I reached over to my computer bag and pulled out my laptop, thinking I would get my mind off my suspicions by answering a few emails. But right before I opened my laptop, I suddenly realized what had seemed odd about Eddie’s computer. The extra cup of coffee must have given me a jolt of alertness, enough to understand what I’d seen.
Something about the laptop was different.
Weeks ago, I’d felt weak—weaker than normal. So, worried that I had an infection, I’d asked Eddie to take me to Cedars. I knew it was possible that I still had a compromised immune system, even though months had passed since the chemo treatments—and thus if I waited too long to take action, an infection could quickly turn into a crippling setback.
At the hospital, the doctor ordered up a dose of antibiotics as a precaution until the blood culture came back. The antibiotic IV drip took an hour to administer, and Eddie stayed with me during that hour in the treatment room. He had his MacBook Air with him, the one he’d bought because he’d needed a more powerful computer for ADM.
While we waited for the drip to finish, he worked on his laptop, but I was sure that what he was really doing was the same thing I was doing: hoping this didn’t turn out to be an infection and a setback. I could tell he was apprehensive, anxious to get the results from the culture, because he was avoiding eye contact with me.
He was facing me, hunched over his computer, which meant I did a lot of staring at the computer’s lid.
I noticed a scratch on it.
And that scratch was now gone.
The computer in the den—the one I’d just tried to break into—bore no sign of that scratch. Which meant Eddie had gotten another new computer, another MacBook Air. But that seemed ludicrous. Unless, of course, the first MacBook Air had died. But that didn’t make sense either. If that was the case, he would’ve said something to me; he would’ve complained quite a few times that his computer had died even though it was practically brand new.
I gulped down the rest of my coffee.
There was a second explanation: Eddie had two MacBook Airs. But why?
Before I could come up with an answer, Eddie stepped into the kitchen.
“Good morning,” he said.
“How was your sleep?” I asked.
“Good.” He poured himself a cup of coffee.
“Honey, I know I already asked you this, but how did it go in San Diego—really?” I wanted to bring up the computer, but couldn’t figure out how.
“Honestly, I didn’t get as much information about the company as I wanted. So I’m having a hard time evaluating them.”
“What happened in San Diego that stopped you from getting the information you need?”
“I guess you could chalk it up to bad luck. One of the executives who agreed to an interview got buried in something and canceled on me.”
“Can’t you just reschedule?”
“It’s too late. ADM wants the report tomorrow. Everything is time-sensitive when it comes to acquisitions. I’m going to have to get the information I need from other sources. But the problem is that the only way to get the good stuff is straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“I hope you can cobble together a report,” I said.
“I will,” he responded. Then, with coffee in hand, he headed toward the kitchen door. “I just hope it’s good enough.”
“Do you want me to warm up a blueberry muffin for you?” I asked.
“Sure—thanks,” he answered as he exited.
The blueberry muffin would give me another chance to bring up the computer. I pulled one out from the fridge and placed it in the oven. As I waited for the muffin to warm, I wondered if Eddie’s tossing and turning was due to his failed trip to San Diego and nothing else. Maybe it had nothing to do with whether or not he was going to get a commission check.
I put the muffin on a plate and headed to the den, ready to ask him about the computer, rather than delve into the bigger issue of his paychecks. Eddie was on the couch, hunched over his laptop, which he promptly closed as I approached him.
I handed him the plate, and he gave me a gracious smile. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” I glanced down at his laptop, trying to do so casually. “Hey, is that a new computer?” I asked.
He didn’t answer immediately, but his gracious smile disappeared. He looked at me for a beat, like he’d been caught off-guard—and that was all I needed to see to know I’d ensnared him. But exactly what I’d ensnared him in, I had no idea.
“Yeah,” he said, sitting up a little straighter, like he was regrouping. “I dropped the other one and damaged the hard drive, so I had to replace it.”
Innocent enough explanation, except that he hadn’t said anything about it earlier. When you drop your new computer and break it, you talk about that, berating yourself for your carelessness. But he hadn’t mentioned it at all. Why?
Because—and I had no doubt about this—he had just made up that explanation on the spot.
“Why didn’t they just replace the hard drive?”
He averted his eyes and again hesitated before answering. Then he said, “I was worried there was more damage, so I went with a new computer.”
“Apple Care covered it?”
“Yeah. They’re not supposed to if you cause the damage yourself, but I got lucky and had a nice store manager.” He glanced at the computer. “How could you tell this baby was new?”
“Your other computer had a scratch on the lid.”
“Oh,” he said, and then reached for the muffin. He took a bite, and his smile returned.
“I’ll let you get back to work,” I said.
In the kitchen, I sat down and tried to figure out why he’d lied about his computer. If he had two computers, why didn’t he just tell me? And if he really had replaced the first MacBook Air, why not tell me the reason why? His lie had been so obvious. And I couldn’t help but remember that when he’d upgraded computers when starting his new job, he hadn’t wanted to give his old computer to Jake.
