by Linda Barlow
“So,” she said coolly. “You're a killer. A good one, too, since they haven't nailed you yet. Well, hey. If you're gonna do a thing, you ought to do it well.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, starting toward her.
She jumped up from the chair and brandished a kitchen knife at me. She didn't hold it the way anyone experienced with knife fighting would. Not that I expected her to know how to wield a knife, but I'd learned the hard way never to underestimate my opponents.
“That's far enough.” She held up her free hand in a stop-right-there gesture. “I haven't decided yet whether you killed her or not.”
I was quick on my feet, and before he'd died, my brother had taught me a lot of ace moves. We used to work out together, Sean and me, and Sean had been a master of a variety of fighting styles. I had Rory disarmed, with both her arms twisted up behind her before the girl could blink.
I kicked the knife across the room. Hard, but mostly for effect. Hell, the whole thing was for effect, since Rory wasn't even kicking or scratching. She did draw a deep breath for what I expected to be a bloodcurdling scream, so I jammed one hand across her mouth and increased the pressure on her arms with the other. “Make one sound and I'll really fuck you up.”
She stopped her feeble squirming, and as my adrenaline ebbed, I noticed that I was holding a female with her ass pressed up against my thighs. I'd thought she was all skin and bones, but that wasn't how she felt. Her clothes last night must have been baggy. But today she was wearing tight jeans and a short-sleeve top. Her feet were bare. Her body actually had some curve to it, and she smelled real nice.
My cock had apparently picked up on this quicker than my brain, since I was already rocking a big erection. Terrific.
I wasn't too eager to uncover her mouth, even though she was trying to say something. I was glad nobody lived upstairs. Old house like this, the soundproofing wasn't up to modern standards.
“No one believes me, but I'll say it anyway. I didn't kill my girlfriend. I probably won't kill you, either. Unless you keep pissing me off.”
Her shoulders shook and I thought for a moment she was crying. But no—the girl was laughing. Jeez, she was even crazier than I was. I unstopped her mouth, adding, “Don't scream.”
“I never scream,” she said, sounding insulted. Then she coughed, still laughing a little. “That thing you're doing to my arms is nasty.”
I let her go. She turned around slowly to face me, rubbing her arms where I'd gripped them. I wondered if she was going to make some wise-ass remark about my boner, which she must have felt. But instead she said, “You're fast.” She looked a little pale and her chin was jutting out. Too stubborn to admit any weakness. She was scared, but she had it under control. “I'd have had you, though, if I'd been able to find a gun.”
“I'm not likely to leave guns lying around.” I didn't own any guns. My brother had been the shooter in the family, and I was glad I'd had no firearms stashed in the place when the cops had come calling after Hadley's disappearance. But if she wanted to believe I kept guns here, fine with me.
“So you claim you didn't kill her,” she said in a neutral tone. She had smoothed her hair back and settled again into my desk chair as if she considered it her own. I noticed that her fingers were shaking slightly, though. “Not that I'd expect you to admit it if you did.”
“I don't care what the fuck you'd expect. Get your stuff together. I'm going to work and you're going to the train station.”
“Fine.”
“How did you break into my computer?”
She snorted as if the question were idiotic. “Next time try not using one of the top 100 most common passwords. Namely number 79.”
“You keep a list of the top 100 passwords?”
She tapped her forehead. “Top thousand. In here.”
No way, I thought.
“Grateful you didn't use number 979. That would have been tedious.”
“What are you, some kind of hacker?”
“You could say that. Speaking of which, your system security sucks. Ever heard of encryption? How about Tor? No self-respecting assassin should be without computer security.”
I had a weird memory of my mom telling me that I should always count to ten before expressing anger or impatience. I got up to about seven before saying, “Shouldn't you be in school somewhere?”
“Spring break just started. Well, starts tomorrow, but I don't have any Friday classes, so I left early.”
Now she had surprised me. “You're in college?”
