“I can do that,” Matt piped up. “Who do you wanna be? Lisbeth Salander? How about Jane Smith?”
Tess made a face.
“What? You can’t be Tess Barrett.”
“Fine.” The name of a fictional girl spy popped into her head. “I’ll be Cammie Morgan.”
Matt typed. “Taken. How about Morgan Cammie?”
“Whatever.” Tess was sick of the whole thing.
It’s not a game anymore. It never was.
“Okay, you’re set. Morgan Cammie at Gmail. Password?”
“How about ‘not having fun’?” she said.
“Works for me. Okay, uploading the new address to the link. There it goes. Okay, so tell me—who else got killed?”
Matt’s question sounded so matter-of-fact that Tess shrieked in frustration. The voices babbling around her went silent for an instant, and she felt a dozen stares bore into her from all sides. Just as quickly, the jabber returned to normal.
“Don’t you understand?” she cried.
“What? What did I say?” Matt sounded bewildered.
Tess couldn’t bear to say any more about Helen. In low tones, Oliver told Matt what had happened after school on Tuesday. Matt let out a low whistle.
“I didn’t know,” he said when Oliver finished. “I’m really sorry, Tess.”
Tess pushed her sandwich away without saying anything. She’d lost her appetite.
“Tess, I’m going to throw this trash away,” Oliver said. “I’ll be right back. Matt, will you stay with her a minute?”
“Sure. Is that all right with you, Tess?”
She nodded and slumped in her seat. Oliver got up and left, his scent lingering for an instant.
“Man, this is some crazy stuff happening,” Matt said. “Say, what did you do to Tad? He’s looking over here like he wants to kill you. No, now it’s cool. He’s on his phone. He stopped staring. No, wait. He’s looking over again.”
“Matt, shut up!” Tess said. “I don’t care about Tad. He’s a jerk.”
“Who’s a jerk?” a voice said behind her. Someone slid into Oliver’s seat. “Matt, give us a minute, will you?”
“Yeah, sure,” Matt said. “See you, Tess.”
Tess placed the voice as soon as she got a whiff of a familiar scent. “Toby, what do you want?”
He leaned in the way Oliver had. It had excited her once, made her weak in the knees. Now she felt strangely uncomfortable. She stiffened.
“What are you playing at, Tess?” he murmured.
“What do you mean?” She drew away.
“I heard my dad talking on the phone with Chief Clifford last night. Sounds like you’re mixed up in a murder. I’m not talking about Carl, either. What’s going on?”
Tess gasped and put her fist to her mouth. She knew Toby’s father was on the city council and was friends with the police chief, but she couldn’t figure out how either of them could have heard about Helen.
How did my name come up? Luis and Kenny got us away from Helen’s house so quickly, no one could have seen me.
“You must be crazy,” she said. “You think I killed someone?”
“Calm down, Tess. I didn’t say that. I heard them talking about a murder, and your name came up in the conversation, that’s all. I thought you might have been involved somehow. Like, maybe you were a witness.” He paused. “I’m worried about you, Tess. You’ve been acting so strangely since you came back.”
“What? Because I don’t hang on your every word anymore? Because I don’t follow you around like a puppy dog?”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I . . . you’re just different.”
“Of course I’m different, Toby. I used to be able to see.”
“That’s not what I meant. You—”
“I know what you meant.” She bit back her anger. “I’m a year older. I’ve been through a lot in the past year, Toby. Yes, I’ve changed. So have you. It’s called growing up. You’re sweet to still care, now that you and Adrienne are together. But I’m okay, Toby. And don’t worry. I’m not mixed up in any murder. You must have misunderstood.”
“Maybe.” He sounded doubtful. “But I—”
Oliver interrupted him. “Everything all right, Tess?”
“Fine. Toby just stopped to say hi.”
“I was just leaving,” Toby said. The air beside her moved. “Call me, Tess, if you ever need anything.”
“A little late for that, but I’ll keep it in mind.”
