By the time six o’clock rolled around, Connor realized he had spent the whole day doing nothing. He was ready to give up when the dot started to move again. His phone had been sitting on the arm of the sofa, tracking app open, and Olin was the one who saw it first.
“Look,” he said, pointing to Connor’s phone.
“Where do you think she’s going?”
“I don’t know. Not back to school. Not at this hour.”
“A friend’s?”
Olin shrugged.
Connor hopped up, grabbed his phone. “Come on. This might be our chance.”
“Wait. We don’t even know where she’s going.”
“We also don’t know how long she’ll be there.”
Olin didn’t move. “I think we should stay here until—”
“Let’s get close. Just in case, okay?”
“Fine.” Olin followed Connor out the door, and they each headed for their own car. “I’ll drive,” Olin said, once he realized what was happening. “Your driving makes me carsick.”
Connor suspected the real reason Olin wanted to drive was so that he could pull the brakes—literally and figuratively—on the operation if he wanted to. But since he was happy to have Olin with him, he didn’t make a fuss about it.
Connor directed Olin to the Albright Mall in Brooklyn, a four-story glass building with an attached parking garage and a sprawling interior that dedicated most of the floor space to retailers. “Fashion-forward” retailers, if the sign above the parking garage entrance was to be believed.
Olin found a spot on the third floor, making a point of parking as far away from any other vehicles as he could. “My dad will kill me if I ding the car,” he said.
Connor didn’t respond.
“What do we do now?” Olin said.
Connor didn’t think that question had to be asked. As soon as he knew Dylan had gone to the Albright Mall, he had assumed the answer was obvious. “Let’s go talk to her.”
Apparently, this was all Olin needed to hear. He nodded and got out of the car.
They took the stairs down to street level and circled around the building to the main entrance, sandwiched between a Brooks Brothers and a DSW.
Olin shifted from side to side, trying to see around an endless wave of shoppers. “Where is she?”
From time to time since Dylan had arrived at the mall, Connor had noticed the little blue dot move this way or that. But he suspected that was the application struggling to pinpoint Dylan’s location. It was unreasonable to expect it to tell them the exact place she was standing. Even if it could, it couldn’t tell them what floor she was on. But instead of explaining all that, Connor summed it up by saying, “She’s in here somewhere. Let’s find her.”
He looked around, trying to decide how to approach their search. Olin did the same.
“You remember what she looks like?”
“I think so.”
“Let’s split up. I’ll start at the top. You start at the bottom. Call me if you find her.”
“We’re just going to go store by store? That will take forever.”
“Think like a teenage girl,” Connor said, before he walked away. “Where would you go if you were her?”
CHAPTER 37
Connor took the elevator to the top floor of the Albright Mall. Even though he had checked the tracking app on his phone only a few minutes ago, he checked it again now. It was becoming something of a nervous tic. Dylan was still here.
This time, he also noticed he had a missed call from Austin. But now wasn’t the time to call him back. Whatever Austin wanted to talk to him about, it could wait until he returned to the apartment.
The elevator opened onto a food court that sold every type of cuisine imaginable, and seemed to be twice as crowded as the first floor. Most of the tables were full. The most popular restaurants—Chinese Dragon, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s—all had lines at least ten people deep.
There was an AMC off to the side, and there was a line there, as well.
Connor made his way around the food court. He hoped Dylan was by herself, but that seemed unlikely.
As long as she’s not with her dad . . .
There was no need to finish the thought. He knew if she was with her dad their only choice would be to call the whole thing off and hope they could get away without being spotted.
The search was not as difficult as Connor had expected it might be when he saw the crowded food court. Redheads were few and far between. He still had to consciously look at each person, but if the person wasn’t a girl and didn’t have red hair, he didn’t have to look any closer.
After circling the food court and examining the lines (he saw only one redhead—a boy sitting on a barstool at the Johnny Rockets counter, chowing down on a plate of fries), he studied the people who were already seated.
No redheads.
This might go faster than he’d thought. He took the escalator down to the second floor.
He went store by store, thoroughly scouting the shops he thought would be most likely to interest her and peeking his head into the others. This method got him through most of the stores in mere seconds.
At The Gap, he caught a glimpse of a redhead stepping into the dressing rooms and, for the three minutes he waited for her to exit, he suspected he had found Dylan. Olin hadn’t called yet, and a glance at the tracking app confirmed she was still in the mall. There weren’t a lot of places left to look. But then the redhead came out of the dressing room modeling a burgundy top for a man who stood waiting, and Connor knew it was time to move on. Unless Dylan had aged twenty years overnight, this woman wasn’t her.
He had nearly finished searching the second floor when he ran into Olin. “You didn’t find her, huh?”
Olin shook his head.
“Well, we still have those stores to check,” Connor said, pointing to half a dozen retailers in front of him.
“I just checked those. You sure that app works?”
“I’m sure. She’s here somewhere.”