“Of course I'm in college. I'm a senior.”
“Aren’t you too fucking young to be a senior?” Which was probably a stupid question. Just because I was almost twenty-five and hadn’t graduated didn’t mean Rory couldn't be a few weeks from finishing college.
“No. I’m fucking smart, remember?”
“Yeah? What school?”
Her chin inched higher. “None of your business.”
“You come from a family of sex workers, and you're claiming to be a college senior?”
Although she refused to meet my eyes, her reply was swift: “What, whores can't pass down smart genes? Don't bet on it.” She smirked. “My dad could have been some rich Harvard guy who had to pay for it.”
I rolled my eyes. The only degree this girl was going to get would be a B.L. for Biggest Liar. “So you went home for break and your mother's boyfriend tried to rape you?”
She frowned a little. “I told you—Mom's not really my mom. As for the deviant boyfriend, he was hopped up on speed or something. If I'd known he was such a whack job, I'd never have gotten into a car with him. I mean, the guy drives around with a shovel and a shotgun in his back seat.”
“You got in a car with me,” I pointed out.
She laughed. “Yeah, that's me. Out of the frying pan...Jeremiah Griffin O'Malley. I think I've even heard of you.” She nodded to the screen. “I read through that shit. Press. Websites. Police reports. I'm not finished with everything yet, but I'm leaning toward the theory that you didn't do it.”
That was original. Most people’s theory was that I was guilty. I wondered what she’d seen that they hadn’t. “How the fuck did you read the police reports?”
Her only answer was a disdainful look. “Far as I can tell, the cops had nothing on you,” she said, clicking through the many browser windows she had open. “Even though they dug up your whole back yard looking for it, your girlfriend's body was never found. None of her blood showed up here, either. They did find her DNA in your bed, and yours in hers, but given that you two were hooking up, that was no surprise.”
“You've been busy. What time did you wake up?”
“Around dawn. I used your computer 'cause you took mine. Where is it? In your bedroom, I presume?”
“You can have it back when you leave.”
She nodded, then kept ticking off the details of the cops' case against me, which I already knew by heart. “You didn't have a solid alibi, but your MMO gaming history proved that you were home raiding for at least part of the night when she disappeared. Your only previous arrests were juvie shit.”
“You hacked the juvie records?” I was starting to get impressed.
“Pfff. Easy in, easy out. You cut up quite a bit as a teenager, didn't you? You're lucky they didn't send you away, with all that drug dealing, joy-riding, getting into violent fights and all.”
“You're not leaving any digital trails that lead back to me, I hope? I've got enough trouble already with the feds.”
“No worries. I've safeguarded your machine and cleaned up all your connections, but any serious hacking I'll do with my own machine.”
“What about my IP address?”
“Relax. Total stealth mode, no footprints.”
I started pacing in the small room, annoyed that it wasn't bigger. I needed to go outside and run. The muscles in my legs felt tight. I told myself I didn't care that she'd found out about my youthful indiscretions; I'd smartened up a long time ago. Act
ually, Sean had beaten me half dead and threatened to finish the job if I ever fucked up again. The only good thing about Sean's being dead is that he hadn't been there to witness the whole fucking town accuse me of murdering Hadley. I don't think I could have borne seeing the shame and disappointment in his eyes.
“Your WiFi password is even more pathetic. Seriously makes me doubt you're smart enough to pull off the perfect crime.”
What—I was too dumb to be a killer? I felt my hands fisting. I was seriously thinking about punching out the wall.
“You and Hadley. How'd you ever get with a socialite, anyway? You're not that hot.” I felt her gaze on me, checking me out. “I mean, well, actually—” she paused and gave me a huge grin “—you are kinda hot, but you're not exactly The Bachelor material.”
The tension in my body started to hit the red zone. The girl pissed me off and confused me. I wanted to stick my dick in her mouth just to shut her up. “Get your stuff together. You've got a train to catch.”
