by Vivi Barnes
“Check it out,” Sam says, pointing at the last address listed on State Avenue. “Why is Nancy visiting Frank at his house?”
“No idea.”
“I wish there was a stupid metal filing cabinet,” Sam says grumpily. “Pry it open, pull out a file labeled ‘Frank Jones,’ and we’d be good to go. Or look under the carpet for a key.”
“I am looking for a key,” I tell her, typing in the code that will get me in. “Just a different kind.”
I hesitate, though, staring at the black screen in front of me. It’s not like looking at her phone or listening in to conversations. This is a lot more personal. It’ll be the first time I’ve ever attempted to hack Nancy’s computer. I have no doubt that I can do it, and it might give me all the facts I need on this Frank guy. But if I do this, I’ll lose the trust of the one person who’s always believed in me. Would I even be able to look her in the eye?
“What’s wrong?” Sam asks.
“I can’t do it. Not to Nancy.”
She stares at me for a moment, then her lips lift in a slight approving smile. If she says “good boy,” I’m out of here.
“Besides, we have enough information to start with.” I lean back in my chair. “So obviously this Frank guy is someone Nancy knows well enough to allow him into the house, to keep him in her phone, and to have a conversation with two days ago. She also was inclined to go to his house herself. And he knows where Liv is and that her grandfather’s loaded, so it would make sense if he was going to blackmail her.”
“But stalk her?” Sam asks in the middle of a yawn. “Send her roses? What would he get outta that? And why would he steal your debit card and use it to send her jewelry?” She laughs.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry,” she says, wiping her hands over her eyes. “I’m getting loopy. I’ve got to go to bed. If you come up with anything else, let me know.”
“Will do.”
I browse around on the computer Sam was on, looking for more details on Frank or Elizabeth Jones but come up with nothing useful, other than the fact that they’re both from Pittsburgh.
Sam has a point, though. What would Frank get out of sending roses to Liv? Unless he was related to Bill and is pissed off about his death or something. I didn’t think Bill had any family. Not that any of us know about one another’s families (or lack of them). No one except Nancy knows I have any family, either.
I look up my father on the web, and a different story pops up. This one’s about his son Jeremy, who’s a few years older than me and interning at a hospital right here in Virginia. I wonder how John Dawkins Winslow III would feel about both his sons—his precious legitimate son as well as the one he swept under the carpet—living in the same city. Not that he would’ve looked me up anyway to know shit about me. Maybe I should pay a visit to Jeremy and share our relationship, which I am sure he knows nothing about.
I stare at a photograph of my half brother, taken at his college graduation. Two fingers are pointed skyward; the other arm is around his father, who’s smiling proudly at his Johns Hopkins graduate. His mother is on his other side, laughing at something off-camera, her hand clasped around a grinning little boy. Such a happy family. Bitterness surges inside my heart, but also a weird kind of ache. I zoom in to my father’s face, imagining that look of pride, those shining eyes of approval, directed at me.
This is stupid. I don’t need my father’s approval. Anger at him is what kept me pushing forward to be an expert cracker. The antithesis to his perfect son. Wrecking every corporate life that I could. Make them hurt to take away some of my pain. Problem is that it doesn’t work as well as it did when I was younger. The anger still boils under my skin, but it feels old, an ache that I can’t cure.
I hack into his website and replace the word “honest” with “scumbag” in a sentence in his “about me” section. It probably won’t even be noticed by his team for a while.
Then I close the browser and erase any trace I was there.
Chapter Fifteen
LIV
On Sunday, I sleep in, exhausted after staying up all night to get my homework done. The visit—and kiss—from Jack threw me a curveball, and I’m having a hard time concentrating on anything else.
I’ve replayed that kiss on his bike a hundred times in my head and come up with no conclusions other than the fact that I need to stay on my guard. Otherwise I’m going to end up falling hard again, just to have my heart broken. Again.
