What Are Friends For?

by Patricia McLinn

  She didn’t look at him while she put a tape recorder, pad of paper and two pencils on the table. Then she took the seat opposite him.

  Slowly, she brought her gaze to his face, still without a word.

  The boy swallowed, two quick bobs of his Adam’s apple. He looked even younger than his years. That might have been nervousness. Or the fact that Benny had taken his shoes and replaced them with blue paper booties before leaving him alone in the room to ripen, as Darcie called it.

  “She’s good,” the chief murmured. Harnett had arrived just after Zeke entered the room. He wondered if Darcie knew the chief was here.

  “I’m not going to let this go on too long,” warned the advocate she’d brought in to protect the boy’s interests. It had taken Darcie a long time to persuade the young lawyer not to be in the room with her and Warren. He’d finally agreed on the stipulation that the tape recorder have no tape in it.

  “Warren, you know why you’re here,” Darcie said in the other room.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “You know why you’re here,” she repeated. “We have the evidence.”

  “What evidence?” Warren sounded smug.

  “That was a mistake,” the chief murmured.

  He should have asked “Evidence of what?” if he really didn’t know why he was here, Zeke realized. That and the smugness told a tale.

  “There are a lot of ways to trace someone besides fingerprints, Warren. Take purchases online of certain items—those purchases can be traced. Or take damp grass. Did you know that the sole of every shoe is individual, Warren? The way a person walks wears the tread differently.”

  The boy did his best to keep his face expressionless, but from behind the mirror, Zeke saw him curl his bootied feet under the chair. It spoke volumes about a vulnerability recognized.

  “So?” His defiance lost impact when his voice squeaked.

  “So, we’ll find out soon, won’t we, what the soles of your shoes have to tell us. Now, here’s another interesting thing, Warren. I know you like computers, so maybe you’d be interested to hear about the tiny video cameras they have nowadays. Some folks use them to check on the babysitter they’ve left their kids with, or even on the kids. They’re so small that unless you know where to look, you’d never spot them. They start when someone comes near. What do you call that?”

  “Motion activated.” Warren didn’t sound happy to have the answer.

  “That’s right, motion activated. You know Chief Harnett tries to keep the department up to date, to know whether or not to recommend them to citizens. We need to be familiar with running them, so he has us try them out at home. It’s not like we expect to catch anything on a camera like that.

  “But things we don’t expect happen all the time. Like not being able to find what we came looking for. Unexpected things like that happen, don’t they, Warren?” She pointed the pencil’s eraser end at Warren. “Don’t they?”

  “S’pose.”

  “Now, here’s another thing that might not be expected. A system in a computer that tracks and identifies an intruder without even letting the intruder know he’s been spotted. Not only that, but this program redirects the intruder so he thinks he’s seen the real files, when he’s not really any closer than a rank amateur.”

  For the first time he sat up straight. “No way! Those weren’t shadow files. He had no idea I’d—”

  He collapsed back into his chair like a balloon pricked by a pin.

  “Why?” Darcie asked so softly Zeke almost missed it.

  “Everybody’s acting like he’s God or a TV star or something,” Warren grumbled, chin tucked against his chest. “I got sick of it. Sick of hearing ’em talk about Zeke this and Zeke that.”

  “You mean your sister?”

  “Not Cristina,” he said with disdain. “She talks herself blue in the face and I don’t care.”

  “Ah.”

  The boy looked away, misery in every inch of his pudgy body.

  “We’re going to have to figure out what to do about this, Warren. You’re in a lot of trouble. You know that don’t you?”

  He nodded and looked as if he wanted to cry.

  Darcie turned the pad around and slid it toward him, then the pencils. “I want you to write down everything you did, everything that happened.”

  He looked at the paper then up at her.

  “Can’t I use a computer?”

  “Are you satisfied you know what’s behind all this, Darcie?” the chief asked.