“I've still got a ton of material to investigate. The cops interviewed all sorts of people. I'll bet you don't even know everybody they talked to.”
Damn, was she trying to get me to let her stay here? No way that was happening. “I've been over and over this stuff, usually with a couple of burly cops leaning over me with pizza breath. Last thing I need is some hacker-chick regurgitating it again.”
“I could be your savior. I excel at analysis, and I see things that others don't.”
Yeah right. How had I got stuck with this waif again? “The only thing you're gonna be seeing is the inside of a crappy suburban train. Let's go.”
“I took this IQ test once that pegged me at 204. I'm a fuckin' genius. You should be down on your knees thanking me for taking your case.”
Shit, this girl was delusional. “Get your boots on. I've got to get to work. You can go to Boston, New York or Timbuktu. I'll even buy your ticket.”
“You couldn't afford to buy me a ticket to Timbuktu. I'll bet you don't even know where it is.”
That was true enough. “Ugly boots. On.”
Complaining all the way, she obeyed.
Ten minutes later, I dumped her at the train station. She looked forlorn walking along the platform beside the train, her backpack slung over one shoulder. What if she really had no place to go? I was briefly tempted to call her back. Tell her she could stay.
But that would be insane.
She twirled and smiled at me. She raised one hand in a wave that pulled a weird little string at my heart. Well, at the place where my heart used to be. My chest had been feeling cold and empty ever since Sean had died and Hadley had disappeared.
I turned my back on her and put the car into gear. I was late for work because of the annoying brat. 204 IQ. Give me a fucking break.
Chapter 7
Rory
I wasn't planning to go anywhere. I liked this town. It had possibilities.
Griff didn't stick around to see whether I actually boarded the train. Even so, I waited inside the small railway station for a few minutes after his car pulled out of the lot. Once I was sure he was gone, I started walking back in the direction of his place.
I’d paid careful attention during the drive to the station, so I knew my way. Griff was going to work so I figured I’d have most of the day to make myself useful. I’d given some thought to exactly how I could do this.
I’d seen a shopping area not far off the road that led back to his apartment, so I took a little detour. I shopped for a few things. I paid in cash. I’d made sure to have plenty of bills with me before leaving campus. I wasn’t going to leave a trail by using my credit cards.
I’m a bit of a privacy freak. Most hackers are. We know, better than most, how much information is being collected and stored about us. How the government and big business are mining that data. How some of them know stuff about us that we don't even realize about ourselves.
I know about stalkers, paparazzi, CCTV, and plain old government surveillance. I might be a little paranoid, but I tried to avoid it as much as I could.
You can’t live your life and avoid all cameras, but in most cases that doesn’t matter. Unless there’s a crime, they don’t examine all the images they collect. Even so, I tend to keep my head down when I’m at the cashier or when I’m walking through a major intersection.
I’ve got friends who don’t go out without wearing special glasses or even body paint that messes with the facial recognition programs, but I don’t take my precautions to that extent. If I’d committed some crime, though, or if I was trying to disappear, I would.
I found a café with a good Wi-Fi connection and I settled in with a latte. I’d never been to this area before, but I knew a little bit about it. It was one of the outer suburbs of Boston, right on the edge of the area where the land turned more rural.
There were a couple of colleges nearby, either in this town or in the adjoining one. There was also some industry—the white-collar kind. Technology, biotech, Internet companies. A couple places where I might even consider working. Assuming I stayed on the East Coast rather than heading out to Silicon Valley.
I studied a map of the town, familiarizing myself a little more with the area. I intended to do some work, but my mind kept circling back to the problem of Hadley’s disappearance. It was an intellectual challenge for me.
I’d pretty much decided that Griff hadn't killed her. I can't claim that this was a rational decision. I knew from looking at the police files that the evidence against him was scanty. If they’d had anything solid, they would have charged him.
