Vanished

by Karen E. Olson

  Cash is usually not the currency of choice here, where customers hand over credit cards for such large purchases, but it’s all I’ve got and, after a little bit of explaining to the incredulous store manager that I don’t possess a credit card, we finally complete the purchase.

  I slip my new laptop into my backpack, sling it over my shoulder and go back out onto the street. The sun has risen higher; more people are on the sidewalks. I make one more stop before going down to Meeting Street and to the City Market. I walk through the covered stalls, checking out the sweetgrass baskets and homemade jewelry and jars of jam. My watercolors might reach a larger customer base here, and while I don’t want to take away any business from Randy, if I stay, maybe I could mass produce smaller works to generate a little more income. I shift the backpack; its weight reminds me of my real mission today and I push aside the idea.

  Waterfront Park isn’t too far, and I pass the giant pineapple fountain as I head toward the park benches beyond. I find a bench with no one nearby except a mother with two small children chasing each other on the grass.

  For a moment, I stare out at the water. I can see the USS Yorktown in the distance, on the other side of the river. The air is still; children’s voices carry across the park. I tug the laptop out of the pack and set it on my lap, the backpack at my feet.

  I open the laptop. The first thing I do is take the masking tape I bought at the drug store out of my bag and tear off a small piece, placing it over the camera. I made the mistake of not doing that once before and regretted it. While I don’t plan on being hacked and shadowed again, I can never be a hundred percent sure that it won’t happen. Now that I’ve taken care of this, I finish the setup of the laptop, ignoring the Cloud since I don’t want anything anywhere that might point at me. There are Wifi networks nearby, most of them locked. But I don’t need any of them. I rummage around in my backpack and pull out the small hotspot router that creates my own wireless network. While I may not have had a laptop, in a moment of weakness I bought this at an electronics store, thinking that it may come in handy someday.

  Today is someday.

  FOUR

  A sense of calm overtakes me as I download the VPN and the software that will allow me to go into the deep web and the chat rooms. This is my world, the world I am most comfortable in. I can lose myself in my painting, my watercolors, but it’s not like this. This overtakes me; the laptop is an extension of myself.

  Zeke understands. We met online when we were teenagers, learning from each other, falling for each other behind the code. Using his screen name Tracker, he helped me hack into a bank site to steal ten million dollars seventeen years ago; two million of that was Tony DeMarco’s. I didn’t know that Tracker was really Zeke Chapman, the FBI agent who followed me to Paris after the theft. Zeke told me he loved me, that he’d left his wife for me, but after a confrontation he got shot, and I left him for dead and vanished to Block Island. When we were in Miami six months ago, he let me know that his feelings for me were still even stronger than his loyalty to his job.

  That’s why I’m having such a hard time knowing he was in Paris. Knowing where he was, period. We went our separate ways because of the hit on me – he wanted me safe while he went after DeMarco, at least that’s what he said – but I’ve been secretly hoping that he’d suddenly show up on my doorstep and we could disappear together. I’ve been alone a long time and I’m comfortable with myself, but my connection with Zeke is strong and Miami brought us together physically rather than merely virtually. For the first time in a very long time, I find myself daydreaming about having a real relationship with someone again. Seeing that picture online, however, makes me dubious that will happen anytime soon. Again, I think that sending me away alone might have more to do with his job than with me; if, in fact, the skimmer has to do with his job.

  I admonish myself. It must have something to do with his job. It has to.

  First things first, though. I need to make sure that Madeline Whittier was not one of my father’s clients before I head to her house for tea. While I have mostly dismissed the idea, there is still a nagging feeling somewhere in the back of my head that she wouldn’t say I looked familiar if there wasn’t a reason. I had little time when I was on Randy’s computer, but now I can do a more thorough search. I type in Madeline’s name and my father’s – Daniel Adler – to see if there’s a connection between them.

  Both names get hits, but I don’t see any that links the two. For a second, I consider reading one of the old news stories about my father, but decide it’s not a good idea to revisit the past. I know all about how he ripped off his celebrity and wealthy clients; I was inside his computer when I was a teenager. I discovered all his secrets.

  Instead, I open one of the links that mentions Madeline Whittier. It’s a local story in the Charleston newspaper about a fundraising event for Charleston College. It’s dated a year ago with a photo of Madeline and her husband dancing beneath tiny white lights on the college lawn. Her gown is a glittering white; her hair piled up on top of her head with a tiara. Maybe she doesn’t know me, she doesn’t know my father, but I know her and her world. Although in mine, ‘tea’ is less tea and more cocktail hour. As I remember the way she was with the wine last night, maybe it is in hers, too.

  I toggle back to the article with Zeke’s picture and read it again, but there are no more clues to Zeke’s whereabouts since the sighting than there were before. What was it that Spencer saw that made him warn me off? It can’t have been here.

  A child’s scream startles me, and I look up from the screen to scan my surroundings. I spot the child and her friend frolicking in the water of the pineapple fountain, two mothers deep in conversation. I turn my attention back to the laptop.