  She’d hardly taken in the fact that the chief had been watching her talk with Warren when he’d insisted they confer in his office, leaving Benny to watch Warren toil over his handwritten description of events, then take him home to await their decision. The chief was behind his desk. Zeke’s long limbs took up most of the rest of the space in the small room, leaving her and Warren’s advocate to cram together.

  “Yes. The root of it is Ashley Stenner.”

  “She’s not interested in computers,” Zeke said.

  “No, but Warren’s interested in her. Interested, smitten, gonzo, nuts for, head over heels and totally clueless how to deal with the feelings.”

  He should understand that, since he’d had the same feelings for Ashley’s mother.

  “Is he?” Zeke asked.

  “Yes. He broke into your mother’s house, then into my place to find out what you were doing. He was looking for the handheld prototype—he didn’t know about the CD. He’d listened to some of your phone conversations. And he’d heard you say you had something you wanted me to see that night at the high school. He followed you there. He thought it would impress Ashley. So he waited outside your mother’s house and listened.” He’d said when he left the porch light was on and they were talking, so thank heavens he hadn’t seen anything.

  “If he’d gotten into the laptop or stumbled onto that CD, he’d have impressed a lot more people than Ashley,” Zeke said. “Breaking news about Zeke-Tech’s next release would have been a hacker’s coup.”

  What Warren hadn’t considered was what would happen after the glare of attention. As in a court case and possible punishment.

  “We would have tracked him down,” Zeke said, apparently following her line of thought. “He took a dumb risk. And that’s odd, because he’s quite intelligent. He picked up the crossbar security quickly. The insulated—”

  “Zeke, look at me.” She backed up the words by taking hold of his upper arms. His eyes were sparkling and intent, yet with a focal point far beyond the chief’s office. As she watched, his focus shifted. The sparkling interest mellowed, then deepened.

  She swallowed, and dropped her hands from his arms.

  “Warren’s not operating on logic.” She turned to the chief. Odd to think she found him a safer conversationalist than Zeke. But having that look in Zeke’s eyes focused on her… “That’s why I want to propose something a little unorthodox.”

  The chief instantly became wary. The advocate said, “Unorthodox? You know that nothing he said—”

  “Don’t worry. My idea’s for Warren’s good. It’s a matter of redirecting his energies, at the same time taking advantage of his abilities.”

  The chief got it first. Eyebrows lifted, he looked at Zeke. The advocate saw that and also looked at Zeke.

  Finally, Zeke felt the imprint of those stares. He looked from face to face, stopping at hers. “Darcie, I won’t—”

  “You’ll be great, Zeke. Don’t worry about that.” She knew he wasn’t, but the word worry caught him by surprise long enough for her to grab the conversational reins. “I can’t think of anyone better.”

  “Whatever you’re angling for, the answer is no.”

  “I’m talking about mentoring Warren. An intensive program during the last week you’re here. Then some ongoing contact. He could do work—real work—under your guidance as community service.”

  “If the kid’s so smart, maybe he could tackle fixing our system so it doesn’t crash in a crunch,�
�� the chief said. Darcie could hardly believe it. Chief Harnett was backing her up.

  “Exactly. Under your supervision, Zeke, it would be perfect.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Zeke, there’s a chance here with this kid. You said it yourself—he’s talented. Do you want that talent turned to mischief? Because that’s what’ll happen if he’s left on his own. There aren’t the resources here for a kid like him. Maybe if Josh had his computer program…”

  She figured that was about as thick as she could lay on the guilt before Zeke rebelled. She had one more card to play.

  “Besides, if he’s in trouble, he won’t be able to mow your mother’s lawn and shovel her walk come winter.”

  “So, she’ll get someone else. I’ll pay—”

  “It’s not the money. The reason she has him do it is to encourage him to exercise. If it’s not Warren, she’ll do it herself. You know she will.”

  At that moment, Darcie knew she had Anton Zeekowsky, genius of the technology world, right where she wanted him.

