Come And Find Me Part 11

She almost blurted out, Decrypting it? The file she'd opened had most certainly not been encrypted.

Chapter Sixteen.

After Jake's call, it took just a moment for Diana to find the copy of the stolen file that she'd saved to her hard drive. She opened it. The first line began: WXlDyktaADlUe+PywKwS3KdKlahCteEKxi Diana stared at it in stunned silence. That pure gobbledygook was definitely encrypted data. Unless she'd gone completely around the bend, it had looked nothing like that when she'd opened that same file on Sat.u.r.day.

What the h.e.l.l was going on? She checked her firewall settings. They were all up-to-date and set for maximum protection. She opened the firewall log and began to scroll down. After scanning the hundreds of events when an outside computer had tried to connect to hers over the last forty-eight hours, she found nothing beyond the usual chaotic noise of the Internet.

She opened the stolen data file one more time. Could she have imagined that it was now encrypted? It made no sense. But there it was. She'd never have mistaken these random letters and characters for what she'd seen earlier.

Then she remembered, she'd made a copy of the file when she attached it to an empty e-mail message and left it in their shared e-mail account. She opened the mail program and clicked on DRAFTS.

There it was-no addressee, no subject line, just an empty message with a file attached. She opened the file.

All she needed to see was the first line.

D3S1358. D7S820.

She pulled her fingers away from the keyboard as if they'd been singed. She hadn't imagined anything. The original file had contained regular old text, exactly what she remembered seeing before-data that meant something to someone, not a complicated code that had to be transformed into meaningful information with a decryption key.

But how? Data didn't spontaneously transform itself. Someone had to have broken into her computer and encrypted the other data file. Diana plugged a flash drive into her computer and saved a copy of the unencrypted data file and its encrypted doppelganger. For extra insurance, she forwarded copies of the files in an e-mail to Ashley. "Do not delete" she put as the subject line.

Seconds later, an e-mail came back. It was from Ashley. Then Diana read the subject line.

RE: DO NOT DELETE.

Finally! Diana clicked it open.

Sorry, I'm out of the office at an offsite meeting until Monday. If you need to reach me, call me on my cell.

If Ashley had come back and gone to work, the first thing she'd have done was turn off that automated reply. It was the kind of thing she was meticulous about . . . just like she was meticulous about her belongings.

Diana remembered Ashley's clothing neatly folded in Lucite drawers and hanging by color and season in her closet, her spices lined up from allspice to vanilla. The only notes of disarray had been the boots in the front hall, the jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt crumpled on the closet floor, and the mail heaped on the coffee table.

A wave of nausea rose up inside her. Had Ashley really returned home? Or had someone unfamiliar with her personality quirks tried to make it look as if she had?

Diana ran into the bathroom and dry-heaved over the toilet. She gagged and tried to vomit. But she'd eaten nothing since the ice cream hours earlier. She sank down to her knees and convulsed again and again.

Finally, she slammed down the toilet lid and pushed herself back against the wall. She dropped her head between her knees. Just stop, she told herself. Relax. Breathe. She slowed her breathing, deepened the intakes and exhales. When she was ready, she sat up and pressed her spine against the cool tile wall.

She had to convince the police that something was wrong.

Diana stood. Steadying herself against the sink, she soaked a washcloth in cold water and put it over her face. Wiped the back of her neck and the insides of her arms. Then, very deliberately, she wrung out the cloth and folded it, matching the corners neatly the way she imagined Ashley would have before hanging it on the towel rack.

On her way to the phone, she checked every door and window to be sure they were locked.

Back in her office, she called Officer Gruder. She explained, as calmly as she could. "Someone tried to make it look as if she returned home. But they don't know her the way I do."

"You're basing this on a pile of unopened mail and some clothes left on the floor?" When he put it that way it did sound flimsy.

Still . . . "I know my sister."

"And I know missing persons. There's just not enough evidence to-"

She cut him off. "There's a man named Aaron Pritchard. He was there, at Copley Square, when she disappeared. He's a former boyfriend. Says he saw her talking to a man, and maybe he did. But I think it's also possible that he might have talked to her himself."

Silence on Gruder's end. Maybe now she'd gotten his attention. "I have his phone number," she said. As she recited it, she could hear clicking like he was typing.

"Did you look at the surveillance video from her building?" she asked.

There was a pause. "We're working on getting permission to access the building's security systems."

Since when did police need permission to view surveillance video? Had he even tried to get it?

He went on. "I'll check out Mr. Pritchard. And of course please call me if anything else"-that you neglected to mention, she heard the unstated accusation-"turns up on your end."

"And you'll let me know when you've looked at the surveillance-" Before she could finish, he'd hung up.

Diana smashed down the phone. To h.e.l.l with him. She knew what she knew. Something had happened to Ashley, and it probably started Friday night at Copley Square. Hundreds of people had been there. At least four video cameras had been capturing the action. One of them had to have seen the mystery man whom Aaron claimed he saw talking to Ashley. Surely she'd have had a response by now to her request to see the original footage.

