Drop of Doubt

by C. L. Stone

  “We don’t have proof, but we can start there,” Dr. Green said. He tapped his forefinger on the table. “So our first job right now is to get the roster for that class. We need phone numbers and data records from everyone there. If they shared her number, we’ll find out who they shared it with.”

  Luke pointed at my phone. “What about those text messages? Are any of those from this guy?”

  “I haven’t gone through them yet,” Victor said.

  “That’s your job now,” Dr. Green said. “Whoever it is probably wasn’t expecting us to jump up and leave school together so quickly. He’s going to be thrown off by that. We have a little time to come up with a plan.”

  “Is he smart enough to track the GPS in her phone?” Victor asked. “That’s what we need to know.”

  “He may not know how to use a tracking GPS and hack her phone to be able to follow.” Dr. Green rubbed his palm against his forehead. “I doubt he is that clever. He couldn’t figure out her phone number before. He had to wait until it was given to the class. If he was that smart, he probably could have picked up her phone number before now.”

  “Are we overreacting?” I asked. I’d been thinking about how my neighbor Derrick once told me how he felt about the Academy cavalry jumping in at every small thing. “I get those notes all the time. Now it’s just phone messages and text messages. They’re not all asking about my bra size or my phone number, are they?”

  Gabriel’s eyes flared. “What do you mean someone asked about your bra size? Who did that?”

  “We don’t overreact,” Dr. Green said, a gentle smile toying at the corner of his mouth. “We’re just really averse to veiled threats.”

  “But those notes aren’t all questions like that, are they?” I asked. “There’s so many.”

  Luke shook his head. “We’ll have to check in with North. He reads them. Maybe we’ll find a connection with the text messages and the notes and the weird Morse code thing.”

  “I think that’s what bothers me the most,” Victor said. “The guy had to have been thinking of this for a while. It was only what, a half hour since her phone number was passed out before he sent it? So he had to think of a message. He’d want it to be cryptic enough to code it, send it with an unknown number and assume she knew the code or we would to be able to translate it.”

  “Right,” Dr. Green said. “No. You did the right thing. If it was someone goofing off, he wouldn’t have worked so hard at this. If he wanted attention from her, he’d send notes and text messages like every other little boy who can’t talk to her face.”

  Victor leaned his elbows on the table. “So it is possible it’s one of the guys in class, or someone who got sent her number during the early part of class. That might narrow down the list.”

  “Is her phone on now?” Silas’s voice startled me. He’d been so silent before. He stared at my phone on the table.

  Victor touched the button to light up the screen. “I haven’t turned it off. Why?”

  “Why is it so quiet now?” Silas asked.

  We all exchanged glances before looking down at the screen of my phone. Victor punched at the text messages and scrolled through them, but it didn’t appear to be accepting new ones at this point.

  “Is it because they’re all in class now?” Luke asked.

  Dr. Green chuckled. “Those little monsters won’t put away their phones just for class time. Trust me.”

  “Maybe it locked up,” Victor said. “She’s got hundreds from different phone numbers.”

  “Is she out of space on her phone?” Gabriel asked. “Delete something.”

  “I have to go through the messages.”

  “Just delete our texts,” Gabriel said. “We don’t need those right now. See if it’s because the phone’s too full.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” Victor said. He scanned through the messages, finding the ones where the boys’ names were listed, and started deleting the conversations. “She’s got the biggest hard drive a cell phone can get. There’s no full storage error icon.”

  “We should call North,” Luke said. “We need to get started.”

  Dr. Green perked up suddenly. He fished his phone out of his pocket. “That might be them, now.”

  Luke and Gabriel twitched similarly, digging in his pocket for their phones.

  Silas found his phone. “Are they sending everyone a message? We checked in. They know we’re all here right?” He flicked on his phone.

  Victor frowned, finding his phone and checking. “I guess so.”

  Dr. Green’s eyes darkened. The others’ faces dropped at the same time.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong? Is it Mr. Blackbourne?”

  Dr. Green swallowed. “I might have been wrong about the capabilities of this kid.”

  I knelt in the chair, snagging Silas’s arm. I ducked my head near his to read the message.

  Only it wasn’t a message. It was a photo.

  It was me, a picture taken in the same outfit I was wearing now. It looked like it was taken in the hallway, while I was walking between classrooms. Victor was walking beside me. And it had to have been taken today, because I’ve never worn this outfit to school before.

  A message had been scrawled over my face as if with a Sharpie marker. Part of the lettering cut through my eyes.

  Forget her.

  THE DRAGON DESK AND THE BACKWARD CLOCK

  I was afraid to move or breathe. The notes I dismissed. The text messages and the cryptic phone call I was concerned with.

  The photograph was way more than I was able to handle, especially after everything else.

  Dr. Green ordered everyone to take out their SIM cards, disabling any more cell phone activities and turning off the GPS devices.

  I stood stiffly aside as they all repeated what they were going to do and where they were going.