“Where else could she be? I guess we can go through the mall again—”
“The theater.”
“What?”
“There’s an AMC on the top floor. She’s been here for over an hour, right? I bet she’s watching a movie.”
“So, what? We’re going to go scouting the theaters now? Don’t you think that might draw some attention? Plus, what if she’s not there alone? What if the whole family went?” It seemed Olin had also considered the risk of running into Dylan’s father unexpectedly.
“Actually, I was thinking we would sit at one of the tables in the food court and wait for her to come out. That way, if the whole family went, we’ll see them before they see us.”
Olin seemed to like that. They took the elevator back to the food court and found a table with a clear view of the movie theater.
It won’t be long now, Connor told himself.
CHAPTER 38
Logan Wright did not think like everyone else. He knew that.
Most people muddled their way through small lives, hoping for small rewards for small accomplishments. They were so distracted chasing their idea of the American dream, they missed the whole point. And they certainly didn’t realize how fragile all of it was.
Not Logan.
He knew. He understood this world and his purpose in it. He hadn’t gotten to that understanding easily, though, which was why most people never got there at all, he figured. Most people weren’t as patient as he was. They weren’t willing to do the research to understand the world or the hard work he knew he must do once he understood it.
It was that work that had brought him here, to the Albright Mall, this evening.
He took the elevator up to the food court and ordered a Number Two at McDonald’s. He wasn’t hungry, but he thought sitting in the food court alone without anything to eat might make him stand out.
Kind of like those two clowns over there, staring at the AMC like something exciting was ab
out to happen.
What were they doing?
Whatever it was, if they were indeed looking for something exciting, they were going to get it soon enough.
Logan selected a table as close to the center of the room as he could get, then took off his backpack and placed it by his feet. He picked his way through his food for a good ten minutes before looking at his watch. It was eight-oh-three. Tick-tock, he thought. Why wasn’t anything happening?
He told himself to be patient. Things don’t always go as planned. He was about to be a part of something big, and big things were worth waiting for.
Logan had been on his journey to this particular big thing for years now. He still remembered the day that journey had begun. He had been mindlessly scrolling through Facebook when he saw a link that led to a website called BeyondUnderstanding.com. He’d clicked it mostly out of curiosity. And read.
At first, he’d thought the ideas he was reading didn’t make any sense. But the more he read, and the more he thought about it, the more they did. He’d signed up, begun participating in the forum. He still had questions, but they were questions people in the forum had been able to answer.
By the time a popup had appeared on the site, warning him that the information presented here was not to be trusted, he was already a believer. He knew the site had been hacked. (What he didn’t know was that he was now sitting only thirty feet away from the person who had hacked it.)
He couldn’t imagine what the hacker thought he would accomplish, but he didn’t spend much time dwelling on it, either. He’d notified the website owner through a contact form, and the popup was gone fifteen minutes later.
Hope it was worth it, he had thought at the time, imagining the hours someone must have spent, all to post a popup that became a running joke on the forum for months afterward. Well, whatever. They had a hacker of their own now.
Logan looked at his watch again. Eight-oh-seven. He shifted anxiously in his seat.
Come on, guys. Let’s get this party started.
Logan didn’t know the hacker’s name. Just as the hacker didn’t know Logan was sitting in the food court of the Albright Mall at that moment. All he knew was that, last night, he had received the phone call he’d been hoping wouldn’t come. Whatever Aden was planning, it couldn’t be good. While there were some people who deserved to die—deserved to suffer—he knew enough about Aden’s philosophy to know he was likely targeting people who did not.
But, the hacker reminded himself, it was the deal he had made.
At seven-thirty p.m., he started a fresh pot of coffee and turned on his computer. The whole thing should be quick. He would just hop through the back door he had left, enter a couple of commands, and sign off.
However, as soon as he attempted to access the system he had hacked into the other day, he realized his back door was no longer there. It seemed the company’s security team had found and closed it.
Shit.
If he didn’t come through, Aden would think he had dropped the ball on purpose. Tonight’s plan had been a long time in the making. Aden wouldn’t tolerate failure. He would send someone after the hacker to—he didn’t want to think about it. He had to get back into that system. Fast.
Like last time, he drank his first cup of coffee in one long swallow, and sat down at the computer with a second. It had taken him five hours to get in the first time. This time, he had only twenty-two minutes. Twenty-one.
Shit!
The coffee had lit his throat on fire and the stress had done the same to his brain. His fingers flew across the keyboard, retracing the same steps he had taken last time.
He hoped to be able to follow the routine that had gotten him in before, and at first that plan looked promising. But then he hit a wall—the company’s security team hadn’t just removed his back door, they had sealed shut his way in. He cursed a third time, now out loud.
He wished he had somebody to call, to warn them about the delay, but he didn’t. Part of Aden’s grand design had been to compartmentalize the people involved. He wanted to be sure that if anybody got cold feet, went to the police, got arrested, they would be unable to take down the entire group.
