by Ali Franklin
“I heard.”
“What else would someone need in order to send a message like that?”
Kenn thought for a moment. “He’d have to have access to a provider that would send the message anonymously. I tried to respond to it, but I got an error saying my message couldn’t be sent.”
“I bet the Sheriff’s Department can convince the wireless providers to do some digging,” said Helen.
Kenn was no longer listening. He was bent over his phone, both thumbs typing at warp speed. Ryan watched for a moment, then spoke.
“Kenn, I’m going to ask you again. Do you know who’s behind that message?”
He looked up. “I don’t know, Dean. I really don’t.” He looked down at his screen again. “I’ve gotta go.”
Without another word, he sprinted out of the office and down the hall. Ryan’s blue eyes narrowed as she watched him go.
Helen stared out the door after him. “If anyone knows what’s going on, it’s Kenn. No one’s more connected to underground campus activity than he is.”
“I don’t think he knows,” said Ryan. She turned toward Helen, her lips pressed into a thin line. “But I bet he’ll try to find out. I’m going to keep an eye on him.”
2
Dr. Faith Cho stood still while the heavy oak door of O’Leary’s Irish Pub closed behind her. She looked around the small establishment while her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
O’Leary’s stood across the street from the college’s recreational fields. It was a favorite of students and staff and boasted some of the best food in Haverwood. While Faith and her husband usually ate in more out-of-the-way restaurants to minimize the chance of being interrupted, they were always happy to visit the little pub.
Within a few moments, Faith saw her husband smiling from a booth across the room. She returned the smile and started toward him.
Faith Cho was practically the poster child for the Haverwood faculty. With her long auburn hair, model-perfect figure and double PhDs in cognitive and social psychology, she was the picture of the modern intellectual. She was beloved by her students and seemed to live a charmed life.
Her husband, Lance Cho, only added to the picture of perfection. The tall, muscular, handsome former Dallas Cowboy had stolen her heart with his intellectual bent and self-effacing humor. They’d met eight years earlier, when he was a defensive tackle and she was a sports psychologist. She hadn’t worked directly with him, but she fell for him as soon as they met. They were married a year later.
Lance grinned and stood as she approached the booth. He wrapped her in a bear hug and gave her a peck on the lips before allowing her to scoot into the booth. He sat down after her.
“Thanks for meeting me here for lunch,” she said, looking at her watch. “My class starts in less than an hour. I called ahead and ordered for us.”
“I’m just glad I get to see you today. It’s been a little crazy lately.”
She leaned against him. “I’ve missed you, too. How were your meetings?”
“Great.”
Lance was in talks with the defensive coordinator to join the Cowboys staff as a tackles coach. He’d cut his professional career short after his second major concussion and spent a few years making a killing in the stock market. But the market no longer held his attention. Football was in his veins.
“When are they going to make their decision?” asked Faith.
“Any day now.”
She lifted his huge hand in her own. “I really hope you get it, Lance.”
“Me, too. It would mean we’d get to spend more time together.”
Jamie O’Leary, proprietress of the pub, appeared at that moment with fish and chips for two. The couple thanked her. They held hands and Lance mumbled a quick prayer before they began eating.
A few minutes into the meal, Lance set down his fork and turned slightly to face Faith. “What were we talking about earlier? Oh yeah; spending more time together. I was thinking-”
“—I’m super sorry to interrupt, but would you mind if we just, like, took a quick selfie with you?”
Faith looked over to see three female students grinning at her husband.
Lance squeezed her hand and whispered, “It’ll just take a second.”
He stood and wrapped one arm around all three women as he held up the pink phone one of them offered. Faith heard the SNAP sound and watched the girls clap with glee.
Why do women applaud themselves every time they take a picture? she wondered for the millionth time.
The students finally remembered their manners and thanked Lance before walking away.
“Sorry, honey,” he said, returning to his seat.
“It’s okay. I knew you were a celebrity when I married you.”
“Hey,” he said. “I have a great idea about what we can do this summer. A two-month cruise along the coast of Europe.”
She stared, her mouth slightly open.
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Think about it, babe. Two months on a yacht, just us and the staff, sailing to any country we want. We can lay out in the sun, go shopping, visit museums…”
“Lance, that sounds amazing.” An alarm beeped from her phone and she broke eye contact.
“Don’t say it,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I won’t make it if I don’t leave right now.”
He stood to let her out of the booth.
“Will you be home tonight for dinner?” she asked.
“I should. I don’t have any more meetings scheduled today.”
They hugged and she kissed him on the cheek.
“See you at home,” she said. Then she shouldered her bag and walked out into the sunshine.
Faith jaywalked across Hawk Street and stepped onto the campus. As she walked, she sent out a prayer of gratitude for her amazing life: an adoring husband, a job she loved and a home in beautiful Haverwood with Lance.
“Dr. Cho!”
Faith turned to see two young women waving at her. Shakila Long and Shannon Rahman were students in her upcoming Abnormal Behavior class. She caught up to them and they continued toward Mitchell Hall.
