by Karen Rose
“Thank you,” Eve said, touched, and he smiled back, but his eyes were troubled.
“Callie’s right, Evie. None of this is your fault. Let the police do their jobs.”
“I am. Mostly.” She toggled her laptop screen to Ninth Circle. “He could be there, hunting his next victim. I can’t just stand by. I have to do something.”
David shook his head helplessly. “God, it’s like a Dana echo in here.”
“Thank you,” she said again and he scowled.
“That wasn’t a compliment,” he said. “So what are you doing that you shouldn’t be?”
“Reading blogs of ShadowCo people. You can learn a lot from employee blog rants.”
“What do you want to learn from ShadowCo’s angry employees?” Callie asked.
“I want a contact in the company. So I can hack in.”
Callie nodded. “That’s what I expected you to do. Can I watch?”
Eve laughed. “Sure. If I’m lucky this marketing guy who ranted about his boss, who works him like a slave, will still be in the office.”
“At this time of night?” David asked.
“If it’s anything like law firms,” Callie said, “people will work until midnight.”
“Besides, they’re in Seattle,” Eve added. “This blog is from a marketing genius who included his title and phone number at the end of his rant about the multi-million-dollar bonus given to ShadowCo’s CEO.”
“I don’t know why people are so stupid as to blog about their bosses,” Callie said. “Anyone in the world can see it once it posts. Idiots.”
“Well, this idiot’s name is Clayton Johnson.” Using the disposable cell, Eve dialed.
The phone rang six times. “Johnson,” he said, clipped and annoyed. Perfect.
“Mr. Johnson,” Eve said, “my name is Gillian Townsend. I’m with Attenborough IT Services. We’re contracted to support your company network systems.”
“So?” Johnson asked impatiently. “I don’t have time—”
Eve broke in before he could hang up. “We’re doing server maintenance and I can see you’re still logged in. In a few minutes, we’ll be shutting down your server.”
“No,” he said angrily. “I have a report to finish and I need—”
“It’s all right, sir. We’re shutting down your server and immediately starting up the backup. I can validate your account on my end so that you won’t have any down time.”
“Oh.” He sounded mollified. “Well, all right.”
“What’s your user name and password, please?” She looked up to find Callie staring at her like she’d grown two heads. David just looked resigned.
“JohnsonCL and sonicsrule, all one word,” Johnson said.
Eve smiled. “Thank you. You won’t see even a blip in your service. Be sure to change your password first thing in the morning, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“My pleasure. Have a good evening.” Eve hung up. “That’s how it’s done.”
Callie looked stunned. “You lied to that man.”
“Yes I did. And he gave a complete stranger his password and user name.”
“You lied to that man,” Callie repeated. “With the cell phone David bought you.”
“Why do you think she wanted an untraceable phone?” David asked. “But, Evie, that Johnson guy was just an innocent bystander. You could get him fired.”
“That’s why I told him to change his password. If he does, he’ll appear like he was security-conscious. Don’t worry. Once this is over, I’ll tell Ethan and he can pay a sales call to ShadowCo and show them the huge holes in their network security.”
David blinked. “This is what Ethan does for a living?”
“Sometimes. I used to hack for him part-time when I lived in Chicago. It’s a good way to get his consulting foot in the door. A company’s biggest vulnerability is often its people. Ethan shows them the security hole and offers to patch it up.”
“That’s…” David shook his head. “That’s dishonest.”
“It would be if he used their servers for personal gain. He doesn’t. He’s a white hat.”
Callie’s lips twitched. “A white hat?”
Eve nodded. “That’s what they’re called, I swear. As opposed to black hats who hack in with malicious intent. If a business tells Ethan they don’t want his services, he tells them where the hole was anyway. Most likely a high school kid’s already found it.”
“Don’t these companies get mad that you hacked?” Callie asked.
“Usually they want the hole patched before the big cheese finds out. In the end, everybody wins. How would you like it if your bank’s server had a security hole?”
“They wouldn’t,” David declared, then his features shifted uneasily. “Do they?”
“Remember when Ethan and Dana put the downpayment on the house for all their fosters? That downpayment was a retainer from your bank, buddy. Some hacker had already breached their system. They said they wished Ethan had breached it first.”
“It’s still dishonest,” he grumbled, but without heat. He brought her a plate of pasta and cream sauce, then perched on the arm of her chair. “So you’re in?”
“Not yet. Johnson was a little fish. As a marketing guy, his access rights are diddly. I need to elevate my privileges so that I can get into the client files. That’ll take time.”
“Why didn’t you start with somebody with better access?” David asked.
“Like an IT person? Because they probably would have called the cops on me.”
“Will you call anybody else?” Callie asked, fascinated.
“Not tonight. I’m going to run exploits until I find another, better hole.”
“English,” David murmured.
“Exploits are codes, scripts hackers use to find security holes. Hackers see network security as one big Rubik’s Cube. It’s there to be breached, a puzzle to be solved.”
“Like mountain climbers scale Everest because it’s there,” Callie said.
“Absolutely. They create code that basically knocks on the walls of network security until it finds a loose brick. Knock the loose brick through and you’re in.”
