shar’s daughter and… Petria Hall.”
The last time she mentioned Shar and her daughter, Daisy was clearly upset with her and immediately sided with Shar, warning her they couldn’t be friends if she made an enemy of Shar. Maybe this was a mistake.
Daisy shook her head slowly before speaking. “Well, we could check every empty house along Holiday Row, or we could start with the most likely place. I think we should take a look in Shar’s garage.”
An unsettling mix of relief and confusion washed over her. Daisy wasn’t angry with her, but why not?
“Not that I’m not grateful for the help, but why the sudden change? When you came in, you were completely against me looking into it at all, and now you wanna sneak around Shar’s house looking for clues?”
Daisy winced, and Roma wondered if she’d been foolish to ask. After all, who looks a gift horse in the mouth? Especially when a free horse was exactly what you needed, and the horse seemed to be particularly good at data analysis.
“I guess I just had someone looking out for me back then,” Daisy explained. “And you don’t seem to have that now, so I think helping you is the right thing to do. Besides, it’s always good to have someone to back you up.”
Roma only managed a small smile. She hadn’t allowed herself to spend much time considering the real-life consequences of her situation, especially after Daisy’s sincere decision to help her despite thinking it was a bad idea, and she also set aside her concerns about upsetting Shar.
Although it had been hinted that Daisy’s relationship with her second husband was emotionally abusive, Roma had no idea how severe it was or about the other violence involved.
She knew she needed to ask Daisy about her first husband.
Understanding what he had in common with the other clients in Cynthia’s files, all marked with that icon in their headshots, could reveal so much about Matthias.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I don’t want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, though, okay?”
It worried her how appreciative Daisy appeared at those words. The sadness and gratitude on her face were enough to make her forget about asking what her first husband was doing in Cynthia’s files.
“So, how come you’re so good at this?” Roma asked, gesturing at the screen.
Daisy laughed. “Well, it might surprise you to learn that before I got married, I studied to be a financial analyst. When I no longer needed to work, I redirected those skills toward other things; one of the results is I am very good at spreadsheets and can use them to do almost anything.”
“Anything?”
Daisy nodded. “I once created a comparison sheet that took answers from a thirty-five-question quiz about how important certain features were to you and provided a score-based analysis of over two hundred models, then delivered the top three suggestions for which yacht you should buy. The person I made it for actually mentioned it to the company he eventually went through, and they bought it from me to offer to their customers.”
“That’s actually really cool,” Roma said. “Do you think you can make a spreadsheet to help me make the cats love me?”
Daisy gave her a look. “Yes, but it would be very long and boring, and it would only tell you what everyone already knows—you can’t make cats love you, you can only encourage them to trust you.”
She snorted dismissively. “Well, apparently they only trust me when I’m asleep.”
“So, leave the bedroom door open and let them come to you.”
It annoyed her that Daisy somehow knew she had closed her bedroom door.
Did she give off some kind of invisible “not a cat person” vibe?
She wasn’t not a cat person; she didn’t have the irrational dislike of them that some seemed to have, but she had never owned one.
The only cat she regularly encountered was her neighbor’s back in New York, and it hated her.
Maybe Titan and Nebula could tell.
“Okay, fine, but how do I let them come to me at the same time as catching them both for their mandatory vet check next week?”
A wide, intentionally awkward smile that showed too many teeth broke across Daisy’s face. “Ah, well, that’s a more complicated spreadsheet.”