But the more Eli totaled numbers, the more he thought about the process—it was super strange that the store’s owner, Archer Hunt Junior, hadn’t switched to any kind of digital records. Eli didn’t typically care about answers to impossible questions. But he couldn’t stop asking himself what was going on here. His mind couldn’t stop whirling with possibilities.

Where were the records, anyway? Why hadn’t Hunt Junior invested any energy into bringing new customers into the store? Why didn’t Hunt Junior even come down to the store anymore at all?

A pulsing blue glow caught the corner of Eli’s eye.

Jo had left her laptop in the office.

Eli hesitated for a fraction of a second. He really shouldn’t go rooting through other people’s laptops. Especially not people he respected. It was just, laptops could double-check Eli’s math. Laptops could be used to make a digital archive of what was currently only ink and paper. Without anyone else on-site, all of Eli’s suspicions were really only guesses. A feeling that had grown unavoidable to Eli. A truth he knew but couldn’t quite prove.

Eli had been blindsided enough in his life to know when it was happening, and he knew it was happening now. He just had to figure out how. And he had to figure out how without getting caught.

Besides, if Jo hadn’t wanted Eli to use the old black brick of a laptop, she ought to have made her password more secure than thebatman in all lowercase. She was always going off that “the Batman” was the least interesting part of any of the comics. It wasn’t hard to guess that she used the phrase as a catchall key to all her digital castles. She used it for the Wi-Fi password, too. And Eli had seen Hackers enough on TV to know that people reused their passwords. It didn’t matter how many times people were warned that they shouldn’t. They just did. Jo hadn’t even bothered to add a number combination at the back end to throw off the average, prank-level hack.

Though, to be honest, Eli probably could have guessed the number combination at the back end of Jo’s passwords, too. She was predictable, and Eli knew her well enough after working under her at the bookstore for the last couple of years. He knew her birthday and the date her mom had died. If you paid attention, you could really see people when they weren’t taking notice of themselves.

The login screen accepted Eli’s password and, in an instant, he was in.

Except Jo’s desktop was pristine.

Nothing but her hard drive and a shortcut to her email.