“It’s part of the game,” David said. “Hackers make holes, businesses patch them.”
Eve smiled at him. “Kind of like roofs. Some hackers look for loose bricks for nefarious reasons, like they want credit card info. But some do it just because it’s there. They share their code because it gives them status. Hopefully one of these scripts will find a ShadowCo hole. Then I can get into Martha and Christy’s files and check their movements, who they talked to, and importantly, how their avatars were altered.”
“And then you’ll hand it over to Detective Webster,” David said.
“I promise. It’ll take the cops days to get a warrant for ShadowCo files. I can access them in a day. Then they stop the killer and I don’t have any more deaths on my conscience.” She set the scripts to run, toggled back to Ninth Circle, and dug into her pasta. “And don’t tell me they’re not on my head. Because they are.”
Neither of them corrected her, either because they knew she wouldn’t listen or because they knew she was right. Eve patted Callie’s arm. “Go home. David’s here and I’ll be fine.”
“You won’t leave her?” Callie asked. “Because even if she’s not worried about that psycho coming after her, I am.”
“I’ll sleep on the sofa. If I can sleep on that ratty couch in the firehouse, I can sleep anywhere. Come on, Callie. It’s late. I’ll fix you a plate and walk you down to your car.”
They were gone and it was quiet. Except for the dripping. She turned up the volume of the Ninth Circle band. It was the lesser of two evils, but just barely.
She searched the bar once again for the handsome avatar, then turned to her list of red-zones. There were still five, three of which were women. Rachel Ward, Natalie Clooney, and Kathy Kirk. She knew them only by their avatars—Rachel’s cabaret dancer, Natalie’s poker
queen, and Kathy’s real estate mogul.
Who they were in real life Eve didn’t yet know. That was about to change. But first she wanted to be sure they were still present. She spotted Kathy’s avatar on her bar stool, negotiating a land deal. Natalie’s hung at the casino, as did Rachel’s on the nights she was dancing. But on Mondays, Rachel hung at Ninth Circle with everyone else.
Eve was looking for Rachel, when a sharp knock startled her. She set her laptop aside and got up to let David back in. “Remind me to make you a key.”
The words were out before the man on her welcome mat registered in her mind.
Noah Webster’s face was shadowed by his hat brim, but she could see the wry humor in his eyes. “I’m flattered,” he said. “But it’s a little soon for that, don’t you think?”
A disturbing little thrill raced down her spine. “I… I thought you were my friend.”
“Now I’m hurt,” he said mildly. “I haven’t even told you why I’m here.”
“I didn’t mean…” Flustered, she looked down at her feet, got her composure, then looked back up to find him staring in that unsettling way of his. “Come in.”
Webster slipped his hat from his head in a gesture she found endearing. “I saw your friend downstairs. He was looking under the hood of Callie’s car. It wouldn’t start.”
“Callie drives a bigger hunk of junk than I do. David will find the problem.”
Webster’s dark brows knitted slightly. “So your friend fixes cars and roofs?”
“David does a little bit of everything,” she said. “He’s a fireman, too. And he cooks.”
“All that,” Webster said sourly and she had to chuckle.
“I’ve never met a woman who could resist him,” she said lightly.
“Except you?” he said, too seriously, and something twisted in her stomach.
“Except me.” David had earned her trust. But to fall for a man on the basis of his pleasing face? Never again. She required actions before she trusted a man now. But she’d trusted Webster, almost at first sight. To deny it would be an outright lie.
And Noah Webster had a very pleasing face. It was a bothersome admission.
“What brings you back, Detective?”
His eyes left hers and too late she remembered she’d left the disposable phone out in plain sight. He walked to her chair, picked it up. “Untraceable cell phone?”
“It’s not a crime to own a prepaid phone,” she said blandly, but she tensed. A bit.
“No, it’s not. But, hypothetically speaking, if you learned anything, you’d tell me?”
“You’d be the first call I made. Hypothetically speaking.”
“Of course.” He looked at her laptop. “Did you see the guy who talked to Christy?”
“Not yet. I’ve been checking off and on since I got home.” She didn’t want him looking too closely at her screen. “Have a seat, Detective. I’ll put coffee on.”
But again, it was too late. “Who is this, Eve?” He pointed at the panel in the top left of her screen, the one that showed her active avatar. “Did Greer take the night off?”
She’d indeed given Greer the night off, resurrecting an avatar she hadn’t used in a very long time. “I needed to get her appropriate clothing. Didn’t want her to catch cold.”
He sat in her chair, pulled her computer to his lap. “And here I thought you’d created a new avatar so that you could approach this dancer without breaking your word to me.”
Eve sat on the sofa. “I’m not that clever.”
He didn’t smile. “Uh-huh. So who is this new face of Eve?”
Eve took her computer, set it aside. “What happened? Why did you come back?”
He glared at her laptop, eyes flashing with annoyance. “I need your participant list.”
“I expected you’d ask once Matt Nillson was gone. He’d have a cow, you know.”
“I won’t say where I got it. I promise.”
“I’d planned to bring it to you tomorrow anyway. Wait here. I’ll be back.”