I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth, then come back to my room, put on my robe, and open the doors to the balcony. It’s so weird how warm it is out—more like spring than February. The concrete feels soft to my feet. Soft concrete? I glance down, a chill creeping over my body until I’m numb.
Roses are cut up and strewn all over my balcony, red petals mixed with white. Hundreds of rose petals and stems, looking like blood leaking out of veins. It looks like someone took a hacksaw to them. What the hell? There’s nobody in sight. Nobody running from the house.
Someone did this while I was sleeping.
I back away, only able to take shallow, whimpering breaths. Keep it together, Liv. It’s just rose petals. Someone trying to freak you out.
I grab my phone off the desk and take a picture of the roses and text it to Jack without even thinking. I just swore to stay away from him, and here I am sending him a picture of…
I peer closer at the picture, at what looks like a glint of steel, then look up at the same spot on the balcony. A knife is lying on the petals. Not the kitchen kind—the kind you see on CSI shows that look like daggers. I step back, my entire body trembling. “I’m not afraid of you,” I try to shout, but I can’t find my voice.
I am afraid, though. Very. I edge back into my room, lock the balcony door again with my shaking fingers, and run to get my grandfather.
Less than an hour later, two policemen are on my balcony and in my room, taking pictures of the chaos of roses and making notes on their pads. I tell them about the rose petals on my car seat at school. I leave out the part about the flower on my pillow, not because I’m trying to keep it from them, but from my grandfather. He’d freak if he knew I’d kept that a secret this whole time.
The younger of the two police officers walks over to me, tapping his notepad against his pant leg and looking around the room as if there were clues they might’ve missed. “Any old boyfriends who might be trying to reconnect with you?”
I shake my head, doing my best to keep my face even. “No.”
“May I see your phone?” the older officer asks.
My throat tightens. Of course, they’ll want to check the call record. I should’ve thought of that before texting Jack. Stupid.
Grandfather nods at me. “Sure,” I say, trying to act casual though the word comes out high-pitched.
The officer raises an eyebrow. “Well, where is it?”
“Oh, it’s in the bathroom. I’ll go get it.”
“You keep a phone in the bathroom?” The officer looks at my grandfather, who shrugs.
“Yes, sir.” I head into my bathroom and delete all my texts and the outgoing call to Jack. It’s all I have time to do before the officer appears to take my phone.
“Not a big texter?” he asks as we walk back to my room. He looks at me skeptically
“Not really.”
“Hmm… Who’s Annie?” The officer looks over his glasses at me, and my heart sinks. He’s going through my contact list.
“One of my friend’s granddaughters,” Grandfather says, and he seems pleased. He smiles at me. “I didn’t realize you two swapped numbers.”
I nod without speaking. I’ve never called or texted Annie. I only took the number because she gave it to me if I ever wanted to meet up at the country club to swim. She’s nice, but calling people I barely know out of the blue is not anywhere within my comfort zone.
“Dr. Valerio?”
“Her therapist,” Grandfather supplies. “She came from fost
er care, so I thought she might want to talk about it with someone.”
It’s embarrassing, the look of surprise mixed with pity that the officer gives me. And it’s the first time Grandfather’s ever mentioned to anyone that I’m from the foster system. It hurts, deep down, though I know he’s just saying it because he’s trying to help the police. “Anyone from your foster homes you think might want to hurt you?” the officer asks.
“I don’t think so.” Those who tried to hurt me have moved on, and I don’t want to bring up the past. Grandfather doesn’t know much about what happened in any of my homes—not with Derrick, not with the ones before who bullied me or abused me. He doesn’t even know about Bernadette—the one I thought loved me and promised to keep me forever, till she left me for Hawaii. I wouldn’t have been able to stomach his pity. And what he knows about Bill Sykes was that he was a stranger who kidnapped me—not the crime boss of the guy he despises.
“Emerson?”
