Hidden

by Karen E. Olson

  The destruction at my house wasn’t his style, at least not the man I used to know. But it was Carmine Loffredo’s style.

  A chill rushes up my spine. Carmine probably has not been charged with just finding me. We both stole that money from Carmine’s boss. I wonder where he is hiding, because I know he must be if he knows Carmine is here. He doesn’t know the island like I do, though, and he doesn’t know the best places to go.

  Steve is watching me. I have to give him something.

  ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘I have been acting a little different. It’s just that I never thought I’d see Zeke again.’ Saying the name is difficult for me, and I choke it out, then take a sip of my cognac, as if it can wash it away. ‘It’s been a bit of a shock. And now, with him breaking into my house and trashing it, well, I am just so embarrassed that I got caught up with him again.’

  I have no idea if I sound contrite. I am doing the best I can, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. Especially when Steve asks me again: ‘What’s your real name?’

  He knows. Am I strong enough to admit it?

  I chew on my lip for a few seconds, then say, ‘It’s Tina.’

  His face crumbles. ‘Why?’

  I know what he’s asking. ‘I came here to get away from my life,’ I say. ‘You did the same thing with Dotty.’

  ‘But I didn’t change my name. I didn’t lie about it.’

  ‘I needed a fresh start,’ I whisper as a tear slips down my cheek. I never wanted to hurt him.

  ‘What’s your last name?’

  If I tell him, he’ll be able to find me online in one of those news stories. He’ll know everything. But do I have a choice? Is it time to tell?

  ‘I’m not that person anymore,’ I try.

  ‘You can’t escape your past, Nicole.’

  I feel myself smile in spite of myself. ‘Yes, yes, you can.’

  But he is shaking his head. ‘No. See what’s happened? This man, Zeke, or whatever his name is, has come here because of what happened in the past. If you know who he really is, you should tell me. You should tell Frank.’

  ‘I can’t tell Frank,’ I say before thinking. ‘You can’t tell Frank. Please.’

  Steve scratches his beard. ‘Can you tell me?’ He knows that there is more.

  I can’t even look at him. My eyes settle on the computer on the desk again.

  ‘Nicole?’ His voice is stern, touching a memory of my father, and I look back at him. ‘Isn’t it time for you to come clean?’

  I want to. I really do.

  I shake my head and give a short chuckle. ‘It’s not nearly as sordid as you might think.’ That might be the biggest lie of them all.

  Steve surprises me then. He stands up. ‘I’ll make us some supper. I’ve got some fresh cod I picked up earlier. How does that sound?’

  Relief rushes through me, and I grin. ‘That sounds wonderful. What can I do?’

  He shakes his head. ‘You can stay here and finish your drink.’ He goes to the kitchen and I hear the sounds of dinner being fixed. I know now that it’s not going to be that easy. If things were normal, I would be in there with him, peeling potatoes, cracking jokes with him.

  I get up and move toward the desk, the computer drawing me with its invisible lure. I casually move the mouse and it springs alive, the wallpaper a snapshot of the Bluffs.

  I glance toward the kitchen, and while I cannot see him, I can hear him. He is humming. Steve always hums when he’s cooking, but it is an absent humming, something he doesn’t even realize he does until I point it out to him.

  I am not going to point it out now.

  I sit and log into my VPN, immediately doing a search. I need to know what someone will find if they search for Zeke Chapman.

  The first thing that comes up is an obituary from the Miami Herald. I click on it and scan it. It is an obituary from fifteen years ago, telling me that Zeke Chapman was a special agent with the FBI and had been killed on the job. It doesn’t mention what he’d been investigating, only lists his wife, Lauren, as his survivor and asks that all donations be made to the Policeman’s Fund. A memorial service was scheduled, but no burial is mentioned

  I still hear Steve humming. Something is sizzling. The fish. The refrigerator door opens and closes.