  When Zeke opened his mouth, he was aware of Darcie’s hands on the steering wheel tensing slightly, as if she expected him to try to wriggle free of this plan she’d embroiled him in.

  Instead, he demanded, “Tell me again why you never left Drago. You’re good, Darcie. Really good.”

  She made a face. “I’m a small-town cop.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “Yeah, I do. It’s…” She shook her head. “It’s too late.”

  She parked in front of the small house with the beauty salon in the converted garage.

  They’d both opened their car doors when Zeke felt her look across the width of the car. He twisted to face her.

  “You might have to talk him into doing this,” she said.

  “No way.” But she was getting out of the car, and he leaned across the seat to keep making his point. “I’m not going to beg this kid who broke into your apartment, scared my mother and tried to hack into my system—”

  “What do you think about that, Warren?”

  Zeke whipped his head around. The kid stood behind him, sour faced.

  “Who cares?” The kid curled his lip at her, and Zeke liked him even less.

  “The chief told you what the deal is and that it starts in the morning.”

  Zeke had protested, but it had done him no more good than anything else he’d protested about to Darcie.

  “I don’t need him to teach me anything.”

  “You know the first sign of stupidity?” Darcie asked. “Thinking you don’t need to learn anything.”

  “Yeah, well he didn’t think I was so stupid Friday.”

  Darcie snorted. “A talented amateur, that’s all.”

  “He said extremely talented amateur. And smart.”

  With her arms crossed under her breasts, Darcie let the silence stretch, long enough for the kid to realize he’d quoted words he could only know if he’d been listening in on the conversation between Zeke and Darcie in Zeke’s bedroom after the break-in. And the only way he could have listened in was through the planted device.

  The kid squirmed, and Zeke felt a flash of empathy, though the kid’s motive and his own for squirming were different. The kid was uncomfortable because Darcie had caught him. Zeke’s was more elemental.

  Her position snugged the material of her uniform shirt across her breasts. Not tight, just tighter than before. Instead of a vague impression of her breasts, it provided a definitive curve, especially the underside of the curve, where her skin had felt so warm and soft, he’d had to kiss it—

  “So, you heard that much before I disconnected the transmitter.”

  “I didn’t say that. I didn’t admit anything.”

  “Save it, Warren.” Darcie didn’t raise her voice. “We had plenty of evidence, even before this self-incriminating comment. You either take this offer—work with Zeke to his satisfaction and mine and the chief’s—or we stop giving you a break. You make up your mind, and you stick with it. You say yes, we tell your mother, and you commit to working your behind off under Zeke’s instruction and my supervision. What’s it going to be?”

  The kid flicked a look at Zeke.

  “All right,” he mumbled, studying the toes of his battered running shoes.

  “No, it’s not going to work that way,” Darcie said. “You look at me and tell me you appreciate this break and you’re going to take it, then you look at Mr. Zeekowsky, and you tell him thank you for this opportunity.”

  Warren looked up, his face molded into rebellious resentment. Then he encountered Darcie’s expression.

  The kid swallowed, and his soft cheeks seemed to melt into babyhood.

  “I appreciate this break, Darcie, and I’m going to take it.” He swallowed again before looking in Zeke’s vicinity. “Thank you for this opportunity.”

  “Sir,” Darcie demanded.

  Zeke thought she’d gone too far. But once more she proved she did know people.

  “Sir,” the kid said.

  Zeke found himself letting out a sigh of relief, when, not half an hour ago he was absolutely going to refuse to mentor this kid.

  “Okay, where’s your mom?”

  Oh, yeah, Darcie Barrett was good. And she was wasted on Drago.

  From the top of the stairs leading to Corine’s domain at the police station, Darcie took in the situation Monday evening.

  Zeke and Warren sat side by side in front of the computer screen, Zeke’s fingers speeding across the keyboard, while he rattled off language that only occasionally included words recognizable as English. Warren punctuated Zeke’s monologue with nods. Neither noticed her descending the stairs, but Corine, displaced to the side of the room, did.

