by Jennie Marts
“Great. What color goes with fried chicken?” he asked as he headed back into the kitchen.
She wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or not. “Whatever color you have. Because I’m pretty sure all I had in my kitchen when I left was a few Diet Cokes and a jar of instant iced tea.”
“I bought some Moscato. I remembered the other day that you said you liked it.”
“I do. But I can’t believe you remembered that.” She’d told him a story while they were painting about a dinner party she’d gone to where she’d had to suffer through a glass of warm red wine when she prefer a chilled Moscato.
He carried in an opened bottle of wine and two glasses and set them on the table before dropping onto the floor next to her. “I told you that I’m a good listener.”
“And apparently a good cook. The food is delicious. Although I don’t know how you made anything. My kitchen is disaster. I didn’t even think the stove worked.”
“It doesn’t. I brought some of this from my house.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “This chicken is really good. But it tastes a little like the Colonel’s secret recipe.”
“Busted.” He offered her a sheepish grin. “Okay. I might have purchased some of the food, but the wine glasses really did come from my house.” He filled the glasses and passed one to her.
She took a sip. “The perfect combination of fruity sweetness with crispy deep fried chicken.”
He chuckled and took a sip. “Oh, that is sweet,” he said with a grimace. “But it’s okay.”
“I know. I’m not much of a wine drinker. I always expect red wine to taste like grape juice.”
“That’s got to be disappointing,” he said on another laugh.
“It is. Every time.”
She took another piece of chicken. “Thank you. For everything. I still can’t believe you did all of this for me. I so appreciate it.”
He grinned. “I wish you would stop saying that. It wasn’t that big of a deal. I enjoyed it. And like my brother said, I may not be the best with power tools, but I’m great with power cords.”
“He’s right.” She laughed and pointed to the new monitor by the door. “Tell me about the cameras.”
“There are six—all of them positioned on the outside of your house. I have a couple in the back yard, one on each side, and a couple in the front, and all of them are motion-activated. I’ve got one focused on the front porch, so if someone comes to the door, you can see who is out there. The system will record when it senses movement and capture any activity on a program on your computer. That way you can play back the footage if someone leaves something on your doorstep or tampers with anything in your yard.”
“Wow. That’s pretty cool. Am I going to be able to figure out how to use it?”
“Oh sure. It’s really pretty easy. You can flip through the screens on the monitor to see what’s happening in real time. And I set up a motion detector light in your backyard. So if anyone goes sneaking around back there, the yard will light up like a football field. There’s a switch to control it, so you can turn it on after you’ve brought Winston in for the night so the dog doesn’t set it off.”
“Oh, smart.”
He shrugged. “I also installed a couple of panic buttons. One is by the front door, and one is sitting on your night stand. If anything happens and you need help, just push one of those buttons and an alarm will sound outside of the house, and I’ll come running. It’s like a shrill beeping, so it should scare away anyone messing around outside of your house. And I also told my parents I installed them, so in case I’m not home, they’ll know something is wrong and can help.”
“Oh no. You told your parents about my…problem.” She hated the word ‘stalker.’
“Not everything. But they saw Rich over here the other day, and they asked me what was going on. They want to help.”
She covered her face with her hand. “It’s so embarrassing.”
“Hey,” he said, gently pulling her hand from her eyes. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. You did nothing wrong. Some ass-hat is terrorizing you. You didn’t cause that to happen. Besides, my parents can help. They can be on the lookout for anything strange or out of the ordinary. And you know my mom, she sees everything.”
She let out a soft laugh. “You’re right. I just hate it. And I hate that I might inconvenience someone else. They—and you—have already done so much for me.”
He hadn’t let go of her hand, and the pressure of his touch sent heat up her arm.
She leaned forward, her body yearning to be closer to his.
“That’s what friends are for,” he said as he squeezed her arm.
Screech.
Oh crap. He’d just applied the romance brakes and halted them right in the friend zone.
Chapter Eight
Maybe Murphy was misreading his cues.
Maybe he did just want to be her friend. He’d said so enough times now.
And she didn’t want to throw herself at the guy. Especially if he wasn’t interested. And he was being a good friend, a great friend.
And she could use a friend right now.
Jack was one of the good guys. But why couldn’t she seem to attract one of the good guys? Why did it seem like the only guys interested in her were possessive jerks or creepy stalkers?
Although Jack had been interested once. When they were kids. Or at least she’d thought he was. But she’d screwed that up.
Maybe he still was interested—he had almost kissed her in the car—but was scared because of what happened before. If that was the case, maybe she needed to make the first move.
“So tell me again about these guys that you suspect,” he said. “I may try to do a little digging on my own.”
Her skin crawled at the mention of her stalker, and she gave an involuntary shudder. That topic effectively shut down any chance at her move now. “What do you mean? What kind of digging? If this guy really is dangerous, I don’t want to get you mixed up in this. Besides we told the police about it. We can let Richie work on finding him.”