I concluded that the only way to find out what he was hiding was to get a look at what was actually on his computer. So basically I was back to snooping. I guess that was because I didn’t know what I was looking for anymore—just that something was up.
After googling methods for breaking into a password-protected MacBook Air, it became clear to me that the fastest way for me to do this was to enlist Jake’s help. He’d be able to cut to the chase, which I couldn’t do from the various methods I’d found. But I had to find a way to pull Jake into this without letting him know that I was suspicious about his dad.
Jake rolled into the kitchen about an hour later, grabbed a bowl of cereal, and sat down at the table. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I justified it to myself by blaming Eddie. It was his lie that begat my lie.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” I said to him. “I need your advice.”
“Go for it.” He chowed down on his cereal.
“It’s about computers.”
“My forte.”
“Lila wants to log on to one of her old computers and she can’t remember the password. Is there a way for her to log on without the password?”
Jake looked up from his cereal and smirked. “I know what you’re up to, Mom.”
I blushed, feeling ashamed—but ready to double down on my lie to keep him away from the truth.
But before I could say anything, he continued. “Lila wants to break into her daughter’s computer.”
“You’re right,” I said, relieved. “I’m sorry I lied.”
“I’m not big on invasion of privacy,” he responded.
“I’m not either,” I said, “but in this case it’s a good thing. Lila thinks her daughter is getting bullied and that she’s hiding it from her.”
Jake took a few bites of his cereal before replying. “Why can’t she just talk to her daughter about it?”
“She’s tried. But her daughter says it’s nothing—that Lila is
blowing it all out of proportion.”
Jake took a deep breath.
“She just wants to help her daughter,” I said. “If it turns out she needs help.”
“This isn’t fair, Mom.”
“What’s not fair?”
“You’re putting me in a moral dilemma. If I don’t help you break into this girl’s computer and something happens to her, then it’s kinda my fault for not helping. But if I do help you, I’m doing something illegal and unethical.”
I should’ve known Jake would take this very seriously—he always thought things through. I should’ve stuck to my original story of Lila breaking into her own computer. But there was no turning back.
“I didn’t mean to put you in this position,” I said, “but I’d appreciate the help.”
Jake took his cereal bowl over to the sink and rinsed it out. Then he stood there for a few seconds as if he was considering my request.
“Okay,” he said. “It’s pretty simple. There are a couple of ways to do it.”
He then went on to explain how, and I asked him to write it all down, so I could relay it to Lila. He did, but he left me with a caveat before heading back to his room.
“I hope Lila isn’t doing this just to snoop,” he said.
I didn’t respond. I’d already lied enough to him.
After he exited the kitchen, I went back onto my computer, but all I was really doing was biding my time until I could break into Eddie’s computer.
That opportunity came less than two hours later.
EDDIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I wished I had come up with a better explanation for why I’d purchased another new computer. But there were only two options: either the first computer had been damaged beyond repair, or it had been stolen. Maybe I should’ve gone with stolen, but when Jenny asked her question, not only was my mind was on the investigation into Rose’s murder, but I was blindsided. I had never expected Jenny to say anything about my computer.
The whole incident did make me wonder if it would be better to just rely on VPN’s to cover my tracks, rather than buying new computers. For if I ever did become the focus of an investigation, wouldn’t it come out that I’d been buying new computers way too often? I didn’t know if paying cash was enough to cover my tracks. I needed to think this through more thoroughly and come up with a definite solution. And I vowed to do that—if Abel didn’t end my employment, and my life, first.
And to find out if that was on the horizon, I had been searching every corner of the Internet for new information on the investigation in San Diego. Since my chat with Larry, I’d been tracking stories about Rose David, the kind, elderly woman found buried in her own yard, in an idyllic neighborhood overlooking the Pacific.
The investigation had gained a lot of traction in the press in a short amount of time, but what I didn’t know was whether that traction extended to the police as well. The press, especially the Internet press, was running wild with the story. But without being down there and investigating the old-fashioned way—as a reporter on the scene, hassling the police detectives in person—I didn’t know if the evidence popping up in the news was leaks from the police, or evidence dug up by reporters. And the police blotters weren’t much help on that front because the story was unfolding so quickly.
The one thing that worried me the most wasn’t even a piece of evidence—at least, not any of the evidence I knew about so far. What worried me most was simply the fact that Rose’s body had been discovered so soon after the crime. With her body fresh and not yet rotting in the ground, and with her clothes not yet decaying, I feared that I’d left damning evidence intact. Forensic analysis might discover fibers from my clothes, or worse, skin detritus, from which came DNA. All of this could have been avoided if I’d taken the right precautions, and not blithely—or was it out of panic?—counted on the body being discovered in the distant future.
But even if the police collected forensic evidence from Rose’s body and clothes, they’d still need evidence that would point them in my direction—for forensic evidence would only help if they had a suspect to tie it to.
Right then, a new story on Rose David posted. It was on the Union-Tribune blog.