  They were only interrupted once, by the same plain girl that had been there earlier. She slipped in quietly, and placed a tray of finger sandwiches and fruit cups on the table in front of us. Luke thanked her. He and Gabriel and Silas gobbled at the food the moment she put it down, as if used to this. She glanced at Victor once as if waiting for approval. Victor was absorbed with talking to Dr. Green. She narrowed her eyes at me and then left the room without a word.

  Luke, Gabriel and Dr. Green decided they were going to get the class directory, and find those students’ phone numbers. Dr. Green had a shift to cover at the hospital. Luke and Gabriel were going to work the diner tonight. There was some argument about their general safety, but the verdict was I was to stay here. They now were sure this new threat was after me. Besides, the diner was pretty busy now, and whoever it was would have a hard time trying to get to them there without revealing himself.

  After Dr. Green and the others left, Victor and Silas turned to me.

  “Time to work,” Victor said. He held out a hand, palm up. “Want to come along, Princess?”

  “She doesn’t want to watch you type at a computer,” Silas said. “I mean, is she even supposed to? Isn’t there Academy stuff in there?”

  “She won’t know what’s what,” Victor said. “Besides, it’s not like I leave Academy stuff laying around. There’s the maids and security and my parents here after all.”

  “What do you want to do?” Silas asked me. “Want to swim? The pool out there is heated.”

  “To be honest, I don’t know if I want her outside right now,” Victor said.

  “If you’re worried about your parents finding us, we’ll keep quiet.”

  “It’s not that.” Victor hooked a couple of fingers into the collar of his shirt, forcing the top button open. “I don’t know if I want her out of sight right now.”

  “She’d be with me.”

  “I know,” he said. “Not that I don’t trust you. I just ... can we keep her in here? I know there’s a wall and security, but I’m feeling paranoid right now.”

  Silas sighed. “You’re probably right. It’s not that
high of a wall. I just didn’t want her to be bored.”

  “I’m not bored,” I said. It was true. I was way too on edge to be bored.

  “I was trying to be nice. I mean I don’t want you to be too stressed,” he said. “You look like you’re about to explode.”

  “We can’t really blame her,” Victor said. “It’s been a really crazy day.”

  “I’m not going to explode,” I said. I stood taller, trying to swallow back my heart in my throat. “I want to find out what is going on. I don’t want to sit around while everyone else is working. Tell me what to do.”

  A spark lit up in Victor’s eyes. “See? This is why she’s with us. Give her a problem and she’s itching to figure it out.”

  “Okay, okay,” Silas said. “Shit, I was just suggesting. Let’s find the bastard already and then I can take her swimming.”

  Victor tugged me down the hallway toward the twin doorways. He stopped at the one on the left, and opened the door. He stepped in and then off to the side, allowing me access.

  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, probably more ornate furniture, more carvings in the ceilings and along the walls.

  The walls were wood panel, very plain compared to what I’d seen downstairs. There were wood slat double doors opposite the one we came in, and a regular sized door off to the side, also closed. Along one wall was a bookcase filled with binders and computer manuals.

  There was a long, light wood table that took up one side of the room. The top of it was littered with a collection of computers and other electronics I didn’t recognize. Nearly all were opened, with half of the guts taken out and exposed on the table. There were other, smaller tables against the walls around the room. These were also piled with various computer parts and the shells of laptops and phones. It wasn’t disorganized so much, it was just half-finished projects ready to be pieced together.

  One of the smaller tables, in particular, had two cell phones on it with pink cases. I blushed, recognizing my old broken phones. There was also a familiar broken laptop nearby. He kept the ones I’d broken?

  On another side of the room was a large dark mahogany desk, facing out. The feet were carved into claws standing on top of orbs. The front depicted a dragon sailing through clouds. The top was bare except for a large black desk mat that took up nearly the entire wide surface, a striking contrast to the messy table opposite it.

  Broken equipment, computer manuals and an empty desk? If Victor was hiding Academy secrets in this room, he was doing a fabulous job of it. I wouldn’t know where to start.

  Victor pushed aside the leather wingback rolling chair from behind the clean desk. He hovered over it, opened the left side drawer, and fingered the underside of the opening until there was a click.

  The mat on top of the desk shifted. I drifted closer, curious. Part of the mat opened. A security panel keypad appeared. Victor tapped in a series of numbers and pressed the input button. The mat shifted again, opening up in the middle. Two flat computer monitors drifted up on an unseen platform, positioning to a comfortable eye-level. The screens were already illuminated.

  “Neener neener, I know your password now,” I said quietly, faking some humor to hide my awe over his desk seeming to be right out of a spy movie.

  Victor’s fire eyes blazed, amused. “What is it?”

  I flashed numbers at him with my hands, in the sequence he’d used for his password. “I’m pretty sure that’s it,” I said.

  Victor beamed.

  “Are we going to get into trouble with her knowing passwords?” Silas asked.

  “I trust her,” Victor said absently, directing his attention to the computer screens. A keyboard and mouse had also appeared. He tapped at the keyboard.

  “That’s not what I meant. If she knows certain things, other people might want to know what she knows.”

  “I’m not going to put her through torture training. Nothing on here is that important.” He stepped back, moving the large chair around. He patted the seat and then curled his fingers at me. “Would you like to sit next to me?”