Oliver settled into the chair. “What was that all about?” he murmured.
“No big deal,” she said. “Why? Jealous?”
He snorted. “Come on, let’s get you to class.”
That night, Tess flew through her homework as soon as Oliver got her home after school. The sooner she was rid of him, the sooner she felt she’d be able to breathe. The anger that simmered below the surface surprised her in its intensity. It was about trust, she realized. She couldn’t trust any of the men in her life. Her father had essentially abandoned her. That was unfair of her, she knew; the accident wasn’t his fault. But he was gone nonetheless. Uncle Travis treated her like a prisoner, which was far worse than when he’d simply ignored her. Toby had dumped her for a girl Tess had thought was her closest friend. Tad was obviously psycho, and now Oliver kept disappearing when she needed him most.
None of the women in her life were trustworthy, either. Her mom . . . Tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked and pushed the thought out of her head. Adrienne, her former BFF, obviously was a traitor and a witch. Alice was cold and distant, and though Tess liked her an awful lot—maybe even loved her like one would love a doting aunt or a grandmother—she found it hard to confide in Alice. And Rosa was gone, thank God, but she had been even more Looney Tunes than Tad.
Which left Tess pretty much on her own. Or so she thought, until Yoshi came to collect her for jujitsu practice. Alice came with him to check on her homework, and when Tess told her she’d finished, Alice sent Oliver home. Yoshi waited in the front hall while Tess went upstairs to change. When she came down in her gi, or uniform, Yoshi took her arm and escorted her to the gym in the other wing of the house.
Not long before, she’d dreaded this walk. She used to think it was cool that the house was so big it included the gym. It had a weight and exercise room, a half-size basketball court, sauna, hot tub, and changing rooms. After the accident, though, it had become her personal torture chamber—where she’d done all her physical therapy. She’d hated it then, had hated the fact that her parents had been wealthy enough to afford a facility like it in their home, something only a handful of other families had. But as she’d slowly recovered from all her other injuries, she’d come to appreciate the fact that she didn’t have to go out in public to get the therapy she needed.
She heard the clank of metal on metal before they reached the gym. Someone from the security team lifting weights, she guessed. Travis would have okayed their use of the facility to keep them from going nuts with boredom. Yoshi led her past the weights and exercise equipment to an open area in the exercise room. Thick mats covered the floor. For the next hour he pushed her hard, reviewing the things she already knew and teaching her new techniques: arm locks, wrist locks—and how to break out of them—hip and shoulder throws, and several types of escapes.
She’d been a blue belt before the accident, finding the mental discipline needed for the martial art a nice complement to the freestyle snowboarding she enjoyed. Now, despite how quickly she was able to remember many of the techniques, Tess found herself slamming into the mat time after time. Without her sight to orient her, she could only guess when she was about to land, making it difficult to break her fall. She was soon frustrated and sore. But Yoshi didn’t cut her any slack. He made her perform each technique over and over until he grudgingly indicated his satisfaction or she became so frustrated that he simply moved on to something else before she exploded. When Yoshi finally let her stop for the day, she was exhausted, drenched with swea
t, and ached in every part of her body.
“Why so scared today, missy?” Yoshi asked as they headed back to the main part of the house.
“Because I can’t see what I’m doing,” she said, exasperated.
“How many times today I tell you to feel the movement, flow with your opponent and use his momentum and weight against him.”
She sighed. “Only a couple dozen.”
“Yes, but how many times I tell you same thing before the accident?”
She thought about it and finally got the point. “Maybe a few million?”
“Ah-so, now you truly see. Yes, to kick your opponent from a distance you must see him to know where he is. But when he is close, when he attacks, you know. You can strike, disable, change the direction of his attack, fend him off. All because you feel what he is doing.”
“It’s just so different than what I’m used to.”
“No, not different. Just a different way to sense it. Your body knows what to do. I see that your muscles still remember. Just let go with your mind.”
“I’ll try, Yoshi.”