“What did you think about that alert message this morning?” asked Shannon.
“The what?”
Shakila took a couple of skip-hops and turned around to face Faith, walking backward. “You know, that campus alert about someone revealing ‘faculty secrets.’”
Faith admitted she didn’t know what they were talking about. They quickly filled her in, talking over each other. The professor listened without saying a word.
The trio reached Mitchell Hall and walked to the classroom without the two students noticing their professor’s silence.
Faith smiled at a few students as she placed her bag on the desk and prepared for the lesson. She took a moment to steady her breathing. Before she could begin, a student spoke up from the back of the room.
“Dr. Cho, what are the professors saying about this morning’s alert message? Are they nervous?”
Faith looked up and placed both hands on the desk. “I haven’t talked with any of my colleagues about this…news, but I doubt any of them are worried. It’s probably just a student who’s failing a class, trying to scare a faculty member. You’d be surprised how often that happens.”
Shakila spoke up. “I hear there’s someone taking bets on which professor gets outed and fired first.”
“I bet it’s Dr. Carpenter,” said Shannon.
“Dr. Carpenter came out decades ago,” said Shakila.
“I didn’t mean ‘outed’ like that,” said Shannon, displaying air quotes. “I mean he’s the most unlikable professor most of us have ever had. I don’t know anyone who’s gotten higher than a C in one of his classes.”
There were murmurs of assent from throughout the room.
“Dr. Carpenter has been a respected professor at Haverwood for a long time,” said Faith. “I’d have a hard time believing there are any noteworthy skeletons in his closet.”
“But if it has to be somebody, we’d like it to be him,” joked another student.
Faith looked down at the desk to hide her smile.
“I wonder how many people are going to lose their jobs over this,” said Shakila.
“Or their wives,” said someone else.
Faith felt the pain in the pit of her stomach. It would be terrible if people’s families were ripped apart by an angry student.
“At least we know you’re not the target,” said Shannon. “Everyone knows how much you care about us. I mean, Dr. Carpenter didn’t get voted Professor of the Year last year—you did.”
A few students applauded the statement, calling, “Hear, hear!”
“I don’t think this person deserves any more of our time today,” said Faith. “We have some other deviant behaviors to talk about.”
Faith took a moment to gather her thoughts. Today’s lesson on the rash of teenage suicides by “leaning hanging” in Micronesia in the 1980s would sober the room quickly.
The students grumbled as they opened their laptops to take notes.
☐ ☐ ☐
At five-thirty, Ryan said good night to Helen and left the office. She stopped by her house to change into shorts and a t-shirt from her favorite local brewery, then dropped by the farmers’ market to pick up the vegetables for dinner. She pulled into Teddy and Summer’s driveway a little after six o’clock and was met by Summer, who’d just pulled into the garage.
“I thought bankers kept shorter hours than the rest of us,” Ryan said with a smile.
“I don’t know who started that rumor,” said Summer, “but everyone at my branches works at least fifty hours a week.”
Ryan believed her. Summer had spent years climbing banking’s corporate ladder and landed at the top. Though you’d never guess it from her loose sundress and ponytail, she was now responsible for twelve branches of her bank throughout Haverwood County.
Take that, glass ceiling, Ryan thought with a smile.
The two women hugged. It had only been a few weeks since they’d seen each other, but that was an unusual span for the friends who usually spent much more time together.
“The semester’s almost over,” said Ryan. “We should be able to spend a lot more time together this summer.”
“As long as you don’t get involved in another murder,” joked Summer.
Ryan raised her hands in surrender. “Hey, none of those murders was my fault. I just have a knack for being around when they happen—or when they’re discovered.”
“And a knack for not leaving it up to the police.”
Ryan shrugged, but couldn’t disagree.
They entered the house and found Teddy in the kitchen preparing dinner for Fred and Ginger, the family cats. Ryan laughed as she watched Teddy greet her partner and send her back to the garage to choose a bottle of wine.
As soon as Summer was out of the room, Teddy turned to Ryan, a light in her eyes. “I’m glad you’re here. I really want to talk to you about the third act.”
“You spent years perfecting your musical. Why change it now?”
“You’ll understand when I explain it. It changes the whole outcome—in the best way.”
Ryan thought through possibilities. There weren’t many options for the finale. In the show, the main character moves to New York City to become a Broadway star. In the third act, the character returns home to marry her high-school boyfriend and live happily ever after. Did Teddy want the heroine to stay in New York, chasing a dream that might never come true? Or would she find a third option she hadn’t thought of before?
Teddy was just beginning to outline the idea when the doorbell rang. The new arrival was Nicki Statton, a dear friend of the group and the chief of campus police at Haverwood College. She was also the woman Ryan was falling for.
After two recent failed attempts to build relationships, Ryan had convinced herself she needed to stay single for a while. Yet every time she saw Nicki, her determination wavered.
