The most conservative estimate was
half a billion dollars, but not every- 
one agreed with that figure. A lot of  
people, including the first two real   
estate agents, thought the Corporation 
had paid out a couple billion dollars  
for all that property.                 
     The lost commissions from all     
that, even the low-ball number, was    
what this was really all about.        
     Anyway, because of all the law-   
suits, all those houses, more than five
thousand, have remained empty ever     
since that day JJ was found.           
     It looked scary at night too, and 
that's where Rhonda figures her sister 
is. To me, it certainly looked like the
most obvious place. The problem was    
with so many houses, you couldn't just 
break into one and start searching, be-
* cause someone was sure to try and stop   
us at some point, probably before we   
got too far.                           
     Even if no one stopped us, that’s 
a lot of fucking houses to search      
through.                               
     That meant that before we could   
start searching, we had to narrow the  
number of houses down to a more manage-
able amount, before someone stopped us.
     If we all put our heads together, 
Rhonda might be able to write a program
that would do just that.               
     It was definitely worth a try, and
also got me thinking about doing the   
same thing with our missing person     
reports, but finding Stephanie, was    
more important right now.              
     Rhonda thought it was worth a try,
took all our ideas, and promised to    
start working on it tonight.           



CHAPTER 7: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26th
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