A frown wrinkled his forehead, and he let go of her arm and leaned back against the sofa. “Rich couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag,” he mumbled.
The topic of the police officer seemed to bother him more than the topic of the stalker. His face shut down, and he absently picked at the seam on his jeans.
It bothered her to see him upset. She wanted to bring back the happy guy, already missing both his smile and the sensation of warmth where he’d been touching her skin. “I appreciate that you want to help. And I could use all the help I can get. So what kind of digging did you have in mind?”
His face brightened, and he cocked an eyebrow at her. “Well, I am fairly skilled with the computer, and I’ve been known to do a little hacking in my time.”
She grinned. She liked this side of him, the one that seemed a little more self-assured. He was more confident when he was in his element, his world of computers, electronics, and finance. “I could use that, because I have zero skills with the computer. I can turn it on, and that’s about it.”
“People always say that, but I’m sure you know more than you think.”
“I don’t know. I can do the basics, like email, social media, and word processing kind of stuff, but I don’t really do much beyond that. I haven’t even taken my new laptop out of the box. And I’ve had my old one forever.”
“I think that old one could tell us a lot about what’s been going on in your life the past several years and if anyone has been using your laptop to spy on you.”
“What? How could they use my computer for that?”
“Easy, if they know what they’re doing. Your electronic footprint tells a lot about you. What you are searching for on the internet, what sites you visit. Say you were thinking about going to a restaurant or to get your nails done. You might search for a place, look at the reviews, even make a reservation or an appointment, and that would tell someone where
you were going to be at a certain time and place.”
A chill ran through her. “I never even thought about that.”
“Stuff like that is fairly amateur. And a lot of people post so much on social media that it makes it easy to track where they go, what places they visit, where they eat. Hell, Facebook has a section that has your phone number and email address right on the screen. Anyone can access it. And if this guy has any kind of hacking skills, he can get into your email account, your calendar, your search history, and possibly your bank records.”
“My bank records? You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were. And you’d be surprised at how easy some of that is to get into. Sometimes you don’t even have to hack it. You can get right in with a few good guesses.” He stroked his chin, rubbing at the shadow of dark whiskers. “I’ll bet I can guess your password in three tries.”
Another bet? How could she raise the stakes this time?
What if she told him he had to take off one piece of clothing for every wrong guess? Then who cared if he got it right or not—she’d lie until he’d bared it all.
She opened her mouth to suggest the bet then closed it again. Hadn’t he just made that whole ‘friend’ comment? How could she suggest a game of Strip Password Guessing if the guy only wanted to be friends? No, it was enough to see him laugh and just be friends. For now.
“Okay, you’re on.”
“All right. Let me ask you a few questions. Questions that might normally come up in conversation.”
She settled back against the sofa. “Okay. Shoot.”
“What’s your favorite sport?”
She laughed. “Hockey, obviously.”
“That was easy, just an icebreaker. Who’s your favorite player?”
“Peyton Manning.”
“He doesn’t play hockey.”
“You didn’t say who’s your favorite hockey player—you asked me who my favorite player was. And it’s Peyton.”
“Point taken.” He continued to ask her a series of questions involving her birth year, her favorite movie, her favorite places to visit, and the name of the street she lived on as a kid.
“Which time?”
He frowned. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I’m still sorry you had to move so many times.”
She looked around the living room. “I wish I could have stayed here. All of the time.”
“Me, too.”
Both of their dogs were curled against their legs, some part of their bodies touching each other and their masters. Jack reached out and stroked Winston’s head. “Is he your first dog, or have you had another one?”
A lump formed in her throat as she was caught unaware by his sudden change of subject and the memory of her first dog. “No, I had another one, but she died a few years ago.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry again. I keep bringing up hard topics. I’m not trying to upset you.”
She chuckled. “I know.” His frown deepened, his expression sad, and she wanted to reach out and touch his hand. Was that something a ‘friend’ would do? Or was that pushing the boundaries of friendship? She really wanted to crawl across the floor and up his long lean legs and kiss him senseless, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t something a ‘friend’ would do either.
Not unless they were a really good friend.
Or a really bad one.
And she didn’t want to be a bad friend. She needed—wanted—Jack in her life.
Besides, she didn’t need to be crawling up anyone right now. Her life was crazy busy, and her attention should be focused on the hockey team and getting her house settled. And it was a lot easier to blame those things than to think about the real reasons that Jack only considered her a friend.
“The point of asking you all of those questions was to show you that in the course of a normal conversation that you might have with someone, they could most likely guess what your username and password combination could be without too much trouble. Most people like simple words that are connected to their life and are easy to remember. So it’s common for usernames to be either be as simple as their actual name or some form of their email.”
“Oh.”
