All of My Soul (18 page)

“Is this Rebecca Thompson?” an older woman
asked when I answered.

“No, this is her sister.”

“Oh, Jillian, dear. This is Mrs. Mayberry
from Saint Martin’s Elementary School.”

Uh oh. That was Tabitha’s school. “Hello,
Mrs. Mayberry.” She had been the office manager at the school way
back when I attended there. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, yes. I’m afraid Tabitha is sick. We’re
going to have to send her home.”

“Oh no. Okay, I’ll be right there to pick her
up. Tell her I’m on my way.”

Ugh! What else could go wrong today?

~~~~~~~~

I parked my car in the visitor’s parking lot
of the school and quickly jogged up the stone steps to the main
entrance. I looked back toward the parking lot as I reached for the
door and saw a dark sedan with tinted windows pull in and park on
the other end of the small visitor’s lot. I didn’t know why, but
something about that vehicle made me suspicious.

Squinting my eyes, I tried to see the driver,
but the angle of the sun and the dark tint made it impossible. I
worried for a moment about my car. The last thing I needed was to
come out of school with my sick niece only to find my tires slashed
again, but I assured myself I was overreacting. It was the middle
of the day in a very public place. I’m sure no one would try
anything here, so I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and
ducked inside the school to collect Tabitha.

I checked in with Mrs. Mayberry and found my
niece in the nurse’s office. Her face was pale, and her eyes were
red as if she had been crying. I immediately scooped her up, and
the poor thing nuzzled her head into my neck and held on to me
tight.

“She’ll be all right, I think,” the nurse
said. I couldn’t remember her name.

“Does she have a fever?”

“Yes. Very low grade. But she threw up twice
while waiting for you.”

I sighed and rubbed my niece’s back with my
free hand.

“Okay, thank you so much. Let’s go home,
Tabby Cat.”

“Bye, Tabitha. Feel better soon,” the nurse
said in a soothing voice while giving me a small smile.

Tabitha didn’t react to her, which was not
normal. Usually she had such a bubbly personality. It made my heart
hurt whenever she was sick and so downtrodden.

My steps faltered as I crossed the parking
lot, carrying my niece. The driver of the dark sedan was leaning
against his vehicle, facing the school, watching Tabitha and me. He
was wearing jeans and a dark gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled
up over his head. Between that and his dark sunglasses, I couldn’t
see his face very well, but he made my skin prickle. If he was a
parent, why was he waiting outside the school in the middle of the
day?

I got Tabitha situated in my car as quickly
as possible before I got in the driver’s seat and locked the doors.
I was just about to call the school to report this suspicious man
when I looked in my review mirror and didn’t see him. I twisted
around in my seat to get a better look when I saw his car leave the
lot as he drove away. Very odd. But the incident was pushed from my
mind when my niece let out a small groan from the backseat. Time to
get her home.

I sped home as fast as I could, hoping her
lunch wouldn’t make an appearance in the backseat of my car. Once
we got home, I helped her change into pajamas and laid her down on
the couch. Her eyelids drooped immediately as she rested her head
on her pillow, and I covered her with some extra blankets.
Hopefully she would sleep well and feel better once she woke.

I texted my sister to break the news that she
had a sick kid at home. She replied, telling me she’d try to get
off work early.
Thank God
, I thought. I didn’t mind in the
least taking care of my niece, and I was happy to help, but I knew
Rebecca wanted to be here for her daughter, and if she was able to
come home early I could work on my thesis and finally e-mail my
advisor.

~~~~~~~~

I heard the front door open and close as I
paced the hallway holding my cell phone to my ear. I was trying to
wait patiently, but the music they were playing while I was on hold
was not making it easy.

I darted out to the living room to find my
sister in her nursing uniform leaning over her daughter on the
couch. Tabitha barely stirred as her mother adjusted her
blankets.

“Oh, thank God! You’re home early.”

“Why? Did she get worse?” Rebecca brushed
Tabitha’s bangs back to feel her forehead.

