Stealthy Steps

by Vikki Kestell

  And I guess we could be grateful for that part.

  So we watched Mateo and his gang come and go—with their tricked-out, low-rider cars and pounding music—but what else could we do? Mateo had inherited his house from his father so he had a right to live here. Mateo’s older brother, Vicente (Emilio’s dad) should have inherited the house. Vicente died before his father did, though, so Mateo got the house.

  I remember Mateo’s dad, Mr. Martinez. He had always been kind to Aunt Lucy, Genie, and me. I also remember the worried creases between his eyes and his disappointment as Mateo grew from rebel teen to defiant criminal and gang member. Back then we had overheard more than a few shouted arguments between Mateo and his dad.

  If our old neighbor could see what Mateo was doing now—how his son had spoiled our neighborhood? Well, Mr. Martinez would be spinning in his grave.

  MAY PASSED INTO JUNE without incident, but also without a new job. Money was getting tight. My unemployment checks kept the clichéd wolf from the door, but on the other side of that door I worried that my gas and electric would be shut off—right after the Internet. I just could not manage all the utility bills on top of the mortgage and a much-straitened grocery budget. Soon I would have to choose between lights to see by and gas to cook by. Or my cell phone.

  Aunt Lucy would have terminated the Internet and phone by now, but you can’t find a job without those any longer. Without Internet, finding a job was impossible, and if I didn’t have a phone, potential employers had no way to contact me.

  One morning in mid-June I decided to tackle the weeds in my vegetable garden. I had done a good job keeping them at bay, but in the heat they were getting away from me. That day I resolved to really clean them out.

  I soaked the garden to loosen the weeds. I might have—and I’m just saying might have—soaked the garden a bit too much. I only mention this because while the water loosened the weeds, it also turned the natural clay soil to a slick, sticky bog.

  I had been working since before six in the morning in what felt like wet cement. Fearful that I might lose them forever, I had taken off my shoes. I was wearing good gardening gloves, but they—and the rest of me from my elbows down—were covered in layers of dripping, drying, and dried mud.

  I figured the time to be around nine, and I still had a third of the weeds to go. I was flagging but determined to finish. The hardest part was getting the shovel down into the ground so I could turn over the wet, heavy soil.

  “There you are. I rang the doorbell but no one answered so I thought I’d check back here. Hello.”

  Mind you, I’m no vision on a good day, but that day I was on my knees, spattered and slimed with mud. I was hot, sweaty, and filthy.

  Not so the man who stood a few steps away. Oh, no. He was clean and tidy, casually dressed in jeans, a polo shirt, and a lightweight suit jacket.

  And, I should add, very good looking.

  I swallowed and willed my expressionless mask to drop. “Yes?”

  He raised his hand from his side as though he had planned to offer a handshake, but if he had planned to offer his hand, I’m pretty sure he thought better of it as soon as he eyed my mud-caked gloves.

  “Sorry to disturb you. I’m Zander Cruz. Are you Miss Keyes?”

  “Yes, I am.” I stood up.

  Mistake. Mud trailed from my shorts down my legs.

  Oooh. Stunning, I’m sure.

  “What can I do for you?”

  He considered me for a moment. “I think that can wait until after we finish up here.” Without another word, he stripped off his suit jacket, put it to the side, and picked up my shovel.

  “This patch here?” he asked, indicating the last unturned portion of the garden.

  “I . . . um, yes.”

  It took him five minutes to turn over what would have taken me another twenty or thirty, and then he dropped to his knees and started knocking clods apart and sorting out weeds.

  I didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything. We just weeded.

  He obviously knew what he was doing, and I tried not to stare as he made short work of what was left.

  “Um, I think that does it.” I stood up and so did he.

  “Great. Where do you want all this?” He pointed to the pile of weeds.

  “In the trash. I’ll get the wheelbarrow.”

  “Show me; I’ll fetch it.”

  He brought the wheelbarrow over from the rickety garden shed and together we piled it full of weeds and the mud clinging to them. He wheeled the heavy mess to the trash and shoveled it in.