  The picture of Zeke mesmerizes me. After not knowing what he looked like for so long, his face is now embedded in my memory and I have no doubt at all that this is him, despite the lousy quality of the image and the funny angle. It still nags at me that he’s putting skimmers on ATMs.

  I find my way to the chat room, the one where I have met Tracker – Zeke – so many times. If he’s undercover, he won’t be here, but it still draws me in. I create a new screen name to sign in, a new password. No one will know me. Or so I keep telling myself.

  The chat is crowded and, as I look closer, there is a certain buzz about a new television program about hackers. I smile to myself as I read the threads – how these hackers are insulted by the portrayals, how it’s unrealistic and the hacks featured aren’t even remotely possible.

  I’ve only been gone six months, but it’s as though I’ve moved into a new neighborhood and everyone is a stranger. There was a time when I knew almost everyone here, and Tracker was always around.

  I want to ask if anyone’s seen him, but it would raise too many red flags. Spencer comes around the chat room using the screen name Angel, and I don’t want to deal with him and what he’d have to say if he discovers I’m asking about Tracker. Yet I am still tempted.

  To keep myself from doing anything rash, I log off and make my way back to the search engine. My initial search had been on Madeline Whittier and the article had popped up, so I wonder what I’ll find if I look for the missing Ryan Whittier. I type in his name, adding ‘Charleston’ after it. The story I’ve already seen is the first one that appears. But, oddly, there is nothing else. Is it because four months have passed? No, that can’t be it. If a college student had gone missing in Paris, the media would be all over it.

  I can’t explain why I fixate on it, except that it’s the only connection I’ve had to Zeke in six months. I really don’t care about Ryan Whittier beyond that, but I read the article again, which was published in a Paris English-language newspaper, even though by now I have committed it to memory.

  A college student from the United States has been missing for three days, and police have no leads in his disappearance.

  Ryan Whittier, who attends Charleston College in South Carolina, was reported missin
g by the manager at the Hotel Adele near the rue de Rivoli when staff noticed that Whittier had not returned to his room, but all of his belongings were still there, including his wallet and cellphone.

  When checking his credit card records, police discovered Whittier last used his ATM card at a machine nearby. Just moments before, a man had placed a skimmer on the machine that would compromise any card inserted in it. Police are uncertain if this had anything to do with Whittier’s disappearance, but they are searching for the man who installed the skimmer.

  I have focused only on the photograph of Zeke, but now I study the image of Ryan Whittier that accompanies the story. He’s a young man with a baby face who barely looks old enough to travel on his own to Europe. He has light brown hair, brown eyes and chubby cheeks. He is hardly distinctive, which makes it easy to overlook him. The article is as vague as he looks. It only says that Ryan went to Charleston College. It has no hometown for him, and there is no mention of parents. There is so little information about Ryan that it raises suspicion. It should be a bigger story, and yet it’s not. Where are the parents? His family? Everyone knows that a college student – or any young person – missing anywhere in the world would be the subject of a frantic search. The French authorities should be desperate to make sure the young man is found; the family might be offering a reward for information.

  But there’s nothing here. Nothing at all.

  Perhaps social media has some answers. But when I look for Ryan Whittier in all the usual places, he is nowhere to be found. It’s rare for someone – especially a college student – not to have some sort of Internet footprint.

  I find my way to the Charleston College website and put his name into the search bar. Nothing comes up with his name. This might not mean anything, except that he is also under the radar at the college. He may not be involved in athletics or be a top scholar.

  On a whim, I pull out my cellphone and call the school’s main number. I’m not very adept at social engineering, but this is easy. When I get the receptionist, I ask for the media relations department.

  ‘This is Callie, how can I help you?’ The voice is young. She could be a student worker.

  ‘I’m with the Paris News in Paris, and I’m calling to find out about a student of yours, Ryan Whittier, who was reported missing here four months ago. We are following up on the story.’ I have no idea if there is a newspaper called the Paris News, but it sounds good, and Callie doesn’t pick up on it.

  ‘Ryan Whittier? What year is he?’

  ‘I’m not sure. We don’t have much information, except he had an ID that indicated he went to school there.’ This is another white lie. I have no idea if they found a college ID; in fact, I don’t know exactly how they even knew he went to this college or where the photograph came from.

  ‘Hold on.’

  I am on hold long enough that I am ready to hang up when I hear: ‘Who is this?’ This is no longer Callie; now I’m talking to a man.

  ‘I’m with the Paris News. I’m calling about a student of yours, Ryan Whittier, who went missing here four months ago.’

  He’s quiet for a second, then says, ‘I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing, miss, but we don’t have a student here by that name. We never did.’

  And then he hangs up.

  FIVE

  I am more confused than ever. Who is the young man in the photograph? Is anyone missing at all? Except, perhaps, the man who was putting the skimmer on the ATM? But he is most likely missing by choice.

  It occurs to me that this might possibly be fake news, that ‘Ryan Whittier’ doesn’t actually exist at all, and the story may have been planted to either incriminate or locate Zeke.

  I look back up at the water again, my fingers lightly tapping the keys without typing anything. A nervous habit, one from my past. Ryan Whittier still nags at me, but I didn’t buy a laptop to find out about him. I bought it to try to find Zeke.

