Paranoid(58)

Slipping into the hallway and losing himself in the throng of teenagers walking, shouting, laughing, and banging lockers, he felt a little niggle of pride. She was right, though. He might not be good at a lot of things, but he understood computers, inside and out. He had mad skills, but word was getting around. She wasn’t the first kid to ask for his help, and that wasn’t good. He had to keep a low profile. Not show off. Now more than ever since Walsh was on his case. He was scheduled to meet with her right after school.

In the hallway, he skirted the area near his locker and kept up with a group of kids heading toward the main doors near the admin offices. He kept looking over his shoulder for Schmidt, but he was nowhere to be seen. Good. As long as Dylan kept with large groups, he should be safe.

Maybe.

The secretary waved him into Mrs. Walsh’s office. “She’ll be right back. She told me to let you go on in.”

He stepped into the small room and wondered how long she’d be gone. If he had time to— With a quick look over his shoulder he saw the receptionist was busy at the counter. Before he could talk himself out of it, he shoved the door so that it was barely open, just a crack, then moved around the desk. Not bothering to sit, he pushed back the chair, leaned over the keyboard, and checked Walsh’s computer terminal.

Of course it wouldn’t open. He needed a password.

The screen saver, a picture of the front of the high school, stayed in place, mocking him. Softly, hardly daring to breathe, he pulled open her drawer, searching for a card or something where she might have jotted a note. On first sweep, nothing. He swept his gaze across the flat surface of the desk, even picked up a picture and checked the back, anywhere she might keep her password. No hint in the drawers. Nothing on her neat desk.

He was really sweating now.

He didn’t have much time.

If he could figure it out . . .

Come on, come on.

The picture of her daughter . . . God, what was that girl’s name? Beth? Bethany? Brittany? She was a few years older than Harper, had graduated the year before he’d become a freshman. So she was like nineteen, maybe? He tried a combination of each of the names, backward and forward, with each of the two years when the daughter might have been born.

Nothing.

He bit his lip.

Thought hard.

Felt the sweat bead on his forehead.

Come on, Ryder, think. You can do this.

Glancing up, he saw the girl at the counter gathering her things. Crap. The receptionist was about to return to her desk, and might peek inside and catch him.

His heart was racing.

Calm down!

Only a few more seconds.

If he knew more about Marlene Walsh, like her husband’s name or if they had a pet, or the year Walsh herself had been born or graduated from high school or college . . . He needed more information to get in.

Not that it was that big a deal. He knew he could hack into the school’s system; it wasn’t that tough, but it would be so great to be able to log on as if he were the friggin’ vice principal. That would give him a sense of satisfaction, kind of a behind-her-back-but-also-in-her-face move. Major bragging rights and . . .

Footsteps clicked outside the door.

His heart nearly stopped.

Crap!

He looked up.

The receptionist was turning back to her desk.

He scrambled back to the chair behind the door just as it swept open, yanked his phone from his back pocket, and pretended to be texting.

“Dylan.” Marlene Walsh smiled that same plastic grin she used when addressing the student body in one of her stupid “Rah-rah Edgewater Eagles” speeches that made him groan. So phony. “Sorry I’m late.”

“No prob.” He actually stood. Something his dad had taught him a long time ago.

“Sit, sit.” Waving him back to his chair, she swept around the desk and stopped on the far side to eye her chair.

Jesus, he’d forgotten to push it back under the desk.

Her neatly plucked brows puckered as she sat, scooting it closer to the computer monitor.

She knows! She can feel you were there.

He tried to keep cool as she adjusted her reading glasses onto her nose and typed quickly onto her keyboard. Beth2018Anne. At least that’s what it looked like.

That was her daughter’s name. Beth Anne! Now he remembered. And if the school required her to change the password every so often, he bet she just put in a different year or something and kept the letters the same . . . 2018, the year after Beth Anne had graduated? Who knew? And really, who cared?

She pressed her palms to the desktop. “How long have you been waiting?”

He lifted a shoulder, attempting to appear bored. “I dunno. Maybe a minute or so.”

“Hmm.” She didn’t believe him. But she kept typing. And now he could feel his shirt sticking to his back. “Okay, let’s see . . . I’ve been going over your records.” She glanced at him. “Not attendance, we’ve been through that, but performance.”

He felt a little tingle of dread raise the hairs on the back of his neck. What was this all about?

She eyed the screen, as if studying it for the first time, but Dylan figured this might be for show, that she already knew what she was going to say. “Since you started at Edgewater High last year, your grades have slowly declined.”

So what else was new?

“But your test scores? Not at all. They’re above grade level, especially in math and computer science.” Her eyebrows knit over her glasses and her mouth turned down. Another practiced look. “In fact, your schoolwork doesn’t come anywhere close to where your tests indicate you should be.”