“No. I think she’s okay. She’s been sleeping.
But my computer crashed. I’m on hold with the tech department at
school waiting to hear if they can look at it.” My voice was calm
despite the rising panic inside me. I was on the verge of losing
it. I had been seconds away from e-mailing my advisor when a small
pop-up window appeared. Then another… and another… until my whole
screen was filled. Nothing I tried was effective at stopping the
spawn of windows clogging my screen, and when I tried to restart my
computer, I got the blue screen of death before it crashed and
displayed black and white garble.

“Oh no! Did you lose all your work?” my
sister asked.

“I don’t know. It should be saved in my cloud
storage, but I have no way to check. I’m trying to see if someone
can look at it.”

The awful hold music abruptly stopped.
“Jillian?” a man’s voice said through the phone.

“Yes?”

“I can look at your laptop if you’re here by
4:30.”

I looked at the clock on the wall. That was
fifteen minutes away. “Yes! I can do that. I’ll be there as soon as
possible.”

“Come to Samson Hall, room 309. Check in at
the front desk and ask for Isaac.”

“Thank you so much! I’ll be right there!”

As I put on my shoes and packed up my laptop,
it registered in the back of my mind that I was about to do the
exact opposite of what Lincoln had requested. I had promised him I
wouldn’t go anywhere alone, but this would be the second time today
that I broke my promise. I couldn’t see any alternative, though.
Tabitha clearly wasn’t able to come with me, and my sister had to
stay home with her. I had no choice.

“What’s Lincoln going to say?” my sister
asked, somehow knowing what I was thinking.

“I’ll tell him later. I’m sure no one is
planning to hurt me in the computer department.”

Rebecca chewed on her bottom lip, clearly
unhappy with my answer. “What if Kennedy or Emily went with
you?”

“There’s no way either of them could get here
in time. I have to be there like right now.”

“All right. Just—just be careful,” she said
unhappily.

“It’ll be fine. I’m sure,” I said trying to
reassure both her and me.

Chapter
Fourteen

“Well, I’ve got bad news and worse news,” my
tech guy, Isaac said.

I had been waiting for an hour and a half to
find out my laptop’s diagnosis when he finally called me into a
back room filled with several round tables. Multicolored wires were
draped across two of them. Wide-eyed, focused, tech guys sat at two
other tables, totally absorbed in the computers in front of them.
My laptop sat at another table next to two other laptops. Isaac sat
down in front of one of them and pulled a chair up next to him for
me to sit.

“You can’t fix it?” I asked as I took my
seat.

“No.” He tapped on my mouse’s track pad. The
screen woke up but instantly turned to a garbled mess of words and
what looked like binary code. “I’m afraid you’ve got a nasty virus.
It auto generated and corrupted all your files until your
motherboard crashed.”

FUUUCK!

“I could replace the motherboard and hard
drive, but you might as well just buy a new computer for what
that’s going to cost you, and all your files will still be
gone.”

I wanted to scream. I didn’t have the money
for a new laptop. I currently had no steady form of income, and my
savings were quickly running out. And I was not about to let
Lincoln buy me one.

“Shit,” I uttered in disbelief.

Isaac chuckled softly. “Yeah. I hope you
didn’t have anything irreplaceable on there.”

I sighed. “Well, I saved everything to my
cloud, but can I access that from my sister’s desktop computer at
home?”

“Of course. You just have to connect to the
university network. Want me to walk you through it?”

I nodded. “I’d appreciate it.” My sister’s
desktop was old; she had used it when she was in college. It may
not be ideal, but I felt it was my only option.

Isaac pushed my worthless laptop away and
pulled another to the center of the table between us. Within a few
clicks he had reviewed with me how to connect to the network and
had my cloud storage drive displayed on the screen.

My skin prickled as I waited for my files to
load but nothing happened.

“Um,” Isaac said awkwardly. “Did you say you
had files on here?”

“Yes! My whole thesis paper and all my
research data is on there!”

Isaac clicked a few more icons. “Not anymore.
Your cloud is empty.”

“What?!” I stood up quickly, knocking my
chair over.

My tech guru looked up at me with surprise.
“There are no files on here. Are you sure you saved it to your
cloud?”