“Tomorrow.” Yoshi sounded as relieved as she felt.
Tess laughed. Maybe she’d given him a workout, too.
As she and Yoshi approached the front hall, the sound of voices arguing in made her heart beat faster. Alice was speaking with a strange man at the front door.
“No. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to speak to the family attorney,” Alice said.
“What’s going on?” Tess said.
“Nothing you have to worry about,” Alice said. “Go on up and take a shower.”
“Miss Barrett!” the man called from the doorway. “Miss Barrett, it’s Detective Pete Erickson. I have questions for you.”
“I told you,” Alice said firmly, “she can’t speak with you.”
“Alice . . .” Tess said, frightened, “why do the police want to talk to me?”
“It’s about your former cook, Miss Barrett,” Erickson said loudly. “Helen Corday? She’s been murdered. We got a tip that you may know something about it.”
“That’s enough, detective!” Alice said. “She’s eighteen, which means she can talk to you without her guardian present if she wants. But she’s blind, which means she relies on his protection, and he’s not here. Even if he was, you’d still have to speak to the family attorney. Now please leave.”
“I understand,” the detective said. “I’ll get in touch with Mr. Barrett and make an appointment to talk to his niece.”
“You do that,” Alice said.
“Oh, by the way,” Erickson said, “is Oliver Moncrief here?”
“Oh, my god,” Tess said. “Not Oliver, too?”
“Shush, Tess,” Alice said. “Oliver’s not here, detective.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“I certainly wouldn’t know where he spends his time off,” Alice said. “Perhaps you should try him at home.”
“We’ll do that, ma’am. Thank you for your time. Oh, and Miss Barrett? We’ll be talking with you soon. Real soon.”
The sound of the door closing somehow didn’t make Tess feel any safer.
CHAPTER 39
Travis sat on the bench in the bus stop shelter and waited, tapping his foot. Misty, cold showers that had persisted overnight and for most of the day had finally given way to some broken clouds. Blue sky appeared in fits and starts, and bright sunlight even poked through in spots, dappling the pavement. A rude breeze peeked under ladies’ skirts as they passed by, bullied litter on the street, and ruffled branches of nearby trees. Travis zipped up his windbreaker and stood up when he saw Derek headed up the street.
“I got your text,” Derek said as he got close. “What’s up?”
“I didn’t think it was a good idea to meet at the office,” Travis said. “Too many prying eyes. Let’s walk.”
Derek fell in beside Travis and matched his stride. Travis sensed the kid’s excitement, but something else, too. Wariness.
“What have you got?” Travis said.
“On what?”
“The worm. Any progress?”
“Jeez, man, you just gave that to me yesterday. You think I can work miracles? You did say this stuff is extracurricular. I actually work for your company, you know. We don’t just sit around and play video games all day.”
Travis allowed himself a small smile. He had a feeling Derek wouldn’t have been able to keep from working on anything he threw at him. Part of it was Derek’s desire to please a superior, to get a little recognition. But it was mostly ego. Travis knew Derek couldn’t resist the challenge. Derek thought—no, knew—he was good, better than anyone else at programming. To match wits with a master who had stymied MondoHard’s best coders was exactly the opportunity Derek had been waiting for. Travis had seen that kind of brilliance, that enormous-but-quiet ego before. He’d lived with it, grown up with it.
James.
“Okay, so I took a look at what you sent me.” Derek said. “I gotta admit that whoever wrote it was brilliant. The fact that it can morph and adapt to whatever you try to use to kill it or excise it is amazing. I’m pretty sure I understand how he’s managed to protect it. It’s kind of like genetic modification. From the sample I got, I can see that once the worm got in, it divided itself into little snippets of code, pieces that attached themselves at random in the infected program. Finding the snippets is hard enough because they’re so small they look innocuous. But if you do find one and delete it, it replicates itself somewhere else.”