  “Now. Where were we?” He held out a grimy hand. “I’m Zander Cruz.” A grin lurked around his eyes—gray in color—but he didn’t let the grin reach his mouth.

  That is, until I laughed and shook his hand with my equally grimy glove. “Gemma Keyes. Thank you for your help.”

  “My pleasure.” He grinned with me now.

  “That was hot work. I suppose I should offer you something cold to drink. Iced tea all right? And what was it you wanted to see me about?” I liked the looks of this guy, liked his attitude.

  “Yes to the tea. I just wanted to meet you, introduce myself. I’m the new associate at DCC. I’ll wash my hands and rinse the shovel and wheelbarrow while you get the tea.”

  DCC. As in Downtown Community Church. DCC was Aunt Lucy’s old church, the church she’d dragged us girls to for years.

  If I weren’t so good at concealing my feelings, I’m certain the guy would have seen irritation and disappointment alter my demeanor. Abe! This Zander Cruz guy was only here “to meet me” at Abe’s behest—probably because I’d confided my spying guilt to him.

  I dearly love the old guy, but this crossed a line, you know?

  There’s a lot to my “church story” and the many reasons why I wanted nothing to do with it or its people. Most of my reasons began with Genie—of course.

  From the first day Aunt Lucy had taken us to service at DCC, Genie played the “Hi! I’m the perfect child!” role and played it . . . well, perfectly. She had smiled and charmed, said the right things, done the right things, and was always delightful and helpful—when all the while she was laughing at the DCC folks behind their backs.

  I know; we had shared a bedroom and I’d heard her ridicule them often enough.

  Genie enjoyed hurting others. She’d select a kid from church and cotton up to the poor soul until he or she trusted and confided in her. Then at home in the privacy of our room, Genie would (out loud!) pick them apart until she found the ideal weakness and the means to exploit it.

  Genie hadn’t kept her plots to herself. No, I was always privy to her cunning—because Genie relished my horrified reactions as much as she relished the malicious, gleeful destruction she sowed.

  After she’d picked the boy or girl apart and found what she was looking for, she would find a way to drop an embellished hint or a juicy morsel (always something hurtful or offensive) into one of the other kids’ ears. Before long, the kids in Sunday school had been at each other’s throats. Every week it was some new drama.

  Yes; wherever Genie had gone, damaging strife followed—and she loved it.

  For extra points she had particularly loved pointing the finger at me. When chaos inevitably ensued and the adults got involved, Genie would always be the convincing, innocent bystander—and somehow I would come under scrutiny. No one could seem to figure out where the problem originated, but I remember Aunt Lucy and Abe turning sad and disappointed eyes on me. The memory of their mistrust still stings.

  Had the people at DCC really been that blind? Had Aunt Lucy been that blind? Maybe. But Genie had also been that “good.” Not one person at DCC ever saw through her deceptions or how artfully she’d poisoned everyone against me.

  Whatever. I would not be darkening the doors of DCC again. Not in this lifetime.

  Do I sound bitter? Paranoid? Well, you haven’t met Genie yet. But perhaps now you can understand why I had found it safer to hide in the background and let
Genie be the pretty, vivacious twin while I played the plain, stupid, silent one. I stayed out of trouble that way.

  Oh, and by the way. Belicia Calderón and Genie have been thick as thieves since Genie and I were girls. If you think Mrs. Calderón taught Genie bad habits, think again.

  It was the other way around.

  I stripped off my gloves and stood on an old towel I’d laid on my kitchen floor while I washed my hands and arms. I scrubbed them harder than I needed to: The old memories still had the power to work me up.

  I took a cleansing breath and shoved those dark feelings away. I don’t like to let them intrude anymore. Then I filled two tall glasses with ice and took a pitcher of tea from the fridge. With my hands full, I pushed the fridge door closed with my hip.

  Mistake number two. A rump-sized schmear graced the refrigerator door.