I paled as I read it.
It was reported that Wendy Bester, Rose David’s tenant, had told the police that she’d passed out the night before Rose disappeared. I could have lived with that part, since I knew for sure that Wendy remembered nothing else from that night and that even if she underwent the most thorough physical examination, it would reveal nothing. In those two ways, she was like any other target.
But what I had paled at was the story’s conclusion: that there was a connection between Wendy’s fainting spell and Rose’s murder. Of course, I didn’t know if that was the reporter’s conclusion or the police’s conclusion. But it didn’t really matter, did it? It was now out there.
I had to talk to Abel; I had to ask him for help. My cover-up was falling apart. And when I asked for help, I also had to beg for leniency. I had to beg for a second chance. For it was possible, or even likely, that Abel had already made up his mind to get rid of me.
I took a deep breath and told myself to think everything through again, slowly and without panicking.
After five minutes of doing so, during which I pushed my fear away, I concluded that Abel was just as motivated to keep the police as far away from the truth as I was. Maybe he needed me to go back down to San Diego and help clean up this mess. Because if the police linked Rose to me, whether I was dead or alive, they’d be one step closer to Abel, too.
That line of reasoning led me to consider a new possibility. Was there a way to use my link to Abel to protect myself from him, too? Could I blackmail Abel just as I’d blackmailed Ben? I could tell the alien that if anything happened to me, evidence of his existence would be delivered to the LA Times.
But I knew that blackmailing him wasn’t going to be as easy as it had been with Ben. And would the LA Times even run the story? Bob, the editor in chief, would need evidence. It wouldn’t matter that I’d been on the paper’s staff for two decades, or that I was his friend. But I had evidence, didn’t I?
The tranquilizer pellets, the recovery capsules, and the copper straw.
I could deliver these items to Bob—a “blackmail package” to be opened should something happen to me. And if my blackmail plan worked, Abel would have to replace the tools of my trade with a new set.
Still, I strongly suspected I couldn’t count on just these items. Certainly Abel wouldn’t let me walk around with evidence proving an alien presence right here on Earth. Either they were made from compounds found on Earth, or they were designed like those tapes in the old Mission Impossible TV series and would self-destruct if they fell into the wrong hands.
I also had the gold card through which the alien contacted me—and, as I’d come to believe months ago, through which he tracked me. But I couldn’t make the gold card part of the blackmail package. It would give away the location of the package while I kept it hidden and carried out my threat. And also, because Abel would know that the card wasn’t with me anymore, he’d be tipped off about my planned betrayal.
No, I needed more evidence. Hard evidence. And that meant I had to go to Abel’s. Which was a good move regardless. I could ask for help in covering up the Del Mar fiasco, and at the same time I could look to gather evidence with which to blackmail him. Evidence that left no doubt that an alien lived in the hills of Beverly.
I hesitated before starting my next Internet search. I had always assumed that Abel monitored my searches, regardless of the VPN—the VPN may have kept humans off my digital trail, but not Abel. And I didn’t want him to be privy to this next search.
I sat there frozen until I convinced myself, rightly or wrongly, that it was okay if Abel saw what I was up to: he’d think I was worried about the trail of evidence I’d left behind now that Rose’s body had been discovered. So I dug in and researched how forensic inves
tigators gathered genetic material for DNA testing. But what I was really looking for was how I could gather genetic material for DNA testing.
I figured the only evidence that would be truly convincing to anyone was DNA evidence. If I could get a sample of the alien’s skin, surely it would reveal some anomaly, something so strange—maybe even completely unknown genetic material—that although it might not prove my outlandish claim, it would raise enough red flags to get reporters, law enforcement, and other interested parties to investigate further.
The Internet yielded only one strong possibility when it came to collecting DNA samples from Abel’s house—a procedure called “Touch DNA.” Just like its name implied, the procedure relied on gathering skin cells left behind after a person touched something. The other ways to collect DNA samples—through blood, hair, fingernails, et cetera—were out of the question.
I made mental notes on how to collect a proper sample, then I shut off my laptop, stuck it in the desk drawer, and went into the kitchen. Jenny was on her laptop.
“Guess what?” I said. “I caught a break.”
She looked up. “How?”
“I lined up an interview with a former employee of that San Diego company. The guy now lives in Thousand Oaks. So I’m going to drive up there.”
“You think he’s willing to give you the information you need for your report?”
“I don’t know for sure, but when I talked to him on the phone, he seemed open to it.” I turned to go, leaving another lie in my wake.
At CVS, I bought cotton swabs and tiny plastic bags.
Then, on the way to Abel’s, I considered both the worst-case scenario and the best case. The worst case was that I never left Abel’s house. That the alien liquefied me as he had Ben. But if it looked like that scenario was playing out, I’d issue my blackmail threat right then and there—even though it was premature, since I had no blackmail package ready to be delivered.
The best-case scenario was that Abel would ask me to go back down to San Diego and clean up the mess. That would give me time to make my blackmail threat real.
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