Don't Turn Around (5 page)

She’d kept her head down on the train, but no one seemed to notice her. It was always almost too easy to sneak a ride on the T. Noa made a point of paying when she could, honoring their honor system. Still, it was times like this that the lax security came in handy. The train had brought her past the stop nearest her apartment. When the doors slid open, she’d been tempted to jump out and head to her place. Maybe it was just a fluke that she’d been grabbed while walking away from it; maybe whoever took her didn’t know where she lived. She could take a shower, put on her own clothes. Crawl into bed, even though she didn’t feel tired despite everything that had happened.

Too risky, she decided. Not until she found out more about what was going on.

When she stepped through the doors into the cool white interior of the store, she was enveloped by a wave of calm. Funny how just seeing the giant logo of an apple with a bite out of it did that to her. For most people, home was represented by four walls and a roof. Not for Noa. She preferred a motherboard to a mother, a keyboard to house keys. Nothing was more comforting than the hum of a spinning hard drive.

At this hour, the store was nearly empty. The greeter was a geeky-looking guy in his midtwenties with a pocked face and spiky hair stiff with gel. His smile was strained as he said in a single breath, “Welcome to the Apple store can I help you with something we’re closing in five minutes.”

“Fifteen,” Noa corrected him.

“What?”

“Fifteen. You close at nine.”

He opened his mouth as if to argue, but she’d already moved past him, headed to the laptops bolted to a table at the far end of the room. There were a few other people checking out iPads nearby. No one paid any attention as she started tapping a rapid sequence into the keyboard of a floor model.

A minute later, she logged off and went to the register. A bored-looking clerk handed a bag to the customer ahead of her, then waved her up to the counter.

“My dad ordered me a computer. I’m here to pick it up,” Noa said.

“Name?”

“Latham. Nora Latham.” The Lathams were the fictional foster family she’d invented to fool social services. After a series of less-than-stellar experiences with the foster-care system, Noa had come to the conclusion that she was better off on her own. So she’d established a bank account in their name and filled it with cash earned by her fictional foster father. As far as her clients knew, she was Ted Latham, a brilliant yet reclusive IT consultant. He worked freelance, primarily for a West-Coast-based company named Rocket Science. They were perfect in that they held Ted’s skill set in such high regard that they threw a lot of business his way and didn’t question eccentricities like his refusal to make on-site visits. Ted had a social security number, a PO Box, and a stellar credit rating. And he was extremely generous with his foster daughter, transferring nearly his entire income into her personal account every month. Plus he and his wife, Nell, were big believers in homeschooling: so good-bye, high school. They were easily the best parents she’d ever had.

The clerk tapped some keys, then said, “Yup, here it is. I’ll have them bring it out for you. Step to the side to wait.”

Noa obliged. As she waited for the new MacBook Pro, she felt a pang. Her old computer had been in her messenger bag when she was taken. Losing it hurt almost as much as the loss of the jade bracelet. It was the nicest thing she’d ever owned. She’d just bought a similar model, slightly smaller and more portable, the 13-inch rather than the 15-inch. Chances were, she’d be carrying it everywhere for the indefinite future, so better to travel light.

A guy came out of the stockroom holding the new computer in a box. He was a slight variation on the door greeter, just as pimply but with darker hair. He grinned at her. “Nora?”

“Yup.” She held out her hands for the box.

He held on to it. “This is a great computer; I’ve got the same one at home.”

“Yeah, I know,” Noa said impatiently.

“We’re about to close, but if you want help setting it up, there’s a Starbucks right down the—”

“No thanks.” Noa reached for it again.

He looked wounded, but handed it over. “All right, then. Enjoy.”

Noa didn’t bother answering. She grabbed the box, tucked it under her arm, and headed out the door.

Even though her fingers were itching to tear open the box, she forced herself to wait until she was five blocks away. This time of night, downtown was quiet and desolate. She found the open Starbucks near Back Bay Station and made her way to a corner table, ignoring the pointed look of the girl behind the register who was waiting to take orders. Noa was oddly still not hungry, but the smell of brewing coffee was making her long for a mocha.

She remained freezing, though, like her insides were a solid block of ice. Noa rubbed her hands together, attempting to warm up.

She opened the box, got out the laptop, and powered it up. First thing she had to do was access some cash. These days, you needed at least a debit card to get through the day.

Noa logged on to her bank account, then checked the credit card companies. None of them could get her cash or a card replacement outside of a twenty-four-hour window, which meant she’d be stuck on the street until then. Not the worst thing in the world, but more than anything right now she wanted to be alone. The girl behind the register was still eyeing her, and Noa met her gaze, glaring her down. When the girl looked away, suddenly extremely interested in the muffin selection, Noa allowed herself a small smile and turned back to the screen.

Her eyes fell on the clock at the upper right-hand corner, and she frowned. That couldn’t be right.

A well-thumbed copy of the
Boston Globe
was splayed across the next table. Noa reached over and grabbed it to double-check the date.

“Oh my God,” she mumbled aloud. October twenty-fifth. The last day she remembered was October third. She’d lost three weeks.

Noa leaned back against the wall, stunned. Her hand reflexively went to her chest again, where the incision throbbed dully. She really needed a quiet place to try to figure out what had happened. Which meant that she might have to suck it up and do her least favorite thing in the whole world: Ask someone for help.

She logged into her email account and scanned through. A few messages from Rocket Science about potential jobs, the tone becoming increasingly annoyed as “Ted” didn’t respond. Some spam, and a couple of online billers.

Nothing personal. She’d been gone three weeks, and no one had missed her. Noa knew it should make her feel sad, but it was oddly gratifying. It meant she was leaving a tiny footprint, which was exactly what her goal had been.

Lacking those personal connections was inconvenient now, though. She’d had a foster family a few years ago that had been okay, or at least less awful than the others. She wondered how the Wilsons would react to her showing up on their doorstep....

As she was debating it, an email popped into her account. She recognized the handle, Vallas, but frowned at the message. Had this been sent accidentally? She hadn’t graced a school in over a year, ever since she figured out how to game the system. Yet the email mentioned a term paper.

Curious, she responded with,
Sure. See you there
.

She closed out her email and logged on to The Quad, an online forum populated entirely by hackers. Tough to find if you didn’t know where to look for it, since it was shielded from all the search engines. You had to be invited to participate, and it was a fairly exclusive community; only the best of