  I stare at the obituary, reading it over and over. I don’t need to see stories about how Zeke Chapman was killed and where and why. I’m pretty sure Frank Cooper already knows, and if Steve mentions that my real name is Tina, lines will be drawn and conclusions made.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Steve has come up behind me, and I tense.

  ‘Just looking for something.’ I am surprised my voice sounds normal, considering he has startled me.

  He looks over my shoulder. ‘How was he killed?’

  ‘He was shot.’ I close my eyes for a second and I can hear the report of the gun. Who would believe that I didn’t even know he’d had a gun?

  ‘Where did you get it?’ I’d asked him.

  ‘Get what?’

  ‘The gun, asshole. Where did you get it?’

  He grinned, putting his hand up to my cheek. ‘Don’t worry about that. No one can trace it back to us.’

  ‘Us? You mean you.’

  ‘I’m not the one with the connection to him, Tina. Even his wife knew about you.’

  That had been a mistake. But I’d only wanted to find out if he would be jealous, if the only reason he wanted me was because of what I could do for him. He didn’t believe that I was only messing around with Zeke and wasn’t really serious about him.

  Problem was, Zeke thought I was serious. He wasn’t in Paris to bring us back home. He was in Paris for me. Until he discovered I didn’t want to be found.

  ‘What’s going on, Nicole?’

  I blink and am pulled out of my memory. ‘Nothing. It’s just been a really long day.’ I log off the VPN and move away from the computer.

  ‘What were you doing there?’ It has not gotten past Steve that I’ve taken an extra step on the computer.

  I shrug. ‘Nothing, I guess.’

  ‘What site were you on?’

  ‘It’s a VPN. It’s—’

  ‘I know what a VPN is. Why do you need one here?’ He is daring me to answer.

  ‘It was just reflex.’

  ‘Reflex?’

  How is he to know that the computer is an extension of me? He has no idea who I am or what I am capable of. I think carefully how to answer him.

  ‘I used to be pretty good with computers,’ I finally say, getting up. ‘Can I set the table?’

  I don’t wait for an answer, but go into the kitchen and start taking plates from the cupboard. I carry them to the table and place them across from each other. Steve says nothing as he goes back to the stove and tends to the fish. The microwave buzzes, and he takes out two baked potatoes, which he puts on a plate and hands to me. I notice, too, that there are carrots cooking.

  Soon we are sitting at the table, eating in silence. This is the first time I have ever been with Steve and not known what to say. It is awkward, even more awkward than after his declaration that we should get married. So I just keep eating and hope that this will pass.

  ‘How good?’

  The question comes out of the blue, and my hand freezes, the fork just inches from my mouth. I put it down and ask, ‘What?’

  ‘How good were you with computers?’

  I shrug.

  ‘Is that why you never had one before? Did you do something illegal with it before?’

  He is so close to the truth it literally hurts not to tell.

  I shrug again.

  ‘You can’t keep not answering me, Nicole.’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Steve sits back and folds his arms over his chest. ‘You’re my friend, Nicole, but I feel like I don’t even know you right now.’

  I am quiet.

  ‘Please tell me who you are,’ he whisper
s.

  I swallow hard, blinking against the tears that have sprung into my eyes. I have no more strength left. I cannot fight it anymore. He is my friend, possibly the only true friend I have ever had.

  SEVENTEEN

  ‘My name is Tina Adler.’

  I know the moment I tell him my real name that I am laying myself open. He can now do his own Internet search and find out everything. But if I tell him first, maybe he won’t be jaded by what he reads. Maybe he will see that Tina Adler is not Nicole Jones, or vice versa. Maybe he will see that Nicole Jones is a decent person who regrets everything and had to make her life over and not a person who has been lying to him for fifteen years.

  ‘I grew up in Miami. My father was Daniel Adler.’ There it is, put on the table next to our plates of fish.

  Steve’s eyebrows rise slightly. He knows the name. Who wouldn’t?