  I nodded, sitting carefully in the chair. “What should I do?”

  “Just stay here for now,” he said. He rolled over another one of the shorter office chairs from the long table. He brought it to position in front of the monitors and keyboard. I felt awkward that he gave me his fancy chair and he had to sit in the smaller one. He nudged my chair over, positioning me to his left. “Let me get started and we’ll figure out what to do from there. I’m going to try to track this guy down.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Silas asked.

  “We need to go through those phone messages,” Victor said. He took my SIM card, but held up my phone to Silas. “Can start with that. Dig through the messages.”

  “Do you want me to help?” I asked Silas.

  “Not really,” Silas said. He took my cell phone, taking the third chair and rolling it toward the longer desk toward the collection of laptops. He found one that wasn’t smashed, opened it and pushed the button to power it up. “Not that I don’t want you nearby, but I don’t think you want to read these messages.”

  I twisted my lips, folding my arms across my chest and sitting back. “Maybe that’s the problem. I haven’t been paying attention. Maybe I should be reading them so I can look out for whoever is doing this instead of trying to ignore everything.”

  Silas and Victor shared a silent conversation. Victor let out a short breath. He hooked an arm under my knees, picking up my legs to draw them over his thigh. He slipped his fingers between the strap of my sandals until my shoes fell to the floor. He kicked them out of the way and plopped a hand on my knee, massaging. “Maybe, but not right now. Let Silas do that or he’ll hover over me and tell me to hurry up every five minutes.”

  “I don’t do that,” Silas said.

  “Yes, you do. You’re worse than North. Or Mr. Blackbourne.”

  Silas rolled his eyes, turning away to connect my cell phone to the laptop. “Fine. Let Sang tell you to hurry up.”

  “She doesn’t do that,” Victor said. He glanced over and winked at me. “Right?”

  “Maybe not today,” I said, glancing off toward the computer manuals on the bookshelf.

  Victor turned his focus to the computer. Silas started going through messages. I waited.

  I tried following what Victor was doing, but a lot of it was in code, as he was pulling data from the SIM card. The others had various talents, but all I’d known before about Victor was he could play piano, though I’d never heard him play, and that he knew something about computers, which I’d never seen up close like this.

  I had no experience of my own to compare his level of skill against. I admired the speed in which he worked, but he was moving way too fast for me to follow what he was doing. The moment a screen popped up, he’d type something in and it’d disappear as he moved on to another open window. What made my insides flutter was the concentration and that determined look on his face. I hated to think it right now because of the nature of the situation; he was handsome when he was smiling, but his looks were killer when his fire eyes roared into a blaze of concentration like he had now.

  Since I couldn’t follow what he was doing, I watched Silas, but with his broad shoulders, he easily obstructed the screen, so I couldn’t peek over his shoulder.

  I twitched.

  I swung left and right on the chair, using Victor’s leg as leverage.

  I fingered the arm of the chair, feeling the smoothness of the leather.

  There was a faint ticking sound, like that of a clock. I thought it was the hidden computer in the desk Victor was working on. I tried pinpointing it but couldn’t figure out the exact location. It was also irregular, almost irritating.

  I folded my legs underneath my body, sitting cross legged in the chair.

  I fiddled with the handles of the drawers to the dragon desk.

  “Go ahead,” Victor said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Open them up if you�
�re curious.”

  I didn’t want to pry, but waiting for answers had me craving doing something. I felt so out of place with everyone else working. I simply didn’t know what to do or how to help.

  The first drawer was lined with a collection of miniature tools. I imagined it was for breaking into the smaller tablets and cell phones. The tools were mostly silver metal, with ebony handles. I didn’t know what to do with some of the various tools, but the moment I saw the set, I was itching to find another cell phone to take apart.

  The second drawer was shallow, with an organized collection of USB drives and a couple hard drives not taken out of their boxes yet.

  The third drawer was much deeper and had a collection of typical desk set doodads. There were pencil cups, business card holders, a holder for sticky notes, letter openers, fountain pens, a couple of pocket-sized day planners and a collection of desk clocks. Some of the clocks were still ticking away at incorrect times.

  “I thought I heard something ticking,” I said, picking out a circular black clock that was still running. The hands appeared to be made of silver, and the face had what looked like a diamond at the twelve o’clock position. There weren’t any numbers painted on or even lines to help figure out the exact time. “Why do you hide them in the drawer?”

  “Don’t really need them,” Victor said.

  “Why do you have them?”

  “They were gifts. I place a set on the desk when my parents throw a dinner party and they’re giving a tour of the house. Otherwise, they’re just in the way.”

  I fiddled with the black clock, twisting the backside knobs to change the time. I ran my fingernail around the edges. I’d have to wedge one of those fancy tools between the edges to pry open the back. My father often got desk sets as an anniversary gift or as a holiday gift from work. He brought his old sets home. I used to open up the clocks and play with them. We didn’t have a lot of toys growing up, so any new thing that came into the house, I was bound to make use of, or at least break it trying to figure it out. “Are you in love with this one?”