She scrolled down through her stack of unread e-mail messages.

There it was, a message from P2H4.

RE: VIDEO CAMS.

She read on.

Got your message. Sorry to hear about your sister. Whatever we can do to help. We had 6 cameras going. Come over and have a look. Call first. We're in and out.

- Jess At the end were an address and a phone number.

Diana mapped the address. It was downtown, just opposite Copley Square-probably an office in the same building from which they'd hauled Superman onto the roof.

Come over and have a look. The person from Spontaneous Combustion might as well have told her: Fly to the moon.

Diana called the number. Jess wasn't there, but someone named Eddie was. He'd be there until six, and someone would be there all day tomorrow from ten on. She was welcome to come by. They had an editing suite where she could examine the footage.

"Is there any chance you could post it so I can look at it online?" Diana asked.

Sorry, was the answer. "We don't have the permissions we'd need. Besides, these files are huge. There's an hour plus on each cam."

Surely she'd find traces of Ashley in six hours of digital video. "I'll be there," she heard herself say. "Thanks."

She hung up and printed off the message and the map. It was already five. She'd have to move if she was going to get there before they locked up. But how?

She could take a cab. She gagged at the thought of getting into a taxi with a driver who was a stranger to her. She'd have to drive herself. The car keys were still in the olive-drab canvas backpack she used to carry everywhere, back in the day when she actually went places without thinking twice.

She could practically hear Daniel's voice: Lean on me. She pulled his walking stick from her umbrella stand. Grabbed the cell phone and charger and dropped them into the backpack. Checked her video monitors. Outside it was quiet. A cardinal was perched on the fence again.

Trying not to think, just do, a minute later she'd armed the doors and reset the security alarms. She pulled open the kitchen door and stepped into her garage. There she leaned on Daniel's walking stick, and the smell of pine overwhelmed the odors of gas, mold, and skunky pheromone that rose from the garage floor.

Hands trembling, she keyed in the security code. Checked twice that the door was secure.

She could do this, she told herself, hugging the walking stick to her chest as she turned to face the Hummer. It had been backed into the garage. She pressed the b.u.t.ton on the key ring and heard the rea.s.suring click as the doors unlocked. She pulled open the door, stepped up onto the s.h.i.+ny chrome bar and into the driver's seat.

Dropping her backpack and the walking stick on the floor, she slipped the key into the ignition and anch.o.r.ed both hands on the leather-clad steering wheel. A few feet in front of her was the closed garage door. She shut her eyes and took deep breaths, counting down from ten.

When she opened her eyes, she saw the Dunkin' Donuts cup sitting in the drink holder. The program from Daniel's memorial service was lying on the floor. Diana remembered the line from the poem Jake had read, his voice choking. May the road rise to meet you.

She forced herself to focus, to turn the key. The engine whinnied until she released the pressure. The engine light was on and the needle on the gas gauge had jumped to half full. She pumped the gas pedal and tried the key again. On the third try, the engine caught, roared to life, and kept right on roaring. Diana coughed as fumes filled the closed garage. It took her a moment to realize she had her foot jammed down on the gas pedal. She pulled it off.

She pushed the remote to raise the garage door and jumped as the mechanism clanked and then whirred. The door's hinges gave a loud creak. Diana's heart pounded as the door tilted open and a sliver of light grew at ground level. She gripped the steering wheel to keep her arms and shoulders steady. Slowly the door rose in front of her.

All she had to do now was s.h.i.+ft into drive and accelerate out of there. Once the car was in the clear, the garage door would lower automatically.

She stared at the needle pointing to park. Moved her hand to the gears.h.i.+ft, her hand clawed, knuckles white.

A shadow fell over her. She jerked her head up. A car was coming up the driveway at her. s.h.i.+ny. Black. Diana screamed, and as if answering her cry, the car screeched to a halt just a few feet from the Hummer's front b.u.mper.

Diana screamed again and bashed the remote over and over until the garage door started to descend, cutting her off from the intruder. Then she yanked the keys from the ignition, threw herself from the car, and stumbled to the door, keying in the security code and falling into the house without looking back.

She slammed the door behind her, threw the dead bolt, and raced into her office. In the echoing silence, the doorbell rang, but Diana barely heard it. The security camera in the front of the house showed an empty driveway. The black car that she knew had to still be there appeared to have vanished, and that same d.a.m.ned cardinal was perched on the front fence.

On top of that, not one of her alarms had gone off.

Chapter Seventeen.

Diana crawled under her desk and sat there, hugging her knees to her chest. In her mind's eye she could still see the black car. Why didn't her security camera see it too? Why hadn't it triggered her security alarm? And how come each time she'd looked out through the front camera, the same d.a.m.ned bird was perched outside?