  Before he can ask anything, I say, ‘Yes, that Daniel Adler.’ Financial advisor or, rather, con man. The man who’d bilked millions out of the rich and famous. The man who’d died in federal prison because of what he’d done.

  I was fifteen when he went away the first time. Went to prison for insider trading.

  ‘Clients tell me things.’ I still can practically feel the tickle of his breath as he whispered to me. It was his way of justifying it, as though having clients tell him things meant that it was OK to use that information any way he could.

  I had already hacked into his business accounts, but the real hacking didn’t start until he was gone. I didn’t do it to steal anything. I did it just to prove that I could get past the firewalls, through portals, replace source codes and end up in places I shouldn’t be. I did it for kicks. My mother slept until noon, her cocktail glass on the table beside her, the knife she used to cut herself in the drawer. She didn’t know, didn’t care what I did, as long as I left her alone.

  Even though my father had done everything he thought he could to keep me out – every software program available to keep people like me out – I always found a way back in. I did it for years before I had to go away, so I knew what he was up to from the beginning. I saw the transactions, the wire transfers. If I’d been around when they caught him at his final game, when his clients had stopped talking to him because they’d lost everything and they discovered he’d taken it all, I could’ve given them even more than they had. It didn’t matter, though. They had enough, and he was locked up for life. They must have been so angry when he died after only ten years.

  Steve is waiting for more. Now that I have started, he believes I will continue, but I’m not sure I can. He really doesn’t need me to confess anything else. He can find everything he might want to know online.

  Steve clears his throat, realizing that I am not going to say more.

  ‘When did you meet him?’

  I know whom he’s referring to.

  ‘I was twenty-two.’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’ It is as if we are now at a cocktail party, asking those first questions you ask of someone you don’t know.

  I close my eyes and see him walk through the door at the Rathskeller, his hair tousled, his eyes bright, moving around, looking for somewhere to land. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on. Tall, with broad shoulders, a face perfectly sculpted. But his back was too straight, his movements stiff. He was trying too hard. Trying too hard to look rich. I knew rich boys. They had a casual elegance about them, the way they carried themselves.

  He almost walked past me, but I sidled around a couple of people so I was in front of him. He noticed me, smiled, and I felt as though the world had disappeared and it was only the two of us.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘Hi, yourself,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen you around here before.’

  ‘It’s my first semester.’ I held out my free hand. ‘Tina Adler.’

  A long, slow smile spread across his face as he took my hand, caressing it. ‘Ian Cartwright.’

  We spent the whole evening together; he never left my side. He wasn’t like the others, I thought when he kissed me. He didn’t know who I was, who my father was, so he wasn’t just interested in my father’s money.

  When I realized I’d been wrong about that, that he had planned to meet me, I was so in love with him that I didn’t care.

  I had been so stupid.

  ‘Nicole?’

  I feel drained, as though I have had a three-hour therapy session. I have been remembering what happened after, but what happened before was just as important.

  I give Steve a shy smile. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I’d left it all behind me. Miami. I met him at the university.’

  ‘University of Miami? You went there?’

  ‘One semester. Wasn’t a good fit.’ Steve didn’t need to know about how I’d hacked into the school’s computers, stolen final exams and sold them. That was one story that wasn’t reported. The university did a good job in covering it up and quietly expelling me.

  ‘Your father just died.’ Steve says it matter-of-factly. Of course he would have heard. It was in all the papers. On the TV. You don’t steal millions from celebrities without becoming a media sensation yourself, and if you die in prison it’s an even bigger story.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that somehow connected to this man’s visit here?’

  Steve is too smart. For a long time, I was the smartest person in the room. A little of that feeling has stayed with me, regardless of my new identity. I chose friends like Veronica and Jeanine, whom I have always felt would never find out about me because they just didn’t have the curiosity or the smarts to do it. Steve, well, I thought I was safe with Steve, too, because our relationship has always been the same. I never thought he’d start challenging me.

