No! So freaking bored. What’s up?

I could use some electronics tech support. And a needle and thread.

Isabelle texted back a series of question marks and a wink emoji.

I’m not so good with tech, but I’ll call my friend Sierra. Total computer nerd.

Thanks, Letty texted. She put the phone down and waited. Ten minutes passed.

Sierra’s coming over. See you in fifteen.

23

ISABELLE’S FRIEND ARRIVED ON A lime-green Vespa scooter. She shook the rain off her helmet and left it on the chair in the breezeway.

“Hey, Letty, this is Sierra,” Isabelle said, ushering the girl into the room.

Sierra was a slight-figured African American girl with enormous dark eyes hidden behind steel-rimmed granny glasses with pink-tinted lenses and hair that had been dyed fuchsia and cropped close to her skull. She wore an oversize army fatigue jacket and had a shiny vinyl backpack slung over one shoulder.

She didn’t look old enough to ride a Vespa, or drive a car, Letty thought, but her opinion of the teenager soon changed.

Sierra held the plastic object in the palm of her hand and looked up at Letty.

“It’s a nanny cam,” she said. “Where’d you find it?”

Letty nodded toward Maya, who was now stretched out on the bed watching PAW Patrol with Isabelle, the still-damp and newly mended Ellie tightly tucked beneath her arm.

“It was in Maya’s stuffed elephant,” Letty said quietly.

“Genius!” Sierra exclaimed. “Who put it there?”

“Maya’s mom. My late sister.”

“Oh, man. Sorry. Isabelle told me the little girl’s mama was dead. So she was spying on someone? Like, literally the nanny?”

“No,” Letty said. She checked to see if Maya was listening, but the child was still enraptured by her favorite television program. “More likely Tanya was spying on her ex. They were fighting over custody of Maya, and things had taken a nasty turn. I’m sure she was trying to get the goods on him.”

“So, she didn’t tell you the nanny cam was there?”

“I had no idea. My sister … liked to have secrets. Any idea how it works?”

Sierra held the camera inches from her nose. “Okay, so the brand name is TriCommCo. I’ll have to look them up to see the specs for this camera, but I can tell you most of these things are usually motion and sound activated. Battery operated. Some of ’em have a little flash card, but this one looks like maybe it’s Wi-Fi enabled.”

“Do you think the camera could have been ruined when Ellie got left out in the rain last night?”

“Only one way to find out,” Sierra said.

“So … where does the video, or whatever you call it, end up?”

Sierra gave Letty the exasperated look every teenager gives any technically challenged person over the age of twenty. “It’s uploaded. Like, to the cloud, or a phone or a laptop.”