Diana s.h.i.+vered. All she could think was her security systems had been sabotaged, her electronic fence disarmed, and live video feed had been replaced by an innocuous video loop that replayed over and over. How paranoid was that?

The pile of avatar clothing was on the floor near the desk. She reached out and pulled the leather jacket toward her. The faintest whiff of Ashley's licorice scent wafted up to her.

Home was no longer safe. Her griefer-infested virtual world wasn't either. Where to go? And how the h.e.l.l was she going to find the courage to get herself there?

She draped the leather jacket over her shoulders and raised the collar so it framed her face the way Nadia's jacket collar did. She pulled the sungla.s.ses from the pocket and put them on. Through the tinted lenses, the room around her took on new clarity and depth. Her stomach settled and her hands grew steadier, as if some of Nadia's courage were seeping into her.

She crawled out from under the desk and stood. She laid the jacket over the back of a chair. Then she crept to the living room, lifted the shade, and peered out the front window. The black car was gone. The street was quiet. She checked the security alarm. The word ARMED glowed back at her. A lie.

She returned to her office. Nadia was waiting for her, suspended on the screen in OtherWorld, right where Diana had left her in the replica of Diana's office.

A bell sounded, then sounded again-two new messages.

PWNED: U there? You gotta see this. 1293, 4681 GROB: Hey. Got a minute. 1655, 196 She wasn't alone, she reminded herself. She had friends, friends in OtherWorld with alter egos in the real world.

Diana hovered the cursor. PWNED or GROB? She felt a connection to GROB, as if she'd known him much longer than she actually had. But PWNED had been one of the first to friend Diana in OtherWorld. And there was nothing complicated about their relations.h.i.+p.

Diana transported Nadia to the coordinates that PWNED had sent her. A meadow materialized and, in the distance, a futuristic landscape of crystalline structures. She brought up an area map. A ma.s.s of yellow dots, each an avatar, was cl.u.s.tered a short distance due west.

She turned Nadia and ran her in that direction, through an allee of cyprus trees, along a stone wall, and on to a ma.s.sive stone gateway. Stepping Nadia through the gateway, she emerged at the topmost rim of an amphitheater that seemed to have been hollowed out from the side of a hill.

PWNED came up the steps toward her. Tall and lithe, the avatar wore black, crotch-high boots, a microskirt, and a crop top. A diamond twinkled from her navel and her platinum hair was wrapped in a Princess Leia breakfast Danish over one ear.

An empty voice balloon appeared over PWNED's head. "I wanted you to see what you helped create." Her voice was soft and breathy.

A banner across the stage read FIGHT BACK. LIES KILL. A speaker was standing on the stage, addressing a crowd of avatars seated around him.

"Is this amazing or what?" PWNED continued. "And it's just the tip of-"

Diana interrupted. "I need help. Can I . . . I need somewhere to stay. I'll explain later, but I need to get somewhere safe. Right now." She tried to swallow but she couldn't.

"Real-world help?"

"The realest. You're near Boston?"

"I'm in it. Can you drive?"

Diana realized she still had the keys to the Hummer clutched in her hand. "I'm going to have to."

PWNED didn't ask another question. She just gave her address and offered to get on the phone and guide Diana there.

By the time Diana had transported Nadia home, she was sweating and having trouble breathing. Meanwhile, on the computer screen in her virtual office, Nadia stood cool and serene, game for whatever awaited them. If only Diana could absorb her avatar's strength and nonchalance.

Diana held the leather jacket out in front of her, considering. It was beautifully made, the black leather soft and supple, the lining a soft, pale gray silk. She draped the T-s.h.i.+rt over the back of the chair and spread the jeans out on the seat. She set the red leather boots upright, side by side on the floor. Ready to roll.

"Okay, I'll navigate. You drive," Diana told Nadia. The avatar didn't even crack a smile.

An hour later, Diana stood in the bathroom. The spray bottle with the mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water that she'd used to lighten her hair sat on the counter. The wastebasket was half filled with a ma.s.s of her own hair that she'd snipped off with a nail scissor. She ran her fingers through the short uneven curls she'd left intact. Her hair would never be straight and spiky like Nadia's, but at least now it was . . . just to be sure, she yanked out a single strand of hair . . . blond verging on platinum. If only she hadn't trashed every single mirror in her house.

She put on Nadia's clothes. This time, before she tried to leave, she made a list: Get directions Send Ashley cell-phone number Shut down computers Disconnect systems And so on, through getting out of the house. She envisioned Nadia performing each step with cool, methodical precision. Then she began.

PWNED's address in the South End was just blocks from downtown. She found directions on MapQuest, printed them out, checked her messages one last time, and shut down her computers. She unplugged her server and disconnected the routers and modems that gave her redundant connections to the outside world. Before she unplugged her landline, she used it to call Ashley's office and home numbers and leave the number of the prepaid cell phone that she'd be taking with her.