I was flattered that she thought I was methodical. Which I knew would not be something other people might consider a compliment. Pages were still flying by; all the movement was on the main screen, but every so often Alex would move something over to one of the side screens. “What’s happening? What are you finding?”
“I started with the address itself, and everything I could find about the house I’m putting over here on the left. It’s been owned by the same person for years: Nora Sinclair. Everything I learn about her I’m putting on the right.”
“That is very methodical,” I said.
“I do my best. Nora Sinclair’s owned the house for years and years, long enough that the previous owner probably doesn’t matter much. Given how long she’s owned the house, I’m guessing she’s in her seventies or eighties. She has basically no internet presence at all that I can find, which makes sense if she’s that old.”
“What about the house?”
Alex was typing and talking at the same time. How did she do that? “The house is actually more interesting than she is. It’s been on the market for a really long time, which is unusual for Marbella, since houses usually sell quick here. But the house is listed for an enormous amount of money, and from Google maps it looks like it’s just a crappy little place. I’m pulling up property records to see if there’s anything else we can find out.”
“Can I do anything? I brought my laptop, just in case.” I reached into my bag and took it out, moving aside some papers to make room on the desk.
“That would be great. Can you get on social media and do some digging for Nora Sinclair? I don’t think she’ll be on there herself, but maybe someone else might reference her?”
“Sounds good.”
We both sat typing and clicking away, companionable in silence for a while. It was nice to have someone I felt so comfortable with, and all the frenzy of the last few days, and the group activity that accompanied it, had made me miss her.
“I found something,” Alex said. “This house has a really weird history. Those first listings are way out of date—there’s some sort of lawsuit happening. It looks like someone got Nora Sinclair’s power of attorney and tried to sell the house, and someone else is trying to block the sale.”
“Any names?”
“None that look familiar. You having any luck?”
“Nothing when I search people, like you thought. I’m going through photos now.” I kept clicking through the list, hoping to find someone old. Finally, I saw a picture of a woman who could be the right age. There was a middle-aged woman standing next to her, and the caption read, “Getting my mother-in-law ready for the nursing home,” with a sad face emoticon. “This could be it.” I showed Alex.
“Whose page is it?”
“Barbara Sinclair.”
“That’s a bummer. Doesn’t match any of the names in the lawsuit.” She spun around in her desk chair and groaned. “We’re not getting anywhere.”
I looked at the picture again and saw a location tag for Palo Alto. “I think it’s her,” I told Alex. “How many Nora Sinclairs are headed for Bay Area nursing homes?”
“Okay, so let’s say it’s her,” Alex said. “Now we know she doesn’t live in the house anymore. It’s nothing we can use.”
“We still might find something later tonight,” I said. “We can’t give up hope yet.”
“I know. This is just all so depressing, though.”
Depressing? I couldn’t help but think that if Alex was right about having set up her whole financial empire in a way that would keep her from getting caught, then most of us had it way worse than she did. And “depressing” wasn’t really the word I’d use to describe what was happening here. She seemed more upset and angry than scared, which didn’t quite make sense. I wondered what was really going on. Maybe it was time to find out. “Listen, I know you said you didn’t want to talk about this yet, but I’d assumed that you and Justin weren’t super close. But as soon as you found out he was involved—”
“I flipped out?” She grinned. “Yeah, I know it must have seemed extreme.”
“Well, not entirely. I mean, he is the one who sold most of us out. But it did seem like more than that.”