Watched

by C. J. Lyons

  That was the world and family and life her dad deserved. The life he’d built for himself, patrolling one of the worst zones in Pittsburgh. He hadn’t minded, not with his beautiful, brilliant “girls” waiting for him at home and the chance to really make a difference for the people he lived to serve and protect.

  But this—twelve-hour days working as a campus cop, ticketing parked cars and listening to whiny drunk college kids followed by more hours working overtime at the Telenet Arena, a job she’d convinced him to take a few months ago, supposedly to pay for her online classes, classes she hadn’t even bothered to attend—this was hell for a man like him. And she saw it every day in the lines around his lips and eyes, the way he barely made eye contact with her mom anymore, as if he were the one who had let them all down.

  It wasn’t his fault. Every time she saw that look on his face, she wanted to cry out, It was me! Blame me. Yell at me. Why do you even bother anyway?

  But she never gave the words a chance to escape. Instead, she’d just hug him even harder, hoping that was enough…even though she knew it wasn’t.

  “How was your day?” he asked, releasing her.

  “Good,” she lied. “I made spaghetti for you.” With their conflicting schedules, her mom and dad never got to eat together, so Miranda made it a point to sit and pretend to eat with both of them. It was the least she could do.

  “Hmmm, hmmm good. My favorite.” He went to change out of his uniform while she heated the food. Then he rejoined her in the tiny kitchen. “Need help with your homework?”

  She shook her head. “It’s trig.” A lie. Carefully calculated to play to his one weak spot. Dad had an associate degree in criminal justice but never made it past high school algebra when it came to math.

  He started eating. She watched. Spaghetti used to be her favorite as well, but somehow it seemed wrong to indulge herself. A small punishment for the lies and manipulations and the pain—past, present, and future.

  “So”—he gathered noodles with his fork—“your mom said you didn’t make it out today. Want to go for a walk with me after dinner? You and me together? Just like we used to.”

  She sat in stony silence, his words hanging in the air alongside the limp noodles dangling from his fork. He set the fork down with a clank. “Ariel—”

  “Miranda,” she snapped.

  He hated her new name, even more than Mom. But she needed Miranda. It was her only armor between the life she had—the life she’d loved—and her new life. Without Miranda, she’d return to that weak, stupid, trusting little girl, clueless, sniveling victim that she was.

  Miranda was strong. Ruthless. Miranda would get the job done, one way or the other.

  His sigh rattled her. “Sweetheart, you know what the doctors said. We have a deal. You need to keep moving forward.”

  She drew her knees up to her chest and picked at her cuticles, trying to deflect his disappointment. Usually she could outwait him and he’d surrender.

  Not tonight.

  “Your birthday is coming up,” he surprised her by saying.

  She jerked her head up. Did he know? Had he read her journal?

  No. His expression was one of hope and…happiness. A glimpse of her old dad, the one who whistled as he walked up their front steps, came out from behind the clouds. God how she missed him. “I thought—we thought, your mother and I, and Dr. Patterson said it would be okay, we thought maybe, well…” He gaze stumbled against her stare. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you before your birthday on Sunday. So if you don’t like it, we can come up with something else. Not disappoint your mom—”

  He slid three tickets across the table to her. Special passes to a private rehearsal of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater’s performance of Giselle in June.

  “Dr. Patterson thinks a goal, a date, something to work toward might be helpful. There will only be a handful of people there. It will be a very, very safe environment. And your mom remembered it was your favorite.”

  Miranda couldn’t look up, her gaze weighted down as if the tickets were made of lead. How could she face her father when she’d be forced to demolish the light in his voice? Because there was no way in hell she could promise come June that she’d even be alive.

  “But,” his voice faltered, “if you don’t think—if you’re not sure—it’s okay. I know it’s important for you to be in control, to have a choice, but…” His voice stumbled again. “I think we need to know there are options. You—we—need to have something to hang on to.”

  Hope. He was talking about hope. Nasty little four-letter word.

  She couldn’t lie to him. Not again. Instead, she unwound her body from the pretzel it had twisted itself into and stood up, embracing him with a hug that she poured every ounce of her body and soul into.

  “Thanks, Daddy,” she whispered. He reached his arms up to circle hers, squeezing her tight.

  And then she let him lie to her—to both of them. “Everything will be okay, sweetheart,” he said, his voice thick with tears. “I promise. I will never, ever let anything happen to you. We will make it through this. You’ll see. Everything will be all right.”

  16

  My uncle’s still in the garage, so I sneak around to the front door and let myself in as quietly as possible. Maybe he’s not the arsonist. Maybe he found all that stuff and kept it so he could dispose of it properly…except then why would he have brought dangerous chemicals home?

  Maybe he was teaching some of the other guys about the arsonist’s techniques. That way they could fight the fires better. In the middle of the night? If that was it, he would have left all that hazmat shit at the firehouse, not here where Janey could get into it.

  I pull my boots off—the hardwood floors squeak—and tiptoe down the hall to my room. Keeping the lights out, I set my boots down and take off my jacket. Footsteps sound behind me. No way in hell can I face my uncle, not now, not with what I’m suspecting. I drop my jacket on the floor and dive under the covers, fully dressed. I pull them up over most of my head and pretend to be asleep, hoping my pulse racing up my neck won’t give me away.