  As if it agrees, my stomach growls, and I look at the time. I’ve been here too long. I pack up the laptop and head out of the park. The number of tourists has increased in the last couple of hours, and I wade my way through them, along the sidewalk on Meeting Street. The familiar weight of the laptop inside the backpack settles against my side.

  As I’m crossing Queen, a white Cadillac slows down. It has tinted windows, so I can’t see the driver. I can’t tell whether the car wants to turn or slide into the parking spot just ahead and is waiting for me to pass. When I finally reach the other side of the road, the car inches along beside me. I begin to move a little faster, my heart thudding inside my chest, but then the car speeds away, skidding slightly on the pavement. I stop walking and watch it until it turns a few blocks down.

  I immediately regret not packing everything. While the car was probably just a tourist who wasn’t sure where he was going, my paranoia has ratcheted up to a level that I’m uncomfortable with.

  I make sure the white Cadillac is nowhere to be seen as I head up Broad Street toward Gaulart & Maliclet, where I can get a ham and cheese baguette and a glass of wine. It’s a smallish enough restaurant that I should be able to have some privacy.

  I push the door open and walk into the chilly air conditioning that causes goose bumps to rise on my arms. I ask the waitress if I can be seated in the back, facing the door. She escorts me around the corner and to a more private table, from which I can see anyone coming in. I order my lunch and, while I wait, gaze at the French posters on the walls. This place could be in France, in Paris. My thoughts stray back to Zeke and what he was doing there. I reach over and pull the laptop and the hotspot router out of the backpack.

  My sandwich and glass of wine are set down in front of me, and I absently take a bite and a quick drink. Zeke put that skimmer on an ATM on the rue de Rivoli. A familiar map program lets me ‘walk’ down the street with an actual street view.

  I manipulate the direction and ‘look around’ the block. I feel a sudden longing for my adopted city, the city I spent so much time in when I was a child with my grandmother, and where I fled when the FBI – Zeke – was after me after the bank job. And where he finally found me hiding on a houseboat on the Seine.

  I am about to change direction yet again when something catches my eye. The Hotel Adele.

  If it were here, in the United States, it would be called a boutique hotel, but in Paris it’s like hundreds of others peppered around the city. Ryan Whittier had been staying at the Hotel Adele, according to the article online. Seeing it here shows me that this bit of news wasn’t fake. I ‘walk’ to the corner at rue de Rivoli, and I spot an ATM. Is this the one? There’s no real way of knowing, but it’s close to the hotel.

  I tell myself that none of it means anything. The article dates back four months. Zeke was there then, but it’s possible he’s long gone, vanished into thin air once again.

  Still, I can’t help myself. I put the hotel name into the search engine and pull up its website. It has an automated reservation system, which, to my advantage, seems to be several years old and outdated. The hotel is a small one and it’s not geared toward very wealthy guests, so they probably don’t feel that the system is a security risk. I’m happy to discover that the system isn’t connected to a larger hotel network, otherwise it would have made what I’m about to do a lot more difficult.

  I need to be able to become an administrator. I scan the code, looking for a way in, and suddenly it’s there.

  It’s too easy.

  There’s a back door. Someone left it wide open for me.

  I sit back a second and stare at the screen as a chill runs down my back. Something’s not right here. Someone was here before me.

  And then I wonder: what if it was Zeke? What if he’d manipulated the code, inserted the back door?

  I take a deep breath. I’m reading into things. I want to believe that I’m chasing Zeke, but it’s possible that’s very far from the truth. There’s no reason to think that there is any link between Zeke and this hotel. The hotel s
ystem is antiquated; it would have been easy to break in even without the back door.

  So why is it there?

  I can’t shake the feeling of foreboding that’s come over me. It’s almost as though I’m violating someone else’s property. This back door is here for someone else, not me. Again, I think about how this hotel isn’t part of a big chain. I toggle back to the maps page and take another look at it. Nothing about the hotel makes it stand out in the area; it looks like any of the buildings that flank it. It is a typical Parisian building, with a large, ornate door and windows on each floor. The only thing that identifies it as a hotel is the sign next to the door.

  I can’t resist. I slip in through the back door and scan the lines of code. It’s the most basic code I’ve seen in ages, which I chalk up to the fact that it’s an old system. No one has updated it in a long time. The back door may have been there for years, undetected, because no one is checking on the site. No one is concerned about network security.

  If I can do what I’m here to do, then they might want to reconsider that.

  Because I am able to slip inside as an administrator and soon I have access to every reservation Hotel Adele has booked. I don’t care about all of them, though, as I scroll through the names of the male guests four months ago, then check the months previous and afterward. There are no names that stand out.

  Except one: Ryan Whittier.

  That’s not a surprise, if the article is real. I begin to doubt my suspicion about it being fake news even though I can’t explain any of this.

  And then I do find something that I’m not expecting at all.

  The credit card that Ryan Whittier used to pay for his hotel room is not in his name. The name on it is Spencer Cross.

  SIX

  Instinctively, I glance down at the backpack, where the cellphone is tucked in the front pocket, as though Spencer Cross is physically in there. I’m trying to wrap my head around this.