Hidden (Nicole Jones #1)(25)

I have no idea who Tracker is outside this world. I have always thought of Tracker as a man, but he could be a woman, too. There aren’t too many girl hackers, but they do exist, most with androgynous names to hide their gender. I had fantasized about meeting Tracker someday, but when I suggested it, in my naivete, he dissuaded me from pursuing any sort of physical contact.

‘You and I can never be associated together,’ he’d written me. ‘It will be one of the biggest regrets of my life, but it’s safer. For both of us.’

My imagination regarding Tracker was vivid: he was young, like me, or he was older and married and had a family, or he was a criminal on the run, or he was some IT guy who was bored and wanted to see what he could do outside the perimeters of his job. Or none of the above.

Angel is quiet again.

The idea of Tracker has me nervous. Will he come into the chat? Will he be the same? Can I still trust him? The cognac has made me a little lightheaded, so I get up and fix myself a cheese sandwich and pour a glass of milk.

Angel still has not returned.

The sandwich tastes like cardboard, but I force myself to finish it, washing it down with the milk. I have not been this anxious in a long time, even when I knew he was on the island. This is a different type of anxious. I touch my hair and wonder if Tracker has gray streaks in his, too. If he has crow’s feet around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth.

It’s possible that Tracker is younger than me. I was twenty when I first ‘met’ him online. It’s possible that I have at least five years or more on him; hackers get early starts.

My brain is in overload, just thinking about it, when I see that I have a message. My hands begin to shake as I read.

It is Angel. Tracker says to meet him tomorrow morning at seven EST. He then gives me a URL, a place where Tracker and I can meet privately, away from the chat.

I know what’s going on. Tracker is going to try to find out if I am really who I say I am. I smile to myself, knowing he will be as thorough as he can be, but his search will turn up no more than my search just did.

Thank you, I write back to Angel, but I see he has already disappeared.

I log out of the chat room, shut down the laptop. My whole body is shaking now, but I don’t know if it’s from the excitement of knowing Tracker is still out there or nervousness that I am getting back in the game. Because for the first time I am sure that I am. I wrap my arms around my chest and squeeze tight, forcing myself to calm down. I eye the glass with the remnants of my cognac from earlier and without a second thought find the bottle and pour myself another short one. Steve would be horrified, but I need to relax. Especially since I realize that he still hasn’t come around. It has been a long time since I left him alone at the Blue Dory Inn, since he went looking for me while I was at the Bluffs. This worries me.

I cannot stay here and wait. I feel as though I will jump out of my skin. I put the laptop back in the pantry, under the potatoes, then find my paints and easel. I pick up the case with the paints, put my easel under my arm and lock up my little house, walking down the road and then to the beach. There is no one here today; the breeze is cool and the skies have clouded over.

I unpack everything and set up, mixing some paint on a palette, sweeping the brush through it, eyeing the canvas. It is bright white, empty. I have painted the water and sky from this place before, but the colors are different today: gray with hints of purple, tiny whitecaps dancing on the water. I sweep the brush across the white background, the color bold and soft at the same time.

I stay here for a long time, the painting taking shape, a mirror image of what I’m looking at. Veronica will love it, I think, and maybe she will hang it in a prominent place in the gallery.

As I work, I spot the ferry coming toward the island, and with a few more brushstrokes it is there, on my canvas, just off to the left.

I am calm again; the nervousness I felt earlier has dissipated with the normalness of what I am doing. I have pushed everything that’s happened out of my head, and for a short time I am Nicole, bike tour operator and artist with no past, only a present.

When the painting is done, I glance at my watch and see I have been here for two and a half hours. I glance up at the road above me. A few cars have gone by; I have more heard them than seen them. Where I am, I am out of sight. Someone would only see me if he came down to the beach. This has not been by accident.

I am delaying the inevitable. If he has been looking for me, he is probably even angrier by now because I have disappeared. I study the painting, see that I can add nothing more and know it’s time to go back. I pack up the paints and the easel and carry the painting carefully up the hill and to the road. I hear voices, and there is a family – mother, father and three children – laughing at the llamas.

As I approach my house, I see that something is wrong.

The door is open.





FOURTEEN


I stop, put down the easel and paints’ case and gently lay the painting next to them. Every instinct is to run, but I am frozen here, staring at my house. The windows are dark; I can’t see inside. But someone is there – or has been there.

I should call the police. Call nine-one-one. But what would I tell them? Someone, possibly – probably – my lover, has broken into my house and is waiting for me. It would sound crazy, and I don’t want to bring any more attention to myself than he has already brought me.