  Like he’s doing right now.

  ‘No one knew where I was,’ I say softly.

  ‘So how did he find you?’

  I sigh. ‘I sent a postcard. To my father, when he got sick. He saw it.’ Again, I wonder how did he see it, exactly? I’d sent it to the prison. It’s possible that someone intercepted it there. Carmine’s boss, Tony DeMarco, probably had connections there, so that could have been how they’d seen it. But Ian, I wasn’t so sure.

  Steve does not notice that I have been sidetracked. ‘And he came here when he saw it.’

  ‘I didn’t write anything on the card. No return address. It was just a postcard. From here.’ And as I say this, I realize I have been underestimating everyone’s intelligence and overestimating mine. Because of that postcard, I risked everything and it looks as though I will lose everything.

  Steve’s expression tells me he is thinking the same thing.

  ‘So he wouldn’t have found you without it?’

  I don’t have to say anything. He knows the answer to that. I am not going to admit out loud how stupid I was.

  ‘Why have you been hiding from him?’

  The questions just keep coming. I don’t know how long I can take it.

  ‘He thinks I owe him money.’ I sigh. ‘I owe him money.’

  ‘How much?’

  I wonder if he’d believe me if I told him exactly how much. Sometimes the number shocks even me. And I’d been in control of it.

  When he realizes I am not going to answer, he changes tacks. ‘Did you steal the money, Nicole? From him?’

  He believes my silence confirms the answer.

  I get up and start clearing the plates from the table. Steve helps me, but I can see he is thinking hard about the little bit I have given him. Together we clean up the kitchen, put away the food that we haven’t eaten. I crave another drink, but I can’t risk it. I will end up telling him more, and I’m not ready yet.

  There is one thing I do say, though, when we are done.

  ‘I have to use your computer in the morning.’ I am not asking him. I am telling him, and it doesn’t get past him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘You can’t use it unless you tell me,
Nicole.’

  ‘It’s nothing illegal.’ Not yet.

  ‘Tell me.’ He leans against the counter, his arms folded across his chest. He is not my friend right now. He is a man who is angry that I have betrayed him all these years.

  I can’t blame him. So I say, ‘I have to meet someone in a chat room.’

  He mulls this over for a few seconds, then says, ‘You’re really good with computers.’ It’s stated as fact.

  I nod.

  ‘A hacker?’

  I nod again.

  ‘You can use the computer, but you can’t do anything illegal.’

  ‘I won’t. I just have to meet up with someone. He’s a friend.’ He might be my only friend after all this. But he is as much a ghost as I am.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Steve doesn’t trust me about anyone now.

  ‘Tracker.’

  ‘That’s not a real name.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s his real name?’

  I am tired of this. I can’t do it anymore. ‘I don’t know, Steve. I never knew. And he doesn’t know my name, either.’ Although as I say it, I realize he must know now. He wasn’t stupid, could figure out that my disappearance coincided with what he’d helped me with, connected the dots.

  ‘How can you live your life like that?’ he admonishes me.

  ‘I haven’t. Not for fifteen years.’

  We stare each other down for a few minutes.

  Finally, he says, ‘This Zeke Chapman or whatever his name is, he wants you to steal money, doesn’t he? He wants you to hack into somewhere and steal it and give it to him?’

  ‘He never exactly told me what he wanted me to do,’ I say. ‘But I think that’s probably right.’

  ‘You’re not going to do it, are you?’ He says it like it’s a dare.

  I shake my head. ‘No. I left him there, at the Blue Dory, to show him I wouldn’t do it. And then later, well, when I got home …’ My voice trails off.

  ‘So why do you need to talk to this Tracker person?’

  ‘So I can make sure I can go back to my life and not be bothered again.’

  Steve frowns, understandably confused. ‘How can you do that?’

  ‘It has nothing to do with you.’