Even out of her chief’s uniform, Nicki exuded an air of authority. Her tee shirt and shorts accentuated her tall, toned figure. Her short, spiky white-blond hair highlighted her angular cheekbones and wide mouth.
Nicki interrupted Ryan’s daydreaming with some news:
“I just finished talking with Kyle in the IT department. He has an update about this morning’s alert message.”
Ryan glanced at Teddy. “Can we talk about the musical later?”
Teddy’s face fell. “Of course.” She turned to the sink to wash the vegetables. “But it’s probably just another hacker.”
Ryan and Nicki exchanged a look as they remembered an incident earlier in the academic year when a hacker attempted to steal the personal information of everyone connected with the college. Ryan, Nicki and a group of detectives from the Haverwood Sheriff’s Department had brought down that particular computer genius.
“So what does Kyle think?” asked Ryan.
“He doesn’t think it’s just a hacker trying to prove his—or her—skills. This person downloaded the phone numbers of all students taking at least one class this semester. They also accessed the college’s emergency alert system to send the message.”
Ryan ran a hand through her dirty-blond hair. “We already knew all that, or suspected it. I was hoping he found something new.”
“He did. Once he had the students’ phone numbers, our guy could’ve easily gotten more information, like faculty and staff phone numbers, or addresses. But he didn’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He purposely only accessed student phone numbers and the alert system,” said Nicki. “And purposely didn’t access any of the other data in that system.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah; it could have been a lot worse.”
“But they were able to get in, and theoretically could get in again?”
“We have to assume so.”
“What now?” asked Ryan.
“Kyle’s going to shut down the server that was hacked and point our systems to another one.”
“What effect does that have on our access to the system and our work?”
“He says you won’t notice a thing. You’ll just have to change your passwords.”
“And our hacker couldn’t get into the new server the same way he got into the other one?”
“Kyle’s going to put up extra firewalls.”
Teddy turned from the sink. “Won’t that tip off the hacker that you’re on to him?”
“Yes,” said Nicki. “But he had to know we’d look into it when he sent the message.”
Summer returned to the kitchen with the wine and gathered the food for the grill. “Y’all come out in the back yard with me while these cook. I want to hear this.”
The other three followed her outside and took seats at the picnic table.
“I wonder if we’re missing the point?” asked Ryan. “What does this person want to achieve by sending that message?”
“He’s trying to scare the faculty,” said Nicki.
“But he only sent it to students,” said Teddy.
Ryan sighed. “We don’t even know how many faculty have seen it yet.”
“If the faculty are feeling threatened, you’ll be hearing from them soon,” said Teddy. “They’ll want to know what we’re doing about it.”
“Actually, they might be able to help,” said Nicki.
“What do you mean?” asked Teddy.
“The professors might know who wants to discredit them. Maybe they could lead us to the hacker.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Ryan. “We should ask them about it.”
“What if a faculty member did it?” asked Summer. “You know, to get back at another professor?”
Ryan and Teddy looked at each other.
“Could be,” said Teddy.
“What’s that quote from that German guy…secretary of state…?” asked Summer.
“Oh, you mean Kissinger,” sai
d Teddy. “He said ‘Academic politics are so vicious—’”
“’—precisely because the stakes are so small,’” finished Ryan.
Summer chuckled. “Sounds like your list of suspects just grew.”
“I still think it’s a student,” said Teddy. “I’m sure they all love the idea of finding out their professors’ secrets.”
Ryan grinned. “Everyone has a professor they don’t like—and a fantasy that the professor gets fired.”
“How many complaints do you get against Gregory Carpenter every semester?” asked Teddy.
“I can’t even count that high.”
Ryan considered the possibility that a student was once again attempting to get Dr. Gregory Carpenter fired from Haverwood. Gregory was a longtime member of the business faculty who had a reputation for demanding excellence of his students. Those who did well in his classes appreciated his high standards, but the many who tried to get by without putting in their best effort always ended up with poor grades.
“I won’t be surprised if this turns out to be one of Gregory’s students,” said Ryan, “but there are probably other faculty members out there with students who’d like to discredit them.”
As the women began listing the professors with known student detractors, Nicki’s phone rang.
“It’s Kyle,” she said, clicking to put the call on speaker. “Hi, Kyle, you’re here with me, Ryan McCabe and Teddy Sayers.”
Kyle got right to the point. “Do you want me to disable the alert system until we’ve caught this guy?”
Nicki looked at Ryan, who shook her head.
“No,” said the chief. “We need that system to be functional in case we have a real emergency.”
“I agree,” said Ryan. “You’re making it harder for him to get into it, right?”
“Yes, we are.”
“Okay, then,” said Ryan. “Keep it open but protect it.”
“We’re counting on you, Kyle,” added Nicki. “Let me know if you want to call in the sheriff’s cyber team.”
“I will, Chief.”
They ended the call.
“I hope he clears this up soon,” said Teddy. “I don’t like the idea of someone accusing our colleagues like that.”
“Well, it’s in the hands of the experts for now,” said Summer. “Let’s have our dinner and think about something more pleasant.”