by M T Stone
“Have you ever tracked down someone using Facebook?” Dylan asked, ignoring the comment.
“Nah, most of the people I go after don’t spend much time on social media,” he scoffed. “I’ve had some training in how to do it though.”
“Really? I need to know if there’s a way to find out who’s been looking at my Facebook profile.”
“Why?” Carson leaned over to grab his briefcase.
“Because Leo had a picture of Summer that was printed from my Facebook page,” Dylan explained. “It was my profile picture for most of the summer, so I want to see who has been visiting my page.”
Carson opened the briefcase, pulled out his Toughbook computer, and flipped it open on his lap. “I’ll show you a trick to see the last hundred or so people who visited your Facebook profile.”
“That would be awesome!” Dylan walked around behind him and watched intently as he went online.
“What’s your username?”
“DylanChase97.” He watched as his uncle typed in the URL and pulled up his page.
“Now, just right click and look for View Page Source in the menu,” he instructed while simultaneously doing it. A whole page of funky looking data flooded onto the screen. “Now, do a search for the word Activelist.” He typed it into the search box and the cursor went down to the center of the page. “Do you see all of these numbers?” he asked, pointing to a whole block of random digits.
“Yeah.” Dylan leaned in, squinting to get a better look at the numbers.
“Each of these numbers represents a Facebook account. All you do is open a new tab and go to your profile page again . . . what was your username?”
“DylanChase97.”
“Ok, the numbers within the parentheses are the unique id numbers. Just copy one of those and replace your username with it.” He went to the other page and replaced Dylan’s username with the number 163618159133. “Who is Stacy Anderson?” he asked as her profile popped up on the screen.
“A girl I went to school with, but I don’t think we’re even friends,” Dylan replied with shock in his voice. She was the last person that he would expect to find viewing his Facebook profile.
“She’s gorgeous. Maybe she’s been stalking you.” Carson laughed heartily as if it wasn’t even a remote possibility. “She probably knew that in order to have you, she had to take out your girlfriend first. The motive makes sense.”
“You’re think you’re hilarious, don’t you? She was one of the football cheerleaders, as well as our homecoming queen,” Dylan replied, glaring at him. “She’s probably checking out the fact that I’ve beefed up since we graduated. There was a time when she wouldn’t have looked twice, but I think we’re past that.”
“So, you’re saying there’s a chance!” Carson replied with a chuckle, using the famous Jim Carey line from Dumb and Dumber.
“You’d better watch it. I know where you sleep,” Dylan countered, throwing a fist into his uncle’s shoulder.
“Okay, well at least now you know how to see who has been on your page. Just take each of those numbers and do the same thing. That’ll give you a good starting point.” Carson closed the cover on his laptop and tossed it back into the briefcase. “Was there anything else that Summer told you? Maybe I could help you figure this whole thing out.”
“The only other thing was that he had a whole bunch of hundred-dollar bills,” he relayed. “He told her it was five grand.”
“Where would a kid like that get a half-stack of hundreds?” Carson asked, sounding as shocked as they had been. “He sure didn’t look like the type who would have that kind of cash lying around. Fifty bucks, maybe, but even that’s a strong maybe.”
“Yeah, that’s what we thought too. I’m going up to my room to check out who’s been on my Facebook,” Dylan told him, heading toward the door. “Maybe something will make sense after I see who’s been on there.”
“Go get ‘em,” Carson replied. “Guess who I’m having dinner with later tonight?”
“Based on that shitty grin, I’m guessing it has to be Olivia.” Dylan laughed and shook his head. “She’s still married, you know.”
“I know, but there’s always hope . . . right?” He laughed and rolled his eyes as if he knew just how long his odds were.
“I think you used the appropriate line a couple of minutes ago,” Dylan said jokingly.
“I know, but I think my odds are at least two in a million,” Carson replied with a shimmer in his eyes.
Dylan was a little taken aback by his uncle’s persistence in pursuing Olivia. He didn’t like the fact that it had previously affected his relationship with Summer’s dad. At the same time, he was impressed by his bold persistence in the face of repeated rejection. He was obviously a man who lived by his words. He knew what he wanted, and he was on a mission to get it.
His knowledge of Facebook was also impressive, especially considering the fact that he didn’t have an account of his own. He had mentioned that most people in law enforcement tended to avoid social media. Hell, it was probably dangerous for them to even carry a smartphone with all of those apps that can track the location of your phone.
He sat down with his laptop and began the tedious process of extracting the ID numbers from the pile of code, looking them up and inserting them into a spreadsheet.
163618159133 Stacy Anderson—Not a friend
173658257339 Jim Cooper—Friend
196532792454 Barry Wilson—Friend
He continued his data-mining until he had a list of about sixty people who were all friends, except for Stacy Anderson. Out of curiosity, he clicked on his friend list and searched for Stacy. She was a friend, after all, so he changed her status on the spreadsheet. It didn’t seem right that everyone who had visited his page was a friend. Facebook made it so easy for anyone to click on accounts of People you Might Know that it seemed odd that no one other than his friends had visited his page. He tossed his laptop to the side, lay back on the bed, and began thinking about whether any of his friends would even remotely qualify as a potential suspect. He was eventually saved from this exercise in futility when his phone buzzed. It was Summer.