Travis glanced at him. Derek’s eyes glowed, his cheeks had spots of color, and he was breathing fast—partly because Travis set a quick pace and Derek was talking and walking at the same time. This stuff got Derek excited, like it had James. Travis knew he’d made the right choice. But he remained reserved. He didn’t want to get ahead of himself.
“Can you eradicate it?” Travis said.
Derek frowned. “I don’t know. I doubt it. But I’m pretty sure I can neutralize it. I’m getting a feel for how it works. If I can anticipate what it will do then I can get ahead of it, prevent it from adapting or morphing. Same thing with how it interferes with the program itself. If I can figure out how to anticipate where it will attack next by looking at where the snippets, its DNA, are hiding, then I can stop it from carrying out attacks on program functions.”
“You really think you can accomplish what no one in the company has managed to figure out in a year of working on it?”
Derek nodded. “It won’t be easy, but yes.”
“How?”
“Because I get this guy. I know how this guy thinks. Your coders have been trying to attack the problem without understanding what the problem is. Kind of like treating the symptoms without diagnosing the disease. Whoever wrote this is sick.”
“Like psycho?”
Derek grinned. “No, I mean, like, crazy good.”
“And you’re better? This worm infects at random. How are you going to beat that?”
“That’s my point. It’s not random. It looks like it’s depositing DNA and gumming up the works randomly, but it doesn’t act indiscriminately. It only infects portions of code that are parts of commands. It’s not like some dog that takes a dump wherever it feels like. It’s more like a dog that’s trained to do its business on selected lawns, but in an unpredictable sequence.”
“And how does that help?”
“It means this guy used an algorithm. I just have to figure it out, then I’ll be able to predict where the worm will do its business next.”
Travis digested the news. It sounded good, but the kid still had to deliver.
“How long?”
“Jeez, keep your pants on,” Derek grumbled. He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe a few days. Could be a few weeks. You’ve already had a year. Give me a break.”
Travis turned into a small park and headed for a bench in a patch of sunshine. He sat down and motioned to the empty bench beside him. Derek glanced around, the
n eased onto the bench.
“That’s good work, Derek. I’m glad you’re on this project.”
Derek’s eyes narrowed. “Am I?”
Travis sighed and contemplated a pigeon pecking the ground next to the bench. “It’s complicated. The fact is, I don’t know who to trust anymore, Derek. That’s why I came to you. You’ve got nothing invested here except a paycheck. So, right now this is all unofficial, as you’ve gathered. But if everything works out, I’ll go on record about the help you’ve provided and make sure you get a promotion and a raise. Just go with me on this, will you?”
Derek looked at his shoes, then studied him and nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
“Good. Okay, so tell me what you found in my niece’s e-mails.”
Derek hesitated. “You sure you want to do this? Seems like an invasion of privacy to me.”
“She’s my ward, Derek. I’m not happy about it, either, but it’s my job to protect her. I can’t do that if she keeps secrets from me.”
Derek shoved some dirt around under the bench with the toe of his sneaker. “Okay, look, I’ll tell you what I found out, but if anyone asks—especially your niece—I’ll deny I ever did anything you asked me to.”
“Fair enough.”
“That file you gave me? The one on the memory stick? She uploaded that to the web. The guy who asked her to do it has been e-mailing her for the past few days.”
“Has she uploaded anything else?”
Derek nodded. “Three files so far. All erased as soon as they finished uploading. And the sites disappeared shortly after the files were received. Whoever this is, he’s careful. Covering his tracks. I couldn’t find a trace of the sites or where they originated. Not that it would tell us anything anyway. You can open a site on a server in Uzbekistan and do business in Cedar Rapids.”
Travis rubbed his chin. “And the files were erased? Any chance of recovery?”
“Some,” Derek said. “Kind of like the memory stick. There’s a ghost of a file, but it’s fragmented. And the files are on a laptop. Not your niece’s. I had to hack it and try to retrieve the files while it was connected to the Internet. Not easy, but I managed to retrieve what’s there.”
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