  Could he really be the arsonist? Maybe he was helping the police, showing them how an arsonist works? I add up the dates of the fires and my uncle’s work schedule—he was on duty during all of them, had been there to put them out before they could hurt anyone.

  My uncle comes in without knocking. He leaves the door ajar so there’s a sliver of light. At first he just stands there. I can feel his stare. I hold my breath, my entire body clenched into a tight knot. Then there’s a click—he’s closed King’s laptop so he can have privacy. He never cares that it’s me who will pay the price for shutting out King.

  Somehow I can wrap my head around my uncle’s betrayal of me, his insistence that King is my problem, not his. But I can’t accept that he’d ever betray the guys at the firehouse, that he’d betray his code of honor as a firefighter. He loves fighting fires, loves being the hero, leading his men into danger and then out again on the other side.

  He picks my dad’s jacket up from the floor. I tense, remembering Miranda’s phone in the pocket, praying it doesn’t fall out. Or the gun. Shit. I’d forgotten about the gun. I dare to open my eyes a slit. He doesn’t go through the pockets. All he does is hang it on the back of the desk chair, gently, carefully, his hand lingering on the leather collar.

  He sits down beside me in the dark. A strong smell of chlorine slides beneath the blankets to gag me. With it, the stench of petroleum. And I know he is the arsonist.

  I hate it. I hate him. I blow my breath out in a fake snore as he lays his hand on my head, his fingers combing through my hair. Revulsion and disgust at his touch threaten to shatter my control.

  He sits there for a long moment, sighs my name. Twists it into a sound so sad and filled with regret, it feels like I’m responsible for everything wrong in the world.

 
Then he leaves. I’m alone in the dark, face buried in my pillow, smothering my anger and fear.

  Until I can find a way to move Mom and Janey out of here to someplace safe from both King and my uncle, his secrets are my secrets.

  Punching him, pummeling him, pounding him into the ground would be so much easier and feel so much better. I fantasize about it, but I can never do it. I have to put my family first.

  My uncle’s right about one thing: I’m all they have.

  • • •

  I’m pretty much awake the whole night. When I do drift off, it’s only a few minutes before dreams of facing King turn into nightmares of his retaliation. Those morph into dreams of fire, drowning in fire, burning, burning…and my uncle outside, shaking his head in regret, walking away.

  Not exactly eager to face anyone, I get up early, grab my shower, shove what little cash I have into my pockets, wash a bagel and peanut butter down with a glass of milk. Back in my room, I stare at my desk. My dad’s jacket hangs from the chair where my uncle placed it last night. King’s phone is on the charger hidden below the desk and his laptop is still closed.

  The closed laptop frightens me. I should have gotten up and opened it last night after my uncle left my room. King will put up with occasionally being locked out of my life, but not for long. And I’m already on his shit list.

  Even though he gave me until Monday to make my decision, I know he’ll want to be able to reach me—I’d taken a huge risk liberating myself from the shackle of his phone last night when I fled to the trailer. My hand raises, almost against my will, stretches toward the desk. King has trained me well. Even the thought of disobeying him has my stomach churning acid, and bile scratching at my throat.

  My hand falls. On my dad’s jacket. Before I can think twice or lose my nerve, I grab it and race from the room. Two minutes later, I’m hunched over the steering wheel of my truck headed God only knows where. But I’m free. For now.

  The air smells crisp, like spring has decided to stay—always a risk here in central Pennsylvania where we often get Easter and Mother’s Day blizzards. I roll down the windows, the bracing chill clearing my mind. There will be a price to pay for this morning’s baby steps of rebellion. Was I ready to go all the way and trust Miranda?

  I drive my truck toward school but keep going past it until I get to a road leading up into the woods. It’s single lane, rutted, used by hunters and hikers to get up to the ridge where the State Game Lands start. The trees—oak and maple with tiny red-green smudges where they’ll soon have leaves, tall hemlock, and pine—keep me in shadow until I emerge at the parking area on top. I get out of the truck and climb onto the hood, the engine ticking as it cools beneath me.

  A large bird—a hawk or turkey vulture or eagle, it’s too far away to tell—glides across the blue sky over the valley. There are no clouds, not even those fuzzy ones Janey always tries to blow away like they’re dandelion puffs.

  Just me and the sun. I can’t remember the last time I was free of King like this. Filling my lungs with the sweet air, I sit there and do nothing. I don’t think. I don’t try to plan. I don’t come up with lies to tell anyone who might discover me. I’m just me, alone for the first time in what feels like years.

  Finally, I take Miranda’s phone from my pocket and dial. “I’m in.”

  17

  Miranda was ensnarled by code and almost didn’t hear the phone ring when Griffin called. She grabbed her Bluetooth and answered, her gaze still blurred by streams of characters.

  “I’m in,” he said.

  She swallowed hard, her breath catching with excitement.