He grinned. “Nailed it. Didn’t I?” Before she could answer, he pointed at her backpack still sitting by the front door. “Is your laptop in your bag? Do you care if I take a look at it?”
“No, of course not.” She pushed up from the floor, retrieved her computer from her bag, and passed it to Jack, who had moved up to sit on the sofa.
He opened the computer and quickly typed a few characters into the login space.
Her eyes widened in surprise as her home page popped up, and she sank onto the sofa next to him. “You got it.”
Well that would have been the shortest game of Strip Password ever. He wouldn’t have had to take anything off. Good thing she hadn’t wasted a bet.
He pointed to the screen. “And you probably have most of your passwords auto-saved so if anyone accessed your computer, either through the internet or by actually using this laptop, they would have access to your email, your search history, even your bank.” He paused, his fingers poised above the keys. “May I?”
She nodded. “Sure, go ahead. Knock yourself out. I don’t have anything to hide. Except maybe the fact that I’m ridiculously boring.”
He clicked on her email and did a quick scroll through the messages. “I don’t even have to open these to know that you were planning to move. You have email confirmations in here from airlines, cable, Denver utilities, a moving company and an Amazon order for cardboard boxes and packing tape. I’m sure the emails themselves would tell me what days you planned to arrive and when you were turning the water and power on. You have merchant emails from Starbucks, Kohl’s, Cinemark, and Bath & Body Works. From those I could tell where you like to shop, which movie theatre you go to, and probably what scented lotion you wear.”
A chill ran through her. “All of that and you never even opened a single email?”
“Imagine what someone could find if they really started digging?”
“I don’t want to. This is freaking me out enough.”
He hovered the cursor over the search history bar on the corner of the screen. “Can I click on this? Or do you want to go in real quick and clear out all the sites with pictures of naked hockey dudes?”
She gave a mock gasp. “Wait? There’s sites with pictures of naked hockey dudes? How do I find them?”
His attempt at humor backfired, and he rolled his eyes. “Funny.”
“You brought it up. I’m fine with you clicking on it. Like I said, I think the only thing you’ll find is that I don’t lead a very exciting life.”
“I think you’ll be surprised what I can find.” He clicked the box. “Your most recent search history shows that you were looking up dog kennels, flights to Canada, restaurants that deliver, and how to register to vote in Colorado. So you were either thinking of going on a trip and boarding your dog or considering fleeing the country if the election goes bad this year. Which I hope is not the case, because I think the election’s going to go bad, either way it turns out.”
“Good point.” She knew he was trying to be funny, but none of this was humorous to her. This scared her to death. “I can’t believe how much you can figure out, basically without even trying.”
He reached out, rested his hand on the side of her leg, and the heat of his hand sent a wave of tingles down her spine. “I know it’s scary. But the good news is that if someone has been hacking in or using your computer to spy on you, they will have most likely left a trail that I can follow back and use to try to identify them.”
“That sounds good.”
“And we can do the same kinds of things to them that I was telling you they might do to you. Like, for instance, have you checked these guys out on Facebook lately?”
She shivered. “Hell no. I don’t want anything to do with any of them. Why would I check out their status
on social media? I don’t care what they ate for dinner or where they were taking selfies.”
He chuckled. “But that’s exactly the kind of thing we can use to track them down or to eliminate them as possible suspects.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll show you.” He clicked on her Facebook page. “Tell me about these guys again. I heard you say their names to Rich, but tell me again. Gary Weaver is the guy you were dating, Peter Carroll is the zealous fan, and Ron somebody was the coworker who wouldn’t leave you alone. Right?”
“Right. Ron Cruz. He worked with me at the marketing firm. And it wasn’t just me. He was always asking all the girls out. He’d dated a few of them, too. I can remember seeing one girl crying in the break room because he’d broken things off with her. I think her name was Patty, and she’d really fallen in love with the guy.”
“The creepy guy?”
“He might have been creepy, but he was good looking. Something about him just rubbed me the wrong way. Like when he looked at me, he would stare intently into my eyes for just a few seconds too long, just enough to make me uncomfortable. And he would say things that were just slightly inappropriate.”
“Sounds like a real winner. Is this him?” He turned the screen toward her.
Ron’s profile picture showed him kneeling next to a blue convertible sports car, his arm around a red-haired little girl. “Yeah, that’s him. He told me he’d been divorced but still saw his daughter every other weekend.”
“Okay, that’s good.” His fingers rapped across the keys. “Evidently, the guy likes to post selfies with his daughter when he has her for the weekend. Maybe it’s to rub it in to his ex how much fun they’re having, or maybe to prove to her they are where they say they’re going to be. Regardless, we can track his movements on the weekends he has visitations. It also seems like he travels a lot for work. He checks in a lot from different cities.”
“I think he does quite a bit of traveling with the company,” she told him. “At least he was always bragging about how he was jetting off to one place or another. Seriously, I tried to ignore him as much as I could.”