Never Ask Me

by Jeff Abbott

  “Go home, Mrs. Pollitt. Go home and write a song.”

  My hands were dripping. I froze. “What?”

  “Go. Home.” Now I heard a little blade of threat in her tone.

  She turned and walked away from me. My reactions kicked in, and with my wet hands I grabbed at her. “Who are you? What do you mean?”

  She pulled free, staggered out of the women’s room. A couple of entering teenage girls glanced at us, curious, surprised.

  “Hey! Hey!” I yelled. “Who are you?”

  A female security guard headed toward us, stern look. The woman said to her, “This woman accosted me in the bathroom. I don’t know her.”

  “She told me to go home!” I yelled, because no one was going to tell me I couldn’t come get you, Grant, and I wanted to know what was happening. The security guard interposed herself between me (crazy yelling person) and the woman (quiet now and acting frightened).

  So you can imagine how it went.

  They talked to her, she lied and said she’d said nothing to me, but she thought I was drunk or high in the bathroom, as I seemed confused and clumsy. (Note, baby, my hands are still wet, so well done her for that bit of improvisation that made me look bad.) For me, yelling had not helped. Because a normal person would not be this upset at some weird random comment and I was.

  I told them we were heading to Moscow for an international adoption, and suddenly Kyle and Danielle were both there. Then they escorted me back to our gate, the Russian air crew and the Russian passengers watching the proceedings with interest—there’s not much else to do at a gate if you’re bored with your phone. People watched me. The warning woman (I don’t know what else to call her, so that’s her name now) was gone.

  And I realized, repeating this story for the fourth time, I sounded like an idiot. A fool. She said my name, but she denied knowing who I was. I had no way to prove it. Why would this harmless-looking woman, who was quite good at acting frightened, say something like this to me? I saw, when they asked her for ID, that she had a Russian passport, but I couldn’t see her name.

  Kyle was trying to calm me and was looking at me like maybe he was not the one hesitating about the adoption, that I was, and it had somehow manifested itself in me hearing this woman say these words to me. Danielle reassured them that I was fine, reassured the gate agent who came over to inquire what was the matter. I realized with a shock: I needed to act sane to board the flight. Would she be on our flight? I was suddenly scared she was and that I wouldn’t be allowed to board.

  And then what? Danielle would have to say to the Volkov Infants Home, “Oh, sorry, the mother-to-be freaked out in the airport in London.” And maybe they would give Sasha to someone else.

  I apologized repeatedly, and then I hushed because I’ve realized taking the blame on myself and shutting up is the smartest thing to do. Deep breath after deep breath. The warning woman was gone, but her face was locked in my mind: brown hair, a tiny mole on her lower cheek, eyes of grayish blue, and a slightly crooked front tooth. The security people, reassured I wasn’t a threat to anyone or to myself (after my profuse apologies), took their leave.

  Danielle said, “You don’t want there to be an incident report in the airport.”

  I was stunned. “What, you mean the Russian authorities could still find out about this? That woman spoke to me. I’m not lying.”

  “Of course you’re not,” she said. “I believe that you heard what you said.”

  That wasn’t the same as believing that she said it, but I dug my nails into my palms. “Danielle. Why would someone not want us to fly to Russia? Is there another family interested in Grant?”

  “No, of course not. That’s not how it works.” Danielle was pale, shocked, flustered.

  “Maybe this is a stunt to rattle us. Make us pay more bribes,” Kyle said.

  “It’s not a stunt. I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Danielle shook her head. “Is it at all possible you misheard this woman?”

  “No!”

  “At. All. Possible?”

  And what answer can I give to that? Of course it’s possible. I felt like my husband and my friend were stepping back from me, looking at me with new eyes, worried about me when it’s me who worries about other people. I took a deep breath. Centered myself. Thought of you. Thought of you in that cold orphanage, of how little you smiled.

  I could do this.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I repeated it like a prayer.

