Find Me (5 page)

“If, you know, you ever start to feel like that, Wicket, you know . . . you could always talk to me.”

Oh my God, cue the cheesy background music, we’re having A Moment. Todd’s eyes are Disney-animal huge. It’s like looking at Bambi, and I have no idea what to say. You know, I’ve always gotten the feeling it was more Bren who was into the whole fostering thing. She’s the one who’s said over and over how much she wanted kids and could never have them, but now Todd’s trying so hard it makes me rethink it.

“No, I’m good.” It’s the truth . . . as much as I know it. This is more honest than I meant to be, but the words bubble up anyway. Maybe that’s why Todd likes counseling. He compels the truth to rise. It’s like his superpower.

Too bad I don’t believe in heroes, super or otherwise.

Todd braces one hand against the banister, sunlight winking off his wedding band. “You sure you’re okay?”

I’m always okay.
I freeze a smile. “I’m fine, Todd.”

And I really mean it. Because I’m always okay, even when I’m not.

Upstairs, someone put
the baseball bat back on my bed. For a second I think it must’ve been Bren, but Bren would’ve tossed the bat in the closet or put it up on a shelf. Lily’s the only one who would leave it within easy reach, and the realization is a brief, painful pulse.

I drop my messenger bag on the floor and sit down heavily next to it. My head is really starting to thump. If I were smart, I’d power through the pain and use the day off from school to finish up my current job. I’m almost done with the target’s financials, a little more digging and I’ll be through.

But I’d rather look through Tessa’s diary, and I’ll be honest, that’s kind of weird for me. On the one hand, invading privacy is my thing. On the other hand, I do that for jobs, and this is not a job. I haven’t accepted it. I don’t want it.

I open the diary anyway.

The first entry is from six months ago, and Tessa has doodled her name up and down the margin. I skim the top few paragraphs and it feels . . . odd. Not that there’s anything really odd about what Tessa wrote—it’s mostly about how miserable she felt at home—it’s just uncomfortable looking at her personal thoughts.

She never meant for anyone to know about how she cheated on her history quiz and was embarrassed at having grown too tall to be a flyer in cheerleading. All this was supposed to stay private.

Plus, looking through it seems pointless. There’s a whole chunk of pages ripped out from the middle and a few close to the end. From what’s left, you can tell Tessa was upset, but she doesn’t seem like someone who was ready to take her life. I flip closer to the end, and at the top of page fifty-four, I see two short sentences that make my insides free-fall:

I think I’ve found a solution. It’s three stories up
and has no one watching the fire escape.

I slap the diary shut. Tessa was a jumper and I knew that . . . so why am I about to cry?

Because my mom jumped too, and the second I think about
her
I can’t put the memory away. Suddenly, I’m choking and I’m crying and I’m
done
. It’s been four years and I still can’t get past it. Maybe I’m not supposed to.

I shove the diary into my bag. This isn’t about saving or finding Tessa. It’s about saving me. I can’t do this. I’ll take some time off instead, lie low for a while.

It’s not great timing, since my, um, business doesn’t really advertise. I work by word of mouth. One woman gives my info to another woman who gives it to another woman. It doesn’t sound like it would work, but it does. I have a waiting list, and now it’s going to have to wait a little longer.

This diary crap has hit way too close to home. Even if Tessa hadn’t committed suicide, I would have to regroup, take time. We need the money, but we also need me to stay out of jail.

Find me.

Dammit. I need to think about something other than that . . . except there are only two questions left:

How did someone know about my hacking?

And who left Tessa’s diary?

Neither one is good. I wipe tears from my cheeks, trying to ignore the pain behind my eyes. Inside my messenger bag, my cell buzzes. I immediately think of Lily and plunge my hand into the inside pocket. The diary grabs my fingers instead. I shove it aside and find my phone.

I have a new text.

r u ok?

My heart does a little flip. Not Lily. It’s Griff. For a second, I’m confused. How did he get my number? Then I remember he asked for it last semester when we were working on a project together.

He’s checking up on me. Another example of the nice-guy stuff he does and another example of why I should continue to avoid him. I don’t deserve nice.

I fiddle with the buttons for a minute, trying to think of a response.
Am I okay? Of course I am. Does he think this is the first time I’ve gone to pieces?

I put the phone down, determined to ignore him, but my hand drifts to my elbow, where I can still feel his fingers on my skin.

I wiggle my mouse, and the desktop leaps to life. There’s a picture of Lily and me as my background. Dad took this almost two weeks before the police tried to take him, and I haven’t seen Lily’s smile look the same since.

And it’s another reason to keep moving. I’ll ignore the text, finish my work, get all this behind me. Sooner I do, the sooner I get paid.

I log into my Gmail account, thinking I could send my current customer some of the new updates on her boyfriend. My current target is shockingly clean. If all men were like this, I wouldn’t be in business, but it will be nice to send good news for once.