“My best friend.” I glance at Grandfather, who’s now preoccupied at the balcony door, staring at the roses. Please don’t be listening.
My stomach clenches when he says, “Jack?”
All eyes look my way, but the only face I really notice is Grandfather’s. His head rotates in my direction, his eyes wide with disappointment. It’s a punch in the gut to him, I know, especially after our conversation yesterday. I keep my face even as I talk to the officer. “A friend from a school I used to go to.” It’s true—he’s a friend from my last school, so it’s not like I lied.
“A good friend?”
I shrug. “Not really. I haven’t seen him in a long time.” Only yesterday. “I’ve just had that number in my phone for a while and haven’t deleted it.”
“Well, maybe it’s time to delete those old numbers you don’t use anymore,” Grandfather says, a slight edge in his voice. I avoid looking at him.
“Well, considering he’s calling you right now, looks like he’s not that old of a friend,” the officer says, holding up my phone so I can see the incoming call from Jack.
Great. I laugh shortly and take the phone, using the auto reply that I can’t talk. I silently pray for him not to call me again and keep my gaze on the officer. “He’s an old friend, but I sent him a picture of the roses. I thought he’d find it funny.”
“Funny?” The officers look at each other with raised eyebrows.
I swallow and nod, trying to smile. “Yeah. We did a project on Romeo and Juliet once and had a scene kind of like this one with the roses, so I thought I’d tell him about it. I…I didn’t realize there was a knife in the roses when I took the picture.”
Worst lie ever. I can see my grandfather shifting out of the corner of my eye. Now he knows I’m lying about not being in contact with Jack. I should’ve just been up front with him from the beginning.
“I can pull records of texts, of course, if you’d like me to.” The officer addresses my grandfather more than me. Obviously, he knows I’m lying, too. Grandfather’s eyes are still on me, and I’m silently pleading with him not to say anything.
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary just yet,” Grandfather says quietly, and I breathe a little. His gaze is still disappointed, though, which tells me he didn’t buy a word I said. “What about the bracelet, Olivia?”
“I’m not sure where I put it,” I tell him. He shakes his head slightly. I don’t blame him for not believing me on that one, either. I suck at lying.
The policemen finish their search of my phone, do a few quick fingerprints, and leave with the usual “Call us if you see or hear anything” message. They give Grandfather the numbers for a few local private investigators for hire and he thanks them. His extreme politeness puts me on edge—I know he’s upset, and the fact that my lie is the reason for it makes me feel horrible. But I can’t have them going after Jack.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I start after he sees the officers out, but Grandfather raises a hand.
“Olivia, I’ve tried being patient with you on this, but the lies…”
“I know. I’m sorry. But I promise I haven’t had contact with him before this week.”
He shakes his head. “I want to believe you, but you have to understand how difficult that is. What I want to know is are you seeing him now?”
“No. I just talked to him about what’s happening here. That’s all.”
“And why would you do that?” When I don’t answer, he nods. “You thought he was the one doing this. Has he proved that he hasn’t?”
“Jack wouldn’t do this,” I tell him firmly. “I know it. He’s more upset than you are.”
Grandfather scowls. “I doubt that. Olivia, whatever happened with that boy must stay in the past. I forbid you to have anything to do with him, do you understand? For the sake of your future.”
“My future?” I ask, but he’s already walking away. Final word is the final word, as far as he’s concerned. But for the sake of my future—what does that mean? Is he going to disown me? Not help me get to Princeton? I’ve already been accepted—the letter came in December. But if he decides to cut me off, I don’t know how I’ll be able to do it.
I wrap my arms around myself, flashbacks of the foster life creeping over me. Things were always held over my head. If I needed new clothes, most of the time I had to hope my foster parents were in a good mood or I’d just get by wearing things that were too small. I thought the days of worrying were over, that I was with family who’d love me no matter what.