  “If you’re not up to this…” Kyle started to say in that patronizing voice I loathed, and I shook my head. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it so he’d shut up.

  “I’m exhausted,” I said. “I’m overwrought. I’m just so sorry.” I could feel the weight of stares on me, and I didn’t know if my fellow passengers were British or Russian, if someone was watching me to see if I obeyed the warning woman.

  Why would anyone care what I did in Russia? What we did?

  Who didn’t want us to have a baby?

  Why did someone hate us?

  Kyle leaned over and whispered to me, “This can’t be like in the cancer center. I love you, but get ahold of yourself.”

  My mouth quivered a little. I’ll tell you about that one day, but it was me standing up for my child, insisting on information and care for her, not wanting my baby to be a number but a human fighting a terrible disease.

  I just can get…real determined.

  I clutched Kyle’s hand and then they called us for our flight. We were in first class again, so I glanced over my shoulder and saw the warning woman, the left edge of her face, hiding behind a tall businessman, far back in the crowd, waiting to board, watching us.

  Watching me. And then she was gone when I blinked, and I wondered if she was even there.

  18

  Grant

  Peter Horvath arrives right after the local television stations have set up their vans outside Danielle’s house. They’re two houses down on the cul-de-sac, and with the Sheriff’s Office in command, Peter has had to park farther down the street and show a driver’s license to the deputy on duty.

  Grant watches from an upstairs window.

  He thinks the camera crews and reporters are parked in front of Danielle’s house because they don’t know better. They don’t yet know that Danielle’s boyfriend lives a couple of streets over, on a different curve of the greenbelt, and that is where Danielle’s son is. The reporters will knock on doors, looking for quotes or comments, and someone will mention her boyfriend lives here in the neighborhood. Like a dummy. Grant’s a kid and he knows better than that.

  And he wonders, maybe the police don’t tell them, because when a woman dies they look at the men in her life. Her teenage son. Her boyfriend. Her boyfriend’s son.

  I’ll have to talk to the police about the bad thing your dad did.

  Just words. Words that don’t mean anything. And when he knows who this person is, he can tell his parents and they will fix it. Won’t they? All he knows is if he goes to the police with the accusations, it’s like turning on his dad. And he knows his dad would never hurt Danielle.

  The deputy waves Peter through.

  Mom, with her mom radar, has already arrived at the front door. She opens it before the doorbell rings. Grant stands at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Peter,” Mom says. “Sweetie, how are you?” She hugs Peter, although Grant can tell Peter does not like to be hugged.

  “Hi, Mrs. Pollitt,” Peter says. Today he’s in an MIT hoodie, jeans, Vans shoes. He looks tired. “I’m all right.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “Fine,” Peter says. He always talks so softly, like he’s worried he’ll make a ripple in the world.

  “You don’t have to be fine with us, you know,” Mom says, and Grant wants to say, Mom, just give him some space.

  “I have to be strong for Dad and Ned,” Peter says. “I mean, I’ve never known anyone who was murdered before. How am I supposed to feel other than sad?”

/>   “Angry,” Grant says.

  “Maybe later,” Peter says, and something in him saying that makes Mom hug him again, and Peter endures it again.

  “You really don’t have to help Grant with homework,” Mom says.

  “It’s a good distraction.” He’s bad at keeping a steady gaze; Peter looks down at his scuffed-up shoes. “They talked about getting married, you know,” Peter says.

  A heavy silence falls on Grant and his mother.

  “That just makes it all so much worse,” Grant finally says. His mother shoots him a glance, and Grant knows he’s said something he shouldn’t have.

  Peter just nods. “Ned and I won’t be stepbrothers now. It would have been nice to have a brother.”

  “You and Ned will always be close.”

  “Will we?” Peter asks with a shrug, and Grant can see the answer is no, probably not. Their lives will spin off in different directions now.

  Peter says, “We should get to work, Grant. I don’t want to be away from my dad too long, in case he needs me.”