“Hey, it’s great to see your face on my screen again,” he told her upon answering.
“Mom just gave me my phone. You’re my first call.”
Dylan grinned into the phone. “I’m glad you called. I just spent an hour digging through data on my Facebook page, but the only people I found were friends of mine. So that’s a bust as far as I can tell,” he told her. “I doubt any of my friends have a connection to Leo.”
“I have one more interesting thing,” Summer replied excitedly, as if she had just remembered something amazing. “Detective Thomas noticed that the two bills in my pocket had sequential serial numbers. He said they were from the same stack or whatever.”
Dylan typed a stack of hundred-dollar bills into Google. “A stack is one hundred, hundred-dollar bills, or ten thousand dollars.” It suddenly made sense that Carson had referred to the money as a half-stack earlier. “I wonder what difference that makes?”
“It’s probably nothing, but since the bills were washed in lake water, he said it was probably the only tidbit of information he would get from them.”
Dylan noticed that she was still struggling to breathe. “Are you okay?”
“My lungs are getting worse again,” she replied with obvious disappointment. “They say those stupid parasites are still in there and they’re worried about me getting pneumonia.”
“So you’re going to be in there for a while, huh?”
“Yeah, it looks like I’ll be stuck in here for my birthday.” She sounded totally deflated. “They want me to sleep, but will you come see me later on? Mom has something going on at seven, and Dad is taking Grandpa and Grandma somewhere. I think they’re trying to figure out the whole reward thing.”
Dylan decided not to mention the fact that her mother was having dinner with Carson. He knew Summer had enough on her plate
without fussing about that. “I’ll stop by in an hour or so.”
“Okay, see you then.”
Even over the phone, Dylan could sense that Summer was getting weaker, and the fact that she had been so tired all day also bothered him. He grabbed his laptop again and typed in water borne parasites. Within a minute, he was skimming through articles about two girls, nine and eighteen, and a fourteen-year-old boy who had all died from inhaling parasites while swimming in infected lakes. He immediately regretted reading about it and began wondering whether her doctors knew that it could be so deadly. He only hoped that they, too, had done their research.
Chapter 22
6:57pm
Olivia tapped her foot nervously against the base of the table as she waited for Carson to arrive at the restaurant. Leave it to him to choose the exact restaurant where they had eaten the night of their senior prom. It was hard to believe that the restaurant still existed, more than twenty-four years later. The food must still be good. Returning to a familiar theme from the past few days, she began to think about how fast time had passed. It didn’t seem possible that her daughter was turning eighteen. Ryan was forty-two and she was right behind him. Her mother had always told her that time really flies once you turn forty—a thought that scared her to death.
“Hello, gorgeous,” a masculine voice caught her off-guard. Carson leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Did you notice I reserved the same table?”
“I guess I hadn’t noticed that. I was just sitting here in disbelief about how old we’ve gotten,” she replied, feeling even more nostalgic.
“Ahh, age is just a number,” Carson told her as he slid into his chair on the opposite side of the small, rectangular table. “We both have gotten hotter since the last time we sat together at this table.”
“I wish,” she scoffed. “The last few years have been so stressful that I’m feeling like I’m already getting old.” Just talking about it, Olivia could feel the weight of all of those traumatic memories weighing upon her mood. “Things have been really stressful ever since Mom and Dad . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“You’ve been through a lot, Olivia.” He reached for her hand. “I just wish I could’ve been there for you.” He smiled, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the top of her hand.
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Olivia replied nervously, pulling her hand back. “Do you know what’s good here? I haven’t been here for ages.”
Carson smirked and cracked open the menu, casting his eyes downward, allowing her to look him over. She had to admit that he did look pretty damn hot. He had worn a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing his tanned forearms and a couple of his tats. She found it hard to believe how much he had changed over the years. Even though she knew better than to tell him, he was more handsome than ever. Back when they first met, she had an incredibly powerful physical attraction for him, but his mean streak and selfishness had driven her away. After their encounters the past few days, she knew what it would feel like to be in his arms and what it would be like to run her fingers across his incredible chest. After how he had treated Ryan earlier, though, she also knew that the changes were strictly physical and did not extend to his personality.
“You can’t go wrong with a prime Angus steak,” he said, closing the menu and sliding it onto the table after a quick perusal. “I’m still a sucker for rare beef and fried potatoes.”
“Have you learned to like red wine yet?” Olivia snickered.
“No. I still default to the same light beer I’ve always drunk.” He held up a hand to flag down the waitress.
“Over four thousand microbreweries in the U.S. alone, and you still drink that piss water?” She laughed out loud, surprised by her own crudeness. “I mean really?”
“I drink it because it reminds me of being young. Remember that time we went down to the creek and I had a six-pack stashed beneath the bridge?” Carson’s expression turned serious.
“Of course I remember.” Olivia took a deep breath. “That’s the night I let you get to third base,” she whispered. “I’ll never forget hearing Mr. Thompson’s tractor coming down the road and neither of us had a stitch of clothing on.”