  “They’ve been at it for hours,” she grumbled.

  “At what?”

  “Who knows. I only know they rigged it so 9-1-1 calls come in here.” She gestured disparagingly at an ordinary phone at her elbow. “I have to write calls by hand.” Clearly the equivalent of chiseling into stone with a toothpick.

  “Ah,” Zeke breathed, capturing the attention of both women. He leaned back and stretched his arms, like a well-muscled bird in flight. “Now I see how you did it. Not bad, Warren, not bad.”

  “They didn’t even know,” the boy said, preening.

  “They knew they were crashing when they had a heavy load. If the people who’d looked at it had half a brain they would have spotted it. I saw it right off. Though, it took longer to see how.”

  “Not that long,” Warren said, and Darcie could tell he was impressed.

  Darcie walked up behind Zeke and put a hand on his shoulder, to get his attention. That’s all.

  He turned quickly, his eyes intense and alive.

  He regarded her blankly for half a beat. Then he blinked and smiled. She felt the kick of that smile right down to her toes, with some side trips to body parts that reacted a lot more strongly than her toes.

  He covered her hand with his, and that sensation also detoured to several sensitive spots. She withdrew her hand.

  “Hi, Darcie.”

  “Hi, yourself. What are you guys doing?”

  “We’ve discovered the drain on the department system.” There was a devilment in Zeke’s eyes she didn’t quite trust. “Warren?” Zeke invited.

  “I, uh, tapped into the system to, uh, sort of borrow power.”

  “I knew it!” Corine exulted darkly from the background.

  “Ingenious, really,” Zeke picked up. “Because his system didn’t have the capacity to receive data he was trying to harvest from my laptop. That was one thing that puzzled me. The program had multi-pronged output and—”

  “Okay, okay, Zeke.”

  “With that piece of junk I’ve got, I hadda do something,” Warren said in a man-to-man tone.

  Zeke nodded. “Not a bad work-around. And far more efficient for keeping track of police business than a scanner would be.”

  “Stop.” Despite satisfaction a
t having the answer to how Cristina, Warren and Ashley had known Zeke was at the station that first night, Darcie crossed her arms, and gave them both a quelling stare. Warren appeared subdued, but Zeke’s expression was peculiar. As if he was trying for that gone-to-granite expression, but couldn’t get it quite right.

  “Okay,” she continued in no-nonsense mode, “it’s a fascinating puzzle, Zeke. But sucking the power from the police computer system is dangerous. People’s safety depends on this system. Our safety.” She gestured widely to encompass Drago PD, and noticed Zeke’s gaze follow the motion as she returned her arm to cross with the other. “And the safety of everyone in Drago. The night Zeke arrived, while we were chasing a man who’d kidnapped a girl not much younger than you, Warren, our computer crashed.”

  “I told him that,” Zeke said. “He understands the seriousness of what he did. Don’t you, Warren?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, Darcie. Zeke says I didn’t think it out far enough, about the effects. And that’s essential.” Zeke nodded approvingly. With that backing, Warren added in a more natural tone, “I never meant to cause trouble.”

  Corine huffed, but Darcie said, “I know, but it can be really hard to predict what the consequences are going to be of something.” Like luring Zeke back to Drago. “Especially if you start messing with other people’s lives—or computer systems,” she added quickly.

  Zeke nodded sternly. “You could have put that little girl in even worse danger. And you did put Darcie in danger when she stopped me.”

  “Put you in danger, too,” Darcie said. “An APB stop can go bad in a second. Change lives forever.”

  Their eyes held, and there was something there. Something about the instant in the near dark of the D-Shop’s lot when they’d recognized each other, and felt a connection that stretched back to another dark night.

  Darcie broke the look and mentally shook her head. Maybe—maybe—that other night had changed her life in ways she was only starting to acknowledge. But their lives had diverged, separated.

  “Did you really put Zeke in handcuffs?” Warren’s adolescent voice skidded up with interest.