  Argh!

  Then I wondered—and glanced at my reflection in the back door window.

  Mistake number three. Mud droplets spattered my face and hair.

  I looked like a plague victim.

  What do I care? He’s (shudder) an associate pastor, I told myself. And besides, he’s been looking at me like this for an hour already.

  When I took the tea outside, Jake was sitting next to Zander, pushing his yellow tomcat mug into Zander’s hand, purring and relishing a good scratching under Zander’s fingertips. I glared at the horrid creature, amazed and disgusted at the same time.

  Of course when I sat on the porch—at least three feet from Jake—he hissed, raised his back, and stalked off, our animus intact.

  Zander and I sat on the back porch drinking our tea and talking. I have to admit, it felt comfortable. Our conversation was light, he wasn’t preachy, and I felt that I didn’t have to hide myself—which was unusual for me.

  He’s seen me at my worst, I thought. That leaves nothing to hide.

  Zander, “Short for Alexander,” he told me, grew up outside Las Cruces in southern New Mexico. “My folks had three acres and we planted pretty much what you have here. A lot more corn, though, to dry and grind for masa. We had pecan trees, too. Nothing stacks up against a real, homemade pecan pie.”

  My stomach rumbled in agreement. “Ice cream. Pecan pie has to be served warm, topped with vanilla ice cream.”

  “Of course. Not legal without it.”

  After about thirty minutes we’d drained the pitcher and he stood up. “I have to go now. I enjoyed talking with you, Gemma.” He tipped his head just a hair. “I like your name. Gemma. It’s perfect for you.”

  I may have gawked, but he didn’t notice; he was putting on his jacket.

  “I’m sure you’ve figured out that your good friend Abe Pickering sicced me on you. I apologize for ambushing you the way I did, but he set his teeth in me three Sundays ago and would not let go of my ankle until I said I’d call on you. Chewed right through my socks, he did.” Zander was grinning with his eyes.

  I smirked and then had to laugh. It was too vivid of an image—and too true-to-life—not to chuckle, “Yup. That’s Abe.”

  “Forgive me, then?”

  I nodded. “Thanks for pitching in. You came along just as the bog was about to suck me under—never to have been seen again.”

  If only I’d known how prophetic those words were.

  Zander threw back his head and laughed. His unfeigned good humor earned a smile from me in return.

  “I’m glad I came at the right time,” he said. “Glad I could help.”

  Then he looked me in the eye. “Here’s where I’m supposed to throw out my obligatory pitch and ask you to come to church Sunday, but no, I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’ll just say: Gemma, you are very loved by God. Not in a ‘God loves everybody’ sense, but in an individual, personal sense. He loves you, Gemma Keyes.”

  My mask clicked on. Effortlessly, seamlessly. “Thanks again for coming.”

  He smiled. The corners of his grey eyes crinkled. “I’m glad I did.”

  Chapter 6

  Like most summers before the monsoons arrived, late June was hot and dry and miserable. Three months of unemployment had passed, three months had gone by since Dr. P and Dr. Bickel died in the tragic incident in the AMEMS lab. And what of that tragedy? Three months of “dedicated investigation” had elapsed, and the explosion that took their lives remained inadequately explained to the public.

  I had just completed my weekly unemployment certification. I applied to four jobs that week, all four with government contractors, and all four positions below my qualifications. Still, I doubted I would hear from any of them.

  I nursed a growing suspicion that General Snaggletooth had flagged my security clearance. If so, the most cursory scan of my profile in eQIP, the government’s security clearance database, would warn off all potential government contractor employers.

  You see, you can’t get a decent DOE job without a security clearance, and I’d held a “Q,” which equates (roughly) to a Top Secret clearance on the Department of Defense side. If Cushing had flagged my file in any negative manner, I’d never work in government again.

  I logged into my email anyway. Not much popped up: A message telling me my bank statement was ready to view.

  Great. As if I weren’t disheartened enough already.

  The subject line on the other new message caught my attention: “Re: Your Job Application.”

