Down to the Liar(18)

“What do you mean?”

He’s silent for a beat too long, like he’s filtering. “It’s not relevant. Just some awful stuff from her childhood.”

“Everything is relevant until it isn’t, Garrett. If you know something, you need to tell me.”

His gaze drops and he shuffles uncomfortably. “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone. But if there’s a chance she’s being stalked…”

I wait patiently for him to come to terms with his conscience. I’m so glad I don’t really have one of those. Well, I have one, but it’s pretty anemic.

Finally, he wrestles the words out. “Sky’s parents are always touring without her. When she was younger, they hired a woman to be her caretaker while they were away.”

I can already see where this is going.

“She abused Skyla. Horribly. But that was years ago. When her parents found out what was going on, they fired the woman on the spot and reported her to the police. And Sky hasn’t seen or heard from the woman since. So it can’t be related, can it?”

I would normally think not, if it happened years ago. But if the woman was reported to the police, she might be back for revenge.

“I wish I could say for sure it’s not. It would be a stretch to assume it was related, since it happened years ago. But this case has been weird from the beginning. I’ll just have to figure out how to get the mark to—” I stop myself from saying reveal himself. Garrett is still a possibility, and I don’t want to scare him off.

“To what?”

“To stop posting. Maybe it’s time to get Facebook security to delete the accounts.”

In reality, I have no intention of going to the authorities with this. We piqued the mark’s interest with the tale of those pictures. It’s time to move on to the shutout portion of the wire game. If only I knew how to translate the honeypot to something more concrete.

“Thanks, Garrett.” I stuff my hands in my jacket pockets. “Don’t be evil.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I walk back to Murphy, who’s been waiting in the stands this whole time.

“What did he say?” he asks when I reach him.

“He denied it, as you’d expect.” I shiver, thinking about what else he revealed. “But I think we may have bigger problems.”

“Like what?”

“Like trying to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt who’s responsible. We can’t prove anything with just an IP address. We need more. Otherwise, we’re dead in the water.”

Murphy sighs. “Unfortunately, ‘dead’ is starting to look like a literal possibility.”

He hands me his phone with Facebook pulled up. It’s one of the accounts attacking Skyla, the most recent post of which went live a minute ago:

Skyla-a-a-a, if you won’t kill yourself, then I just might do it for you.



—

After a lengthy, and annoying, brainstorming session with Tog and his team via video chat, we’ve come up with exactly nothing. Several ideas, each more elaborate and less likely to work than the last, streamed through the Internet ether, clogging network connections with bytes of worthless junk.

Tog finally signs off, flipping me the bird for my parting snarky comment about his ridiculous bling leeching all the juice out of his brain.

Murphy sighs. “You really ought to stop pissing off our best hacker.”

“He’s not our best hacker.”

“No, he’s our only hacker, thanks to your lame fight with Sam.”

“It’s not a fight,” I snap back. “I’m not angry at him, and as far as I know he’s not angry with me.”

“Then why don’t you call him?”

“Why don’t you call him?”

“So we’re in middle school now? I’m not playing go-between for you and Sam. Work it out, Julep. We need him.”

I end the video chat with Murphy and lean back in my chair. I’m glad I have the office to myself right now. I still haven’t heard from Dani, and it’s making me angsty. I was probably too harsh on Tog. I was definitely too harsh on Murphy.

I’m sick to death of all my damage. I’m angry all the time, and whenever something irritates me even slightly, I snap. I used to have a sense of humor. I used to have a sense of self-preservation. Hell, Dani’s probably right. Ever since the night I lost Tyler, and Sam, as well as my dad, my home, and my credibility, I’ve had this giant chip on my shoulder. Like wrapping myself in anger at the unfairness of it might somehow convince the universe to send them back to me.