Head Over Heels by Gail Sattler

Author:Gail Sattler
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2006-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Russ paced the floor, unable to sit still.

He didn’t even wait for the doorbell to ring. The second she turned off her engine, he opened the door. He could tell the exact moment she saw him. She froze, then, instead of walking, she jogged up the sidewalk. He stepped backward to give her room to get into the hallway, closing the door once she was inside.

“What’s wrong?” she panted.

“Someone broke into my house while I was at the youth center today.”

She pressed both hands over her mouth. “Oh, no! What was stolen?” she gasped.

Russ ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s the strange thing. Nothing.”

Her hands drifted down. “That’s good. I guess you scared them off when you got home.”

He swept one hand in the air in the direction of his neighbor’s house. “No. I didn’t. The neighbors told me that my alarm went off about an hour and a half ago. They didn’t see anything. They said there wasn’t a strange car parked on the street or in my driveway, they didn’t see anyone hanging around, and since there weren’t any open windows they didn’t call the cops—they thought it was a false alarm. The only reason they phoned me was to complain about the noise.”

Marielle drew her hands into balls and rested her fists on her hips. “That’s awful! But at least your neighbors scared them off. How much damage was done to your house?”

“None, actually.”

Her head tipped to one side. “Let me get this straight. Nothing was stolen, no damage was done to your house, and the neighbors didn’t see anyone.”

“That’s right. But I know someone was here. Because of the computer. The keyboard isn’t where I left it. I always push it forward when I’m done because I hot-sync my PDA every time I power it down. That way what I’ve finished working on is backed up. But when I got home, after the neighbors told me the alarm had gone off, the first thing I did after I made sure Fred was okay was run in here to see if someone stole my computer. It wasn’t stolen, but it definitely had been used. It was properly turned off, but someone had turned it on and was using it while they were here.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know. But that doesn’t negate the fact that it happened.”

“How do you know for sure?”

“I have my e-mail program loaded so it opens on start-up and downloads my new messages. When I turned it on, there were messages on it that I hadn’t read, and the time they were downloaded was about the same as when my neighbor said the alarm went off.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. You’d think if someone broke in, they would turn everything to be marked as unread to cover their tracks.”

“I’m guessing they were in a rush and didn’t want to take the time with the alarm blaring.”

“But what about a password? If you work from home sometimes, don’t you need to keep your computer secure?”

“No.

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