I don’t blame Grandfather—he’s only known me for a few months. I can’t help but feel I’m here on a trial basis until he realizes I’m not going to run away pregnant like my mother did. No matter what he says about me being part of the family, I have a feeling I’ll always feel like this—an outsider.
Chapter Sixteen
JACK
Everyone in the house is tense—including me, but for different reasons. The missing money is all they’re talking about, and it’s grating on my nerves. Not because I think they shouldn’t be worried, but because all I hear is, “Who do you think did it?” Over and over. But nobody seems to actually be doing anything about it. I’ve combed through the house computer along with Micah, and we can’t find any evidence that someone stole our money.
Nancy tries to keep the peace and refuses to look through people’s computers. “Everyone deserves privacy,” she says. “Unless we know without a doubt it was someone on the inside, we’re not raking through one another’s computers.”
Some people have obviously already made up their minds. Jen’s eyes accuse me every time she looks my way. Every once in a while she’ll say something like “Whatcha gonna do with all our money?” when she passes me on the stairs or in the hallway, but I ignore her. It’s not like I’m the only one whose bank account wasn’t touched.
I have Bill’s old detective contact, Jim Rush, look into Frank Jones, but he comes up with nothing illegal. The guy barely has an online existence. I even parked outside Frank’s house while he was there but couldn’t find an open wifi to hack into. Nancy refuses to talk about him. Well, mostly she just changes the subject and finds a reason for us not to be alone together. She’s definitely hiding something, so I’m not letting her off the hook where Frank’s concerned.
But it’s not just the money that has me worried right now. I can’t stop thinking about the picture of slashed roses on Liv’s balcony, a knife buried within them. I can’t text her or call her. Her auto reply message was enough to tell me police were probably going through her phone.
I tap my finger on the face of the phone, wishing she would let me know what’s going on.
Micah calls me to his room and tells me he’s found the footage I’m looking for in the security cam. He brings up the grainy black-and-white video from the jump drive he captured it on and lets me sit in front of the monitor.
“This is the only transaction that went down at the time stamped on your receipt. I don’t think you’re going to get much from it, t
hough. Hard to see the guy’s face with that hoodie.”
The man appears to be lean and maybe around five foot ten. As normal as a person can get. Liv’s right, there’s no telling who the guy is from this footage. He could be Frank, but he could be a thousand other people, too. I try to see if I can catch a profile or anything when he turns to leave the store. His face is down, either examining his purchase or avoiding cameras. Considering all the trouble the guy went through to keep himself hidden, looks like he’s avoiding security cameras.
“Did you get the pawn shop’s external angle?” I ask.
Micah nods. He opens the footage up and plays it. “See? Same guy—but he’s with a woman.”
The quality is better on the pawn shop’s camera, though unfortunately the couple walks away from the lens. The woman is much shorter than the man. She links her arm through his, cuddling up to him as they walk away. I rewind it and stare at the long blond hair.
“Is it just me, or does that look like…”
“Jen,” Micah finishes. We look at each other.
“What would Jen be doing with a guy buying Liv a bracelet?” I ask.
“If that’s even her,” Micah says doubtfully. He rewinds the video, peering closely at the screen. “You can’t see her face. Lots of people have blond hair.”
“It makes sense, though. She’s so pissed off about everything. Remember how mad she was when Maggie and the others moved in?” And she blames me for us not having any money. But who’s the guy?
Micah shakes his head. “Dude, you better not accuse her without more evidence than this. Nancy will take your head off.”
He hands me the jump drive. “They’re both on here.”
“Thanks for this. I owe you big.”
“Hey, Z,” Micah calls from behind me as I head toward the door. “Why do you think our accounts weren’t touched? I mean, mine, yours, and Nancy’s were the only ones left alone. And some of the girls from Bill’s other house.”
I lean against the doorframe. “Maybe the hacker stole from the people least likely to check their account balances regularly, giving him time to get the money offshore before the bank could stop it.”