I knew this wasn't exactly a reliable conclusion. I mean, I was using my reason and my logic, but I didn’t want him to be guilty. I liked Griff. Even though he’d tried to get rid of me. Well, not get rid of me—that was probably a phrase I shouldn’t use in this situation. He’d, um, let me leave? Insisted I leave. Even though he knew I’d been poking around in his stuff.
He hadn't acted like a guilty man who was concerned that I might unearth damning evidence against him. That was good, right?
I hadn’t sensed violence in Griff. But because of my lack of trust in my own ability to judge, I couldn’t be sure. If he was a psychopath who could lie without a flicker, he could probably fool me, no matter how many emotional antennae I put out.
Whatever. The more I searched the internet looking for information about the case, the more disgusted I felt. On his behalf, I mean. Griff had been railroaded by every newspaper in the country. There were stories from as far away as Indonesia and Japan about how he’d killed his girlfriend and hidden her body.
The true crime websites had long threads devoted to speculation on how he disposed of her. They rarely considered other suspects or other explanations of why a wealthy college senior with everything going for her might want to disappear.
I briefly wondered whether anyone was looking for me. I’d just disappeared, telling no one at the college where I was going or when I’d be back. I doubted anyone would even notice, though. Well, besides my Mom, who still expected me to call her daily.
Not that I don’t have friends and people who care about me. It’s just that I’ve trained them over the years to accept that I need my space. When the world starts closing in on me—my mother’s world especially with all the bullshit that goes along with her lifestyle—I get antsy. Sometimes I just have to disappear for a while before I can face all that shit again.
I’d tried to escape it many times, but in a way I guess I was like Griff—there are some things you can’t run from, you can’t hide. You just have to hope that if you keep a low profile, someday they’ll get bored and leave you alone.
‘Course I was lucky compared to him. I wasn’t suspected of a crime. Leastways, not as far as I knew. I wouldn’t put anything past my mother once she heard I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. She wasn’t above telling the cops some bullshit lie just to get them more serious about finding me.
Stop it, girl. You’re whining
again. What a tough life you have, right? Snap out of it!
I set aside the slimy tabloids and true crime boards. I wanted to get back into the real stuff—police files and such. For that, I’d better get back to the now-secure computer I’d created at Griff’s.
I hate injustice, I really do. I particularly hate it when injustice goes viral. It can seem like the whole fucking world has turned against you. It was hard to hold your head high when the tide of some humongous digital lynch mob was beating down your door.
It had been almost a year since Hadley Allison had disappeared.
I knew what that meant, even if Griff didn’t.
The press would revive the story. They love anniversaries. Anything to sell more papers and get more website clicks. There hadn’t been another good crime mystery in the news for a few weeks as far as I could remember. All the more reason for them to dig this one up again, do web and TV specials, send reporters around to try to interview Griff.
If he didn’t kill her, someone else had. Somewhere there was a killer running around free.
Well, maybe not. Maybe she’d just taken off. But that was hard to do. I didn’t think even I could successfully vanish for a whole year and not be found. And believe me, I’d thought about how to do that shit a time or two.
Take off and be totally anonymous, living off the grid. Peace and quiet. Time to work, time to think. No crazy family riding my ass. No teachers or mentors demanding that I use my talents for something more serious than hacking or gaming or solving arcane problems that were nothing more than “intellectual masturbation,” as one of my professors had put it.
No evidence didn’t mean no crime. But somehow my heart had already absolved Griff. I couldn’t account for that, so I didn't even try. I’d only known him for a few hours, but already he made me feel things that I didn’t understand
Chapter 8
Griff
We were doing demolition work that day at a nice suburban home that had had a kitchen fire a couple weeks ago. The only area that actually needed refurbishing was the wall where the stove had been, but the owners had decided to renovate the whole kitchen right down to the outer shell. It would cost a lot, but I guess they figured it would boost the value of their home to have a whole new kitchen. So our crew had to tear everything out—cabinets, appliances, walls, floor—the whole room.