There are three new messages in my in-box. The first is from a customer I finished up last week, confirming her wire transfer. Great. I open up another window and double-check the transfer number she included in the email. The money’s there, and everything looks legit. Even better.

I spend another moment transferring the funds into a separate account. I’m still kind of learning the finances thing. I never had much practice until now. Dad was in charge of everything. Norcut says that was probably why my mom jumped. She thought she’d never get control of her life again, and suicide was the only choice she had left that didn’t involve him.

I think it’s nice that Norcut has an explanation for everything. Ever since that little comment, I’ve been pouring coffee into her office orchids. We’ll see if she can explain why they all die.

The second email is from my current customer. Now she wants me to check the boyfriend’s work history too. If I had to bet, there’s nothing to be found there either, but the lady’s way paranoid. She wants the full workup. She also wants to say thank you.

I close the email before I have time to read it, but the words “grateful” and “feel safer” stick to me. I get more thank-yous than anyone—including me—would ever guess, but I try never to read them. Because even though Lily and I need the money, and even though these women need answers, I still believe that only the vilest, rottenest of people would make their living from hacking. Maybe I deserve everything I’ve gotten from life. Maybe it’s cosmic payback for invading people’s privacy.

I send the woman an updated quote, including instructions to send another transfer with the new payment amount. Then I click on the third email. I don’t recognize the address, and there’s no subject. It’s just four little words, but they make my insides go cold:

Will you do it?

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

He understands things by cutting them apart.

—Page 21 of Tessa Waye’s diary

What. The. Hell? How did this person even
find me
? Only three people in the entire world know about my hacking.

The first? Lily.

The second? Lauren.

The third? My dad’s best friend and partner, Joe.

Is that too many? It must be. Someone must have told. Someone must have slipped up. Panic rises in me like a tsunami, and I think I’m going to drown.

Or I could get a grip.
The thought emerges in Technicolor and makes me sit up straight.

Right. Get a grip. Think this through. Get a plan like I did before with Nurse Smith. I could figure out how I’ve been discovered. I didn’t wait for Carson to come up the stairs, and I won’t wait for whoever this is to stay ahead of me.

I consider the three who definitely know. Lily is self-explanatory. Lily would never tell. She’s my sister, and she’s too afraid.

The second person is Lauren. My best friend. Now I know that might not mean anything. Hell, I
know
it doesn’t mean anything. I’ve seen enough to know better—best friends can betray you. But Lauren thinks I quit. She thinks I hacked because my dad made me, and now that he’s gone, I don’t have to anymore.

Then there’s Joe. Joe could be dangerous. He’s a black hat, a hacker who preys on everyday people. He’s a digital pickpocket, and he taught me almost everything I know, but he doesn’t know how I’ve been working to keep women safe. He thinks I only work for him . . . and my dad.

With the exception of Lily, no one really knows how far it goes. They only know pieces, and that’s what keeps me safe.

Well, I
thought
it was what kept me safe . . . so what do I do now?

Fix this.

Or fix someone else.

Now there’s a lovely thought. I roll it around in my brain, liking the way it feels. I spin my chair around and stick my hand behind my headboard, searching for the pushpin I use as a hook for my special jump drive. The one I use for storing my personal information and programs. Superheroes have Fortresses of Solitude. Hackers have external hard drives. Whoever’s doing this has been spying on me. I could return the favor. It’d be easy enough.

I yank the jump drive from behind the bed and plug it into my computer. What I need is a Trojan horse virus.

Trojans are kind of my specialty. I make variations of them out of my Pandora Code, a hack I created to invade hard drives. I’ve embedded Trojans in Flickr accounts, YouTube links, and now, a simple email. The plan would basically go down like this: I reply to the email and embed the virus within a link or an attachment. I could write something about how I’m willing to take the job and instruct them to follow the link. It’s that simple.

Because who can resist a single little click? Not many people. It’s bait, and once they click, I have a trapdoor into their digital lives.

I could go through their computer files, check their internet history. If I’m really lucky, they’ll have a webcam, and I can turn it on and watch them. I’ll be in and they won’t know the difference.

I scrub one hand along my mouth and realize I’m still shaking. I’m exhausted, and the trembling just makes it worse. It makes me feel weak. Vulnerable.

If I’m going to fix things, I’ve got to be at my best.

My jump drive’s file listings pop up on the screen. It takes me a minute, but I scroll through the file folders until I find what I want and do the upload. There are few things prettier than perfectly written computer code. It’s another language. Hell, it’s another world—one that I create. In the digital world, I’m powerful.

In reality . . . not so much at the moment. My head is throbbing, and the edges of my vision are going blurry. I stick one hand into my desk drawer, feeling for a fat orange pill bottle pushed all the way to the rear.

I paste the virus-embedded link into the email, dry-swallow two pills, and hit send, immediately feeling better. Whoever made me their target just became my prey.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

It’s amazing how you can measure loss. I wanted
him so badly, but after I had him . . . it was the
silence that told me all about how I was still alone.