  Grant leads him up to his room and sits on the edge of the bed, gesturing at the chair in front of his computer desk, where Peter sits. He doesn’t seem like a kid as much as an adult who emerged a little too early from the cocoon.

  Grant has been thinking about what to say. He doesn’t want Peter to see the email message from the Sender that mentions Dad. So he just shows Peter the first email he received, spoofed from his friend Drew’s account, the stock photo of the woman in the rain, and the message about lies.

  Peter says nothing, looks at it all.

  “I want to find out who sent this to me.”

  “I can only tell you where it may have come from.”

  “This person—I call him or her the Sender—has to know things about my life,” Grant says. “That Drew is my friend. That J. J. Watt is one of my favorite football players. That I have a tree where I used to hide stuff. Who could know that?”

  “Are you on social media?” Peter asks.

  Grant nods.

  “OK, is Drew one of your friends on Cheeper or Nowpic or Faceplace?”

  Grant nods again. He can see where this is going.

  “You belong to a fan page for the Texans?”

  Grant nods again, his stomach sinking.

  “The tree—I don’t know about how someone might find that out. Did you ever talk a lot about it?”

  “No. Julia might have told someone. Or my parents. But it’s not like it was some big thing in my childhood. Just a thing I did.”

  “Did you ever write about it?”

  “Like a school paper?”

  “Sure.”

  “No.”

  “Did your mom? In one of her songs?”

  Slowly he nods. “Yeah. In a song a couple of years back. It was on an album. It wasn’t a hit.” Mom hadn’t had a hit in years, but they didn’t talk about that… She still got asked to write songs to fill out albums. Grant knew that wasn’t the way to talk about what she did when she wrote, but it was true. Grant clears his throat and sings softly, “You keep your little secrets hidden from me/like they were treasures in an old oak tree/like the one down by our creek/where we’d play hide-and-seek/and you’d always find me…” He has a nice voice.

  “Amazed that wasn’t a hit,” Peter says, and with anyone else it might sound mean, but with Peter it sounds plainspoken.

  “The melody was the best part,” Grant says.

  “But that answers the question. She might have talked about it. She’s written about you and Julia, right?”

  Grant nods.

  “So someone who was determined to learn about you could know these pieces about your life and what they mean. It could still be someone who’s never met you. Was there anything in the tree?”

  Grant’s not ready to share the news about the cash. “There was nothing there.”

  Peter shrugs. “Then probably it’s just someone trying to convince you that he knows about your life to be credible when he’s accusing your family of lies.”

  The cash changes that, Grant thinks, but instead he says: “But how would he get Drew’s email?”

  “Email spoofing is super common,” Peter says. “In this case the…Sender could find Drew’s email any number of ways once he realizes Drew is a friend of yours. Then he could edit the email headers in the message to look like it came from Drew. Now, in the picture, he’s got another email address…this Gmail address, with the random-looking numbers and letters. Did you see that?”

  “Oh, yes,” Grant says, as if he hadn’t noticed it before.

  Peter stares at him. “Well, have you tried emailing him at this Gmail address?”

  “No,” Grant lies. He doesn’t look at Peter, staring at the screen.

  “That’s smart. You don’t need to engage with this person. Sometimes these people are dangerous. Now, you clicked on this photo. It was a hyperlink that opened your browser and took you to a site, yes?”

  “Yes. That’s where the photo of the lady in the rain and the message about lies was. That’s a stock photo, by the way.” He notices that Peter is staring at the photo.

  “Yeah, scammers use stock all the time,” he says. “OK, when clicking on J. J. Watt took you to the site, the site could still display the lady-in-rain picture and the message, but it could have also installed malware on your laptop. That could be anything from monitoring when you’re online to leaving a back door open where the bad guy can come in, see what’s new on your computer, download it, and leave. You could have a little beacon hidden on your laptop now that tells the Sender everything about your laptop; it would barely be a blip in the bandwidth; you’d have to know to look for it.”