  “Okay, here’s how it’s going to work,” she told him, knowing her voice was rushed and manic but feeling like she needed to talk fast to get this all out before she forgot something. “The button camera-recorder I ordered for you looks like an ordinary pen. Just clip it in your pocket, click the top once to start recording and again to stop—”

  “A pen does all that?”

  “Sure. I could have gotten one that streamed it wirelessly but it was too expensive, so this one uses a USB port, just take the cap off. But here’s what I was up all night working on—how would you like it if we did this so you never have to confront King in person at all?”

  “You mean get him to talk, confess, over the phone or computer?”

  “No. I was thinking we could infiltrate his computer—well, I could, with this program. See, we’ll use the USB drive on the pen to upload this program, once I finish it, into your computer, then once I gain access to your computer, I can follow him back to his.”

  “And then what? Copy all his files, send them to the FBI or something?”

  “Well, if he’s smart, there won’t be anything on his computer. That’s why he’s so hard to catch—with the live streams he sets up between you and his clients, he’s watching remotely. There’s nothing on his hard drive.”

  “So there aren’t copies out there all over the net? It’s just King’s clients who have seen me?” He sounded relieved. She hated to disillusion him.

  “Sorry, no. If I were King, I’d screen capture the video feed from my client’s computer and bury the file on their hard drive, then send new customers there to download it.”

  “And if the cops ever search his client’s computer, they’d find the files and downloads but nothing would lead back to King?” His breath whistled over the airwaves into her ear via the Bluetooth. “Why do you want to risk using this program on my computer if we’re not going to find evidence on his?”

  “If we get control of his computer, we can turn the camera on and get a picture of him. And I can capture anything he does, like getting paid by a client or setting up a new kid by grabbing a screen capture of them.”

  “We’d just wait until some other kid gets screwed by him?” He did not like that. Neither did she. She didn’t have time before King struck again on her birthday. Only two days left. But other than planting porn onto King’s own computer, there wasn’t much she could do.

  The code on her screen blurred. God, she was so tired, so very, very tired. She needed this all to be over.

  Then she saw the flaw in her plan.

  “Wait,” she told Griffin. She closed her eyes, thought everything through once more, twisting and turning the plan in her mind. “We might not be able to do it this way. King will know when you connect the USB drive to your machine.”

  “So?”

  “So, he’ll be able to see what files are on it.”

  “We’re back to plan A? Finding him and me confronting him in person at the arena tomorrow during the car show?”

  “Give me a second to think.” She twirled in her chair, gaze spinning around her room. It was painted beige, like the rest of the apartment—her mom kept talking about repainting the whole place, but they hadn’t found time. Miranda didn’t have any framed photos—no glass allowed after she came home from the hospital. But she had filled one wall with a collage of images ripped out of magazines and catalogs.

  The images were of things from Ariel’s life: wishes and dreams and lace and rainbow stuff. Miranda had arranged them to create a larger picture of her own dream, a window that didn’t look out over a parking lot and trio of Dumpsters but instead looked into the future. Or maybe it was the past, Ariel’s past. Anyway, the small scraps of color and light and hope combined to create a large, single rosebud. Pictures hidden in a picture.

  “Maybe I can rework this to hide the program in a file that would make sense for you to upload to your computer. Steganography,” she told Griffin. “We’ll use steganography.”

  “Sure, if I had a clue what that was.”

  “It’s hiding data inside computer images. King asked you to find a kid, right? I’ll grab some stock photos, embed the computer code inside them, so when he opens the file to view them, he’ll also unleash the code onto his hard drive. An
d it would make sense for you to take photos and transfer them to your computer. You can tell him they’re of Janey’s friends and you want his help in picking out the right kid to approach.”

  There was a long pause. “I don’t know if I can convince him. That’s so…twisted.”

  “It’s not like they’re real kids. And better than you facing him in person, less dangerous.”

  “You can do that? Set it up so King never knows I’m the one who betrayed him?”

  “We can do it. Together. Bring him down. For good.”

  18

  Miranda has only been in my life for less than a day, but I love the way she makes me smile. She just never gives up, not on the crazy idea that we can take down King—not on me.

  I can’t remember the last time anyone had faith in me like she does. No. That’s a lie. I can. I just don’t want to. Dad used to talk to me just like Miranda does, like he somehow assumed that I could do anything I put my mind to. I remember the glow of pride I’d feel when we’d finish working on one of his cars and wash the grime off side by side, filling the sink with black suds, me basking in his presence.

  I blink hard and fast, willing away memories of him. He’s gone and he’s never coming back and who needs him anyway? I can do this. I can handle King and my uncle, take care of my family. Even if he couldn’t. Loser.

  “Where to?” I ask her, surprised my voice sounds choked. I clear my throat to cover it.

  “Altoona,” she answers. She gives me an address. There’s a clacking sound in the background and I know she’s typing on her computer, working her cybermagic. “It should be open by the time you get there.”

  I turn the truck engine on, plug the phone in to charge as we talk—thankfully it fits the same adapter as the one for King’s phone. I lean back in the driver’s seat as I steer the truck down the mountain and have to adjust the rearview mirror because for once I’m sitting up straight and tall instead of hunched over the wheel.