Hidden (Nicole Jones #1)(13)

‘Virtual private network. It’s not the way it used to be, when we had dial-up. It wasn’t as secure then – you know that. But it’s changed, like everything about the Internet. Now it’s usually for companies to let their employees work remotely, but anyone can use it, too, and be virtually invisible. It’s how the Chinese can get on Facebook.’ He sees my expression. ‘Social media. You hook up with old high school friends—’

‘I saw the movie,’ I say curtly, but I’m still thinking about VPN. How it reroutes the IP address so no one can trace where you are and logs are cleared every twenty-four hours. ‘What about subpoenas?’ I know about how the law works. How someone can get caught.

‘There’s no data retention law here in the States.’ There is something in his expression, though, that I can’t read.

‘What?’

He sighs. ‘Some surveillance. Some server raids.’

That’s how it happened before. He knows what I’m thinking.

‘It’s not the same. It’s safer,’ he says again. ‘You were doing your thing during the dark ages, and see what you were able to do. It’s easier now, you won’t believe it.’

‘If it’s so easy, why do you need me? Why don’t you do it yourself?’

He snorts. ‘You know I can’t. Besides, you don’t exist, remember? No one can trace it to you. Anyway, you used to be good at figuring out how to keep from being traced.’

‘Until I wasn’t.’ The words hang between us.

‘It took a long time to find you. You’re pretty good at disappearing.’

I wonder exactly what he’s referring to and think about the implications of what he’s saying. It also reminds me of something else. ‘I don’t want to be that missing person who’s discovered dead,’ I say softly.

His face clouds. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, but the way he says it makes me worry. We are both remembering.

He cups my chin, stares into my eyes, and for a second I am transported back.

‘I can’t,’ I say, moving away from him. ‘Not again. I have a life here, a good life.’

‘A lonely life,’ he says flatly.

I shake my head. I have friends, I have a job, I have a house. I chose this. I didn’t choose him.

‘But if all this is really what you want, then maybe you should think about it. This’ – he waves his hand around in the air, indicating my house – ‘can disappear as quickly as you can. So think seriously about it.’ He again diminishes the distance between us. His eyes are dark, and a chill travels down my back as I hear the threat beneath the seduction. This is what he planned all along.

‘OK. I’ll think about it,’ I say, putting my hand on his chest to keep him from coming closer. I am lying, though. I can’t think about it, despite his threat. But it is the best way to get rid of him.

He smiles; his eyes twinkle. ‘That’s a good girl.’

I want to slap him for that, but I keep my face neutral. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘Blue something—’

‘Blue Dory Inn,’ I say. ‘Beautiful place. You can afford it?’

‘I get by. Same as you. I doubt you can make ends meet just on those paintings and bike tours.’

I let him think what he likes. ‘So he told you?’

‘Who told me what?’

‘You know. Where I was.’

He looks around my kitchen, at the brass colander hanging on the wall, the backsplash tiles with the little rosebuds painted on them, the white lace curtain over the window. ‘This is a nice place,’ he remarks, ignoring me, looking up toward a shelf near the back door. ‘What’s in the jars?’ He goes over to them and picks one up, shakes it. ‘Rocks?’

I stiffen, although I know those jars are not dated. ‘Beach stones,’ I try to say lightly. ‘We’ve got great stone beaches here.’

He puts the jar back. ‘You’re just one f*cking tour guide, aren’t you?’ He flashes me a grin. ‘I’ll see you later.’

And then he is gone, out the door, and I watch him stroll across the lawn, over the hill and out of sight. Again, it seems too easy to get rid of him. Which means that I have not.

I turn back toward the table, where the computer sits. Waiting for me. If I can get in wherever he wants me to, it would be a cinch this time. I read the papers. I watch the news. I see the possibilities every day. It’s not like I haven’t thought about what it would’ve been like with the technology today. He is right about one thing: the Internet was just in its infancy fifteen years ago. Now it’s a toddler, growing faster and faster every day. Everyone seems to have a computer. Even Steve has one; he’s offered to let me use his. I always tell him I’m not savvy with things like that, that I don’t want to learn.

He has no idea.

I leave it where it is without touching it again. Within minutes I’m straddling my bike, racing away from my house, in the opposite direction of Old Harbor, and soon I’m on Cooneymus Road. I abandon the bike at the trail entrance to Rodman’s Hollow, a two-hundred-and-thirty-acre glacial outwash basin where the shad creeps around me like the lace curtains on my bedroom windows. I am barely thinking, concentrating on the trail as I bear left at the split and go up the knoll. Even though I have been here hundreds of times, I am struck by the stunning view, and I sit. No one is here; I am alone. I hear birds calling to one another and close my eyes, my heart still pounding from the ride, the hike, the computer.