  “Can you find it?” He feels sick, someone peering into his life.

  “Yes. I should tell you, if you connect or share with your parents’ or sister’s computers, your family’s network could have been compromised, too.”

  “All right. Can you check mine? And can you see if you can find who sent me the email?”

  “I can maybe find out the IP address, and then I can contact the company that owns that IP address. But I don’t know if I can get a name. We’ll see. It involves me using some trickery on them.” Here Peter finally smiles a little. He looks a lot better when he smiles. More like Mike.

  “How long will that take?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll see. Will you let me know if you hear from them again? And don’t click on any more pictures from friends.”

  “I will. And I won’t. Thanks, Peter.”

  “I’ll bring your laptop back soon,” Peter says. “I want to thank you for something, though, Grant. You hanging with my dad. I appreciate it.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “I hate fishing. He knows it. He goes with you and he has a good time. It’s been hard since my mom died. I’m glad he has you for stuff like that.”

  “You went fishing with him yesterday, though.”

  “I make an effort. He fishes and I just sit there and we talk about school and what I’ll do with my life and what I’ve learned about computers, although he’d rather talk sports or business. And now Danielle is gone. He really thought she was the next chapter in his life.”

  Grant feels a heaviness in his heart.

  Peter clears his throat. “Dad loves me, even though we’re opposites. I know that. We don’t get to pick our kids. Well, your parents did.” And Peter gives an odd little laugh.

  “Yes,” Grant says, smiling. “Although it was kind of random. It wasn’t like they shopped among the cribs and picked me.”

  “Oh. I don’t know how it works,” Peter says. He slides Grant’s laptop into his backpack. “I know you don’t want to be without this, so I’ll check it as quickly as I can.”

  “Thank you,” Grant says, and he means it.

  Peter nods. Then he says, “Keep an eye on your sister.”

  “What?”

  “Do you think Ned’s ever going to get over finding his mom dead
? That’s the kind of stuff that messes up a guy forever. I mean, forever. Everyone probably needs to back away from Ned for a bit.”

  Grant doesn’t say anything. “Does Ned really like Julia?” he asks suddenly. “She really likes him, but she doesn’t know how to help him.”

  Peter frowns. “He wouldn’t tell me if he did. But mostly I think Ned likes Ned.” He holds up his backpack. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “And don’t tell Ned what I asked. Please. Julia will kill me.”

  “I won’t. Don’t worry.” Peter gives him a rare smile, but it’s reassuring.

  “We’re bringing you dinner tonight, Mom and me.”

  Peter laughs. “I won’t have a report that quickly. Sir.”

  “I didn’t mean…Sorry. I’m nervous about this.”

  “You should tell your parents,” Peter says.

  “Not now. Especially if it’s just some stupid prank.” But the money tells him it isn’t.

  “Yeah, when stuff calms down.”

  Peter heads downstairs. Mom gives him another awkward hug and he leaves.

  “Did you finish your project?” Mom asks. Mom loves nothing more than hearing a project that’s due is done. Even when their lives are in chaos.

  “No. I will, later.” Grant doesn’t want Mom to notice he doesn’t have his laptop. Too much explaining to do.

  He goes upstairs and lies down on his bed. His mind is spinning. Everything Peter said about email spoofing and social media oversharing and all that sounds entirely plausible. Why does he feel like the danger is close? Like he’s being watched, right now?

  Your family’s network could have been compromised… Does that mean the Sender knows what’s on Dad’s computer, too? Is that how he knows what Dad did that was bad?

  A cold finger of fear runs down Grant’s spine. Peter will find the bad guy. He’s just afraid of what the bad guy knows. How can a kid like me, Grant wonders, take on a guy like that?

  He walks outside to the greenbelt. No one is along the trail. Are people scared now? He walks down toward the tree. He looks up in the nearby branches, wondering where he could hide a camera. Something to catch his mysterious benefactor in the act of leaving another object.