Watched by C. J. Lyons

Author:C. J. Lyons
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc
Published: 2014-09-09T15:11:32+00:00

26

Her dad hugged her hard until his arms shook. Miranda abandoned all pretense at trying to act like an adult and bawled like a baby. Finally, after her tears had run dry and she’d stained his uniform shirt with snot, she sat up and rubbed her face with her palms.

“I’m pretty good with computers,” she said, a hint of defiance in her voice.

He shook with laughter that was close to tears. “I know you are, sweetheart.” He straightened, kissed the top of her head, and pulled his chair so they sat so close together that their legs touched, as if he couldn’t stand to have any distance between them. “How’d you find him?”

“It was like piecing together a puzzle without knowing what the picture was,” she tried to explain it in terms a nonhacker would understand. Details like ISPs and steganography would just muddy things. He frowned and she knew he was thinking of her promise that she’d give up her search for the Creep. She had to prove to him that her lies were worth it. “First, I was able to track some emails to Smithfield Telenet. It was the common denominator, so I started there.”

“Telenet? The ones who own the arena. They’re based in Smithfield.” He leaned forward, his gaze locking on hers. “It wasn’t a coincidence that I got the job offer at Smithfield College after you got out of the hospital.”

She shook her head. Easy peasy to find a job that suited him and do a little phishing, make it look like it came from the résumé site he’d signed up for. And who wouldn’t want to hire him, with his qualifications and commendations?

“Want to tell me which jobs I missed out on?”

“Nothing you would have liked. Security guard at a West Virginia coal mine, stuff like that.”

“But you wanted us to move near Smithfield. To be near Telenet.”

“Convincing the doctors that a move would be good for me was easy,” she admitted. “And Smithfield has classes so Mom wouldn’t get too far behind. Plus, it’s not very expensive to live here, so I thought it would help since we still had the hospital bills and the house back in Pittsburgh and—”

“You thought of everything.” His gaze narrowed as he looked at King’s image on the Telenet website. “You even got me to moonlight at the arena. Why? Because Telenet holds their events there? But how did that help when you didn’t know who he was—”

“I knew I would. Someday.” Her tone was grim. He hadn’t figured out the rest and she hoped he never would. The part about her birthday and what she’d promised herself she’d do to end all this—one way or the other.

“What makes you sure this is him? This Leonard Kerstater?”

“I had a little help.” There was no way around it, especially since Jesse would be here any minute now. She told Dad everything—except the part about the gun. She didn’t want to get Jesse in trouble.

By the time she finished, he was standing, pacing the narrow space between the table and the counter.

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