Karl met with Randy, his buddy.

Randy looked much younger than his twenty-five years, skinny and small, a fast talker with scruffy medium white hair, a five o'clock shadow, bulging hazel eyes and bad teeth, and spoke with a thick accent. It was hard to remember sometimes why they were even friends.

But Karl wasn’t with the guy for his looks or his personality—he just wanted the drugs, and his buddy was usually all too happy to provide.

Randy opened the door for him, letting him inside, and they proceed to get high, watch porn, and tell vile jokes about women.

It was pretty much all they ended up doing together when they hung out. It hadn't been all that often before, but he had more freedom ever since he'd moved into his sister's place. Even if he'd had to sneak out, it was still easier than dealing with their dad. Even if she realized he was sneaking out, she'd maybe complain and let him go anyway, or just let him do whatever he wanted.

Really, if he could have his way, he'd rather stay here. There was all the stuff he liked, and his buddy was good about letting him hang around sometimes. Still, there was some problem with him staying over long term, which was why he'd had to show up at his sister's place not long after he left home. He got the stuff his friend wanted from him, so they at least allowed him to stay for a couple of days before kicking him out.

Living with his sister wasn’t all that different from home, really. Because he was his father's only son, and therefore heir, he was given way more slack than Laurie. Still, it was way more convenient. Laurie lived alone and was gone most of the day, on work days, so he had a whole house to himself to do whatever he wanted. She made him food, cleaned up his mess for him, whether or not she wanted to. She was also gullible enough to buy everything he told her.

If not for all of that, he would have found some other place and moved. It was a problem that he didn’t have any money, but he could always do something for his friend to get some if he was that desperate. Or beg his dad… but the old man had been pissed when he realized Karl had hacked his computer, so he was staying clear of home for a while.

His dad would have to forgive him eventually, just like with all the other shit he'd done before. It wasn’t like he'd done anything that serious, after all.

Of course, thinking about Laurie led to complaining about Laurie. As convenient as sticking around her place was, the nagging was annoying. He wouldn’t have minded it so much if she hadn't been his sister, though.

"She has less of a stick up her ass than my old man, but she's almost as bad. She won't give me any cash, she won't even let me have her computer when she's out. The hell does she expect me to do when she leaves me alone? If I knew any girls to bring over, she would probably nag me about that, too."

"Does she give you any money?"

He shrugged. "No. Doesn’t mean I don’t get any. She leaves some in her room sometimes."

Karl had been careful to only take a little of it, so she wouldn’t stop leaving it there. It wasn’t really a lot, to begin with. There wasn’t anything he wanted, yet, because she bought and left snacks for him in the kitchen, too, but for the moment there was money there if he needed it. He was fine, anyway, for the time being, and he was pretty sure she would cave pretty easily if he fed her some bull and begged for some cash. Randy was letting him have his drugs for free for now, even if it wasn’t nearly as much as he'd like.

They jerked off to the video playing on high volume on the computer, smoke swirling around them. They'd done it in the same room a few times, with the rule that they kept their eyes on the screen. He groaned as he came in his hand and wiped down on his pants, fixing his fly.

"Man, I wish we could get some girls in here. It would make this place perfect."

There was a grunt, and then a chuckle beside him as Randy finished himself off. "Hey, how pretty is your sister?"

Karl looked over at Randy. "She's my sister, I don’t know. Why?"

"Well, you've mentioned her a couple times. She's older, right? Twenty-six?" Randy smiled. "I've never gone for an older woman before. She might be good for a fuck."

Karl snorted. "I don’t even know if she's into that. She's so freaking uptight, she probably doesn’t do guys."

"Like I care. I want to fuck her, not date her. Why don’t you introduce me to her?"

Yeah, Karl knew without thinking too much about it that it would be a bad idea. She might get mad if he brought his buddy home. But if he got her to relax a little…

Mickey, outside and listening to the whole thing, couldn’t help his anger. He wanted to cross the street, bust down the door, and beat up the two idiots. Karl would get the worst of it. He'd come across plenty of scum in his line of work, but people still surprised him.

But he couldn’t move. That wasn’t part of his job. He hated that he had to record all of this, and would have to send it to his superiors. He was forced to listen to Karl and his buddy, who he'd called Randy, not-so-casually talking about getting his sister drunk and then leaving Randy alone with her so he could have his fun. Mickey hadn't been lying to Laurie when he told her he didn’t have siblings, and right then, he was glad. If this had been his brother, he might have killed the kid off a long time ago and ended up on the wrong side of the law.

Mickey was absolutely disgusted with the entire conversation, even though he was pretty sure all they'd done at first was set up the porn and smoke weed. He'd heard some sounds that made him think they'd gotten themselves off before they brought Laurie into their conversation, and that only made him angrier.

More than that, he found himself feeling protective of Laurie. He was starting to believe she was innocent in this whole situation. Some stuff Karl had said made him almost sure, but he couldn’t just dismiss her from the investigation, his superiors would have to do that.

He was a little surprised at his reaction, especially the force of it, thinking about the fact that he hadn't felt that way about anyone since his ex. That was a situation that had ended so wrong, he'd been put off from interaction outside of work for a while. But then he quickly focused back on the conversation.

Mickey was there to work, not think about unrelated things. Laurie's fate from then on was dependent on him doing his job well.

Frustratingly, there was no mention of the illicitly copied documents and files coming up, though Karl did bitch at length about being thrown out by his 'stupid old man.' He mentioned Laurie a few more times, too.

Mickey didn’t have enough evidence to move in yet, but after he felt he'd spent way more than enough time there, he called in the location of Randy's safe house, Randy's name and a couple of surreptitiously taken photos, asking that Randy be monitored as well. He left whatever they were saying on record as he handled all that, and when he got back, it seemed like everything had quieted down inside. He'd need some permanent surveillance, but he would have to set it up later if he got the time. He didn’t bring the equipment for it.

He went home tired and found himself looking forward to coffee with Laurie tomorrow.