  It was a better day already! I clicked it open and read the single line inside the email.

  Sorry for the spam.

  “Huh?” I didn’t recognize the sender, and I was in no mood for games.

  What spam? I thought this was about a job!

  Apparently it wasn’t.

  I scowled, clicked open my spam folder, and perused each email diverted there by my Gmail spam filter. I scrolled by the usual pharmaceutical offers, ignored six or seven letters from the Federal Minister of Finance of an impoverished African nation (or variations on that theme), and disregarded lots of “deals” and “re-fi” offers and some “FedEx” or “USPS” delivery notifications that were, in reality, phishing scams.

  One message with the subject line that read: You’ll Love My Photo.

  I stared at the message for a few seconds, debating whether or not to open it. Opening the email was not where the danger lay: If the email contained malware, it was inside the attachment—inside the photo they were so sure I would “love.”

  The photo might be porn, and I didn’t want to deal with that. In addition to the porn, the sender would have embedded a nasty virus or some other kind of malware in the photo. If I opened the picture file, it might execute the virus.

  I clicked on the message and opened it. I glanced at the attachment, a .jpg file, and then gulped. Right there, in the message, was the same statement: Sorry for the spam.

  My eyes narrowed. I closed the message and clicked “delete.”

  When the screen cleared, the email with the subject line, “Re: Your Job Application,” stared back at me.

  Sorry for the spam.

  I didn’t want to admit it, but something in the cryptic message intrigued me.

  I looked at my external hard drive. I didn’t write data to my computer’s hard drive. The only things on my computer were the operating system and installed software. I saved all my data to an external hard drive and then backed up regularly to my Acronis account in the cloud. I also backed up my system image on Acronis because I’m a little OCD.

  If I opened the photo and a piece of malware propagated across my system, I would have to wipe the drive and start over. It would take me a couple of hours to restore the system image from Acronis.

  Was it worth it? Just because I was “intrigued?”

  Well, did I have anything more pressing on my busy social calendar?

  My hands, practically of their own volition, reached for the USB cable that connected my computer to the external drive and pulled the cable out.

  Guess I was going to open that photo file.

  I dragged t
he email from my trash folder and put it back in my inbox. Then I inserted a USB flash drive into my computer. Without opening the email’s image attachment, I saved the file to my flash drive, opened my virus scanner, and scanned the drive.

  The scan results came back quickly: No virus or malware detected.

  I studied the icon of the image for a few seconds and then clicked on it. It opened. I stared at the photo in front of me from under raised eyebrows. It was merely a picture of Sandia Crest, the big Sandia Mountains uplift that dominated Albuquerque’s eastern foothills!

  Nothing special, no spectacular sunset, no porn and, as far as I could see, not relevant to anything?

  I sat back, thinking.

  You’ll Love My Photo.

  Oh, yeah? And why is that?

  I figured the file either contained malware so sophisticated or new that my virus software did not detect it (in which case I was in deep doo-doo) or the image was hiding something.

  I’m no hacker—I don’t know what the “darknet” means, let alone how to navigate it. I’m maybe head and shoulders above the average user, but I’m no hacker or technogeek.

  On the other hand, while working for DOE I had heard of steganography, the practice of hiding data files within an image. That’s how those who sent destructive emails hid strings of malware in an image. We were warned at Sandia not to open or download images from the Web, for fear we’d bring malware onto our network.

  I spent twenty minutes browsing the Web, looking for a simple means to open the .jpg file without triggering an executable file. I ended up downloading a trial version of WinRAR. Once I’d installed the WinRAR program, I followed the instructions on one of those “how-to” sites and sat back and stared. Again. Only this time, I was staring at a file named, “Read_Me_Gemma.zip.”

  Whoa.

  I put my hand over my mouth, puzzled, and a little freaked out.

  Well, I was not about to unpack the zipped file without scanning it first, so I did so. That scan came back clean, too, so I unpacked the zip file.

  It was a letter. To me!