The hacker told himself to stay calm. There was almost always another open door. It was just a matter of finding it.
Logan picked his way through his food until he had finished, then slowly sipped his Coke. Eight-thirteen. He was growing anxious. He should have been done by now. How long could he sit here like this, doing nothing, without drawing attention?
He looked at the two boys sitting at the table in front of the theater. They were still there, also doing nothing—not even eating, not even pretending to eat—and no one seemed to notice. Then he glanced at the people around him. Nobody seemed to be looking at him, either.
It was just his nerves. These people were occupied with their own lives—their food, their friends, their shopping. If Logan was here for any other reason, he wouldn’t think twice about lingering at a table in the food court.
He needed to be patient.
Aden had said it was important they wait for the cue, follow the plan. He said it would have more impact that way. Logan knew he was right.
CHAPTER 39
A collection of people surged out of the AMC. A movie must have let out. Connor watched the crowd closely. “That’s her,” he said, nodding toward a girl in an oversized black tee and a pair of jeans, hair pulled back with bobby pins. She seemed to be with a boy about her age.
“Is she on a date?” Olin said.
“Doesn’t matter.” Connor got up and started to move. Olin fell in behind him.
Dylan and her friend were headed toward an escalator, Connor noticed. He pushed through the crowd, trying to catch up to them. When he thought he might be within earshot, he shouted, “Hey! TruthSeekers!”
Several people looked at him, clearly confused. But Dylan also turned around to look, and she didn’t look confused. She looked worried.
“I need to talk—”
Dylan took hold of the boy’s hand and started moving faster.
Connor caught up to her right before she got on the escalator. He grabbed her arm. “Listen—”
Dylan whipped around. “Let go of me or I’ll scream.”
That likewise got the attention of the shoppers around them, but no one moved to intervene. Everyone who looked at them seemed to immediately look away when Connor made eye contact with them. They were curious, but didn’t want to get involved.
That might change, though, if Dylan really did scream.
Connor let go. “I need to talk to you.”
“What’s going on?” the boy said. He had a thin sheen of stubble on his chin and was wearing a Yankees baseball cap turned backward. For some reason, he looked to Connor like he was trying too hard to be cool. It was an image the boy had no doubt spent most of his teenage years cultivating.
“It’s nothing you need to be worried about,” Connor said. He noticed Olin was standing about two feet behind him, saying nothing. “Your friend here hosts a website—”
“Okay!” Dylan turned to the boy. “Just . . . wait for me.” She sounded flustered.
Dylan led Connor and Olin over to a hallway perhaps twenty feet from the escalator. A sign directing people toward the bathrooms hung above it.
The boy likewise stepped out of the flow of traffic, backing up to the nearest table and taking a seat, his eyes still on them.
“What are you doing hosting a website like that?” Connor said.
“What do you care? It’s just for fun. And how did you . . .” She trailed off. The wheels were turning. “You’re the guy who hacked into my site,” she said slowly, pointing at him as her eyes narrowed to slits.
“How did you—”
“I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you better stay the fuck away from me.” She backed up a step, but didn’t run away. If anything, she suddenly looked determined to stand her ground. And, as if to make sure Connor understood that, sh
e kept her finger pointed at him like it was a weapon. She turned to Olin. “Who are you?”
“I’m, uh—”
Before he could respond she was on to her next question, this one once again directed to Connor. “How did you find me, anyway?”
That wasn’t a question Connor was going to answer. But he figured he’d better say something before Olin did, and he was tired of being on the defensive. “How did you know about Matt?”
“That’s what you’re here about?” Dylan made a face. “Have you heard of something called the dark web? I can find out anything I want there. I was just trying to make sure you stayed away from me.”
The dark web. Of course. Connor should have realized that from the beginning. If he hadn’t been so wrapped up with everything that was going on, he would have.
“I figured you didn’t want anybody finding out what you had been up to. I thought if I let you know I knew who your dad was, you would stay in your lane.”
Connor suddenly felt overwhelmed. He remembered proposing to Olin he might be Matt’s son. But he had said it in passing, hadn’t actually taken it all that seriously. He shook his head. “That’s got to be a mistake.”
Dylan looked over at the boy she was with. He was slouched over in his chair, occupied with his phone. “I gotta go. I won’t tell your dad what you’ve been up to if you won’t tell mine, okay?”
“He’s not my dad.”
She turned to leave. “Have you ever seen your birth certificate?”
Connor wasn’t sure how to respond. Of course he had. Matt’s name wasn’t on it, which was part of the reason he hadn’t seriously considered the possibility before.
The hacker was finally back in. He typed a series of commands. Hesitated. This was it. His middle finger hovered over the Enter key. There was no going back once he hit it.
A Reagan Keeter Box Set: Three page-turning thrillers that will leave you wondering who you can trust Page 14