“I’ve thought about that night a million times,” he admitted. “That was the happiest time of my life. I still regret leaving that fall. I guess I thought our bond was much stronger than it actually was.”
The waitress came over to the table, giving Olivia a couple of minutes to consider her reply. “I’ll just have the lemon pepper chicken salad with a glass of chardonnay,” she told her before going back to contemplating what she wanted to say to him. Carson proceeded to flirt with the young waitress before catching himself and ordering a medium-rare steak. She suddenly knew exactly what she wanted to say to him.
“You were my first love,” she said as soon as the waitress was out of range. “But I don’t think you ever realized how often you hurt my feelings. Even now, you were flirting with that waitress as if I wasn’t even here. Why do you do that?”
“I wasn’t flirting!” He instantly turned hot. “I was just giving her a compliment,” he said, looking at her as if she were out of her mind.
“Telling a twenty-year-old girl that she rocks that boring gray uniform is not something that you should do while you’re having dinner with a woman who’s in her forties,” she replied in utter disbelief. How could someone his age still be so clueless? It was as if he hadn’t matured at all in the past two decades. “After you left for basic training, I spent Labor Day weekend with Grandma. She couldn’t handle the fact that I was so distraught, so we spent most of the weekend talking about love and relationships,” Olivia explained.
“I had to go, Olivia,” Carson protested. “I wasn’t ready for college and couldn’t just sit around in this shithole.”
“I know. That wasn’t the issue,” she countered. “The problem was that you were always flirting with other girls, so I had serious trust issues. Then you went and joined the military without even discussing it with me. Who does that? How was I supposed to trust you when you were thousands of miles away?”
“I never cheated on you.” Carson crossed his arms defensively and narrowed his eyes.
“Maybe not, but you made me believe that you could at any minute,” she explained. “You always made me feel like my feelings didn’t really matter. We would go out, and you would leave me standing by myself whenever you saw someone more interesting to talk to. Grandma told me that if you truly loved me, you would never treat me that way, and she was right.”
Carson sat there sulking in silence as the waitress brought his drink and a basket of fresh bread. “You might as well bring me another glass of chardonnay too,” Olivia told her in a sarcastic tone. “I’m going to need it.”
“Well then, bring me a double shot of Jack,” Carson sneered before turning his attention to his phone. “I see your husband just tried to call me. Did he tell you about my offer?”
“What offer?” she asked, even though Ryan had told her all about the earlier confrontation in the hospital parking lot.
“That I would walk away from the million-dollar reward in exchange for you,” he told her smugly. “That’s how much you mean to me.”
“Hmm, a million dollars seems like a pretty steep price to pay for breaking up my family.” She glared at him while raising the wine glass to her lips and taking another sip. She liked how that had come out—blunt, cold, and completely devoid of feelings.
“The way you say it makes it sound like a bad thing.” Carson clicked the power button on the phone and shoved it back into his pocket.
“The fact that you don’t see it as a bad thing is just plain scary.” She took another large gulp of wine before resuming her train of thought. “Telling my husband that you will let him off the hook if he files for divorce is a really shitty thing to do . . . especially behind my back!”
“That fucker told you?” he huffed, his face turning bright red. “I’m gonna kil
l him.”
“No, you’re not.” Olivia pulled out her phone and went to Facebook. She proceeded to scroll through pictures of Summer, Ryan, Ryan’s parents, and her. Carson sat in silence as she showed him at least a dozen pictures. “They are my family. I love every one of them. Do you even understand what it’s like to actually love someone?”
“Of course! That’s how I feel about you!” He slammed his fist on the table in frustration, startling several of the other diners. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I would give up a million-dollar reward if I could get you back.” He stared at her intently. He seemed completely flustered by the fact that she couldn’t see it as the ultimate act of love.
“I totally get it, Carson. I know you think I should be flattered by the fact that you would give up the reward for me.” Olivia slipped her phone back into her purse and leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table. “Do you know where Ryan, Cliff, and Madeline are right now?”
“I don’t have a clue, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.” He crossed his arms and sat back in his chair once again. The cold glare in his deep blue eyes sent a chill through her. It seemed that not only had his demeanor remained unchanged for the last twenty years, but his demons had only grown stronger. She finished off the glass of wine, looking for the courage to say exactly what was on her mind. The waitress delivered the second glass just as she set down the empty one.
“The three of them are meeting with an attorney and a banker to see if Ryan can raise five hundred thousand dollars without selling any assets as long as Cliff guarantees the note.” She paused momentarily to let her words sink in, but Carson’s eyes kept their steely glare. “Cliff is seventy-one, but he’s willing to put a big chunk of his retirement at risk to help us. Now that’s true love.”
“He has more money than Trump,” he scoffed. “Hell, a half-million bucks means nothing to a guy like Cliff.”
“That’s not true.” Olivia took a sip from her second glass of wine. “Cliff grew up with nothing. His dad lost almost everything during the great depression, and raising cattle in this part of the country wasn’t exactly the expressway to untold fortunes. You know how dry it is around here.” She paused. “Do you know when they discovered oil on their land?”