“Yes!”

He frowned. “Well, someone deleted them.”

Dammit!

“The virus?”

“No. No. Our network firewall would have
blocked that. All right. Just give me a second. Let me look in your
cache folder. Deleted or moved items are stored there for
emergencies for three days.”

I held my breath as he clicked and flipped
through windows on the screen.

“Hmm…”

“It’s not there, is it?” I asked
impatiently.

Oh God, what am I going to do?

“Sorry, miss. Looks like your cache was
cleared an hour ago. I’m afraid it’s all gone.”

I groaned in frustration. I wasn't going to
get upset with this man. It wasn't his fault. But as an utter sense
of defeat came over me, tears began forming in my eyes. All my
months of research. All my years of hard work. Gone. I tried to
hide my sniffles and tears, but my voice broke when I spoke again.
“Okay. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your help.”

I started collecting my belongings, my hands
shaking with emotion as my mind raced. What was I going to do? I’d
have to talk to my professors and advisors right away. I was going
to have to drop my thesis class and cancel my graduation. I wiped
away a tear that escaped my eye as I pushed my chair in and turned
to leave.

“Wait. Miss?” Isaac stopped me.

“Yes?” I turned and asked in a small voice.
My heart leapt with hope for one small second. Maybe he found
something.

“Have you e-mailed your files to anyone
recently while connected to the university's network?”

Defeat again. “No. I usually only connect to
access my cloud,” I said sadly. “Oh wait! I was connected to the
university library’s proxy server when I e-mailed my thesis and
research data to my advisor last week. At least, I think I e-mailed
it.”

“You think you e-mailed it?” Isaac asked,
looking at me like I was below average intelligence.

“No. I know I did, but my advisor said he
never received it.”

Isaac furrowed his brows. “Weird. Okay, let
me check.”

Again his fingers expertly flew over the
keyboard while clicking on icons and files with the mouse. I had to
force myself to breathe. Anticipation bubbled in my stomach, and I
clutched the strap of my laptop case so tight my knuckles
hurt
.

Please be there. Please be there. Please be
there.

“Jillian Thompson. You are one lucky lady,”
he said with a smile. “The web cache for the library's proxy server
is only cleared once a month. I can see every e-mail that you sent
or received while you were connected to the library.”

Relief washed through me, and I went weak in
the knees. Oh, thank God. My hand shook as I covered my lips with
my fingers and squeezed my eyes shut. “Ooh, thank you. Thank you so
much.” I sniffled. “I literally did not know what I was going to
do.” I wanted to hug him.

He smiled and chuckled. “I’m glad I could
help. I’m going to reset your passwords and resave it in your
cloud. I’m also going to e-mail it to you right now and—” He opened
a drawer hidden under the table, pulled out a small device, and
inserted it into the USB port. “I’m going to save it to this flash
drive for you to keep.”

“Thank you. Thank you,” I repeated myself,
not knowing how else to express my extreme gratitude to this
man.

“You said your professor never got the e-mail
you sent?” Isaac asked as he reset my cloud security.

“My advisor, Dr. Rugger. Yeah, the e-mail was
in my sent folder, but he said he never got it.”

He began quizzing me about my Internet
activity. I assured him I hadn’t downloaded any weird files or
opened any corrupted e-mails that may have contained viruses. He
seemed as puzzled as I was over how I could have gotten a virus and
where my e-mail to my advisor had gone.

“It’s weird,” he said. “I’m going to look
into it. Can’t promise I’ll find anything. I’m supposed to be an
expert at computers, and I hate to admit it, but sometimes I think
these things have gremlins in them. Makes them do some weird
things.”

“Honestly, I don’t care how it happened. I’m
just so glad you managed to recover it!”

“Happy to help,” he said with a proud smile.
He should be proud of himself. I thought I was sunk. I was
definitely going to have to think of something to send him as a
thank you.

~~~~~~~~

Night had fallen by the time I left the
computer department, carrying my useless laptop and precious new
flash drive. Campus seemed empty, or at least this building was.
Students were either in class or tucked away studying.