Noah watched her head to her bedroom, laptop under her arm, then checked the phone. Her only call was to a 206 area code, same as ShadowCo. He knew this because he’d looked it up for his warrant request.
Eve was planning to hack into Shadowland, if she hadn’t done so already. In her place I’d do the same. He put the phone back and considered her computer.
He’d caught a look at her new avatar. Dark, sleek, and dangerous—of a different style than her other designs, although the face had been disturbingly familiar. He knew he’d looked at a much younger Eve, before she’d met the man who’d left her for dead.
The new avatar’s name was Nemesis. Noah knew Eve well enough by now to know that meant something. On his own cell, he did a quick Internet search. Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution. Eve was planning to kick some virtual ass. That shouldn’t arouse him, but he’d be lying if he denied it did.
Eve reappeared, a stack of papers in one hand. “It took a few minutes to print.”
He took the stack. “How many people are in this study, anyway?”
“Five hundred, but you don’t have to check them all.” She leaned close to point at a page, but didn’t touch him. He thought of how she’d thrown her arms around Hunter and felt a tug of jealousy. It was irrational, and embarrassing, but it was there.
“We have three groups,” she was saying. “Group C is the one you want to focus on.”
“They’re in Shadowland.”
“Where they do self-esteem exercises. They’re broken into three subgroups—those who never played until this study, who played a few hours a month, and who played a few hours a week. They fill out diaries with their usage, but I can check their online time. The heavy users almost always lie, understating their usage.”
“Like Martha.”
“Actually she was honest about her habits.” She pointed. “These are the top users.”
“Martha and Christy are still on the list,” he noted.
“I’m not supposed to know I should take them off,” she said quietly. “And that sucks.”
There was guilt in her tone and Noah wanted to alleviate it if he could. “When would they have been missed from the study? If you hadn’t been keeping track?”
“In a few weeks, when they had to come back for their personality evals.”
“Then you did good.” He met her eyes. “You couldn’t have stopped these murders. But you might have saved his next victim by doing everything you’ve done. Don’t let your guilt overshadow your contribution.” He smiled. “No pun intended.”
“Thank you. That helps a lot more than being told it’s not my fault.”
He held her eyes a moment longer before she looked away, but in that moment he saw an unguarded loneliness that squeezed at his heart. Trina’s words came back to hit him like a ton of bricks. You don’t deserve to be alone forever. And he finally admitted he didn’t want to be. That he’d give anything to have somebody again.
“One more question. You want people to have meaningful lives in the real world.”
Her glance up was nervous, fleeting. “Yes, so?”
“So, what good is living in the real world if you have to live alone, unavailable?”
She flinched and he knew he’d overstepped, but didn’t care. She walked to her front door and opened it wide, not looking at him. “Call me if you need anything else.”
He stood looking at her for a few seconds before walking through the door. It closed sharply behind him and he heard the click of her deadbolt. With a sigh he walked down a flight of stairs, only to find David Hunter sitting on one of the steps, looking very cold.
“Is everything all right?”
Hunter stood. “I figured you two needed to talk about whatever happened tonight.”
Noah narrowed his eyes. “She didn’t tell you?”
“She witnessed a crime and gave her statement. Why? Is Evie in trouble?”
“No, she’s not.” Noah walked
down another flight before he turned and looked back up. Hunter was watching him, his expression purposefully bland.
“Is everything all right, Detective?” Hunter asked cordially.
“No.” Noah studied Hunter’s near-perfect face. “You knew her, in Chicago.”
“Yes.” The single word was clipped and laced with warning.
“I read about what happened to her four years ago, with that kidnapping and the boy she saved. And what happened two years before that.”
Hunter’s jaw had tightened. “Is there a question in there, Detective?”
Yes, but he’d be damned if he knew what it was. “She has a disposable cell phone in her apartment,” he said and Hunter’s expression smoothed.
“I know. I bought it tonight. I left the charger for my cell back in Chicago and my phone is dead. The prepaid will keep me going until I get home.”
The man’s gray eyes didn’t flicker an iota as he lied. “Look, I know Eve’s going to hack into Shadowland’s system. When she does, can you make sure she calls me?”
Hunter’s lips thinned. “Why, so you can cuff her again?”
“I didn’t do that, and I uncuffed her as soon as I got there. I want her to call me because she doesn’t think she’s in danger. I won’t take the chance that she’s wrong.”
Now Hunter’s eyes flickered, but with worry. “I’ll make sure she calls you.”
“Thanks.” Noah hesitated. “Why did you really come, Hunter?”
“To fix her roof. Evie’s like my kid sister. There’s not a lot I wouldn’t do for her.”
A sense of relief loosened the knots in his gut. “Thanks. See you around.”
“Detective,” Hunter called after him, “weren’t you wearing a hat when you got here?”
Noah nodded. “I thought I’d come back for it tomorrow.”
Hunter hesitated. “Don’t hurt her,” he said quietly. “She’s been through enough.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Eve let David back in, still feeling unsettled. Angry. She’d tried to be honest but kind to Noah, but he did not respect boundaries. She locked her deadbolt, her frown deepening. “I know I locked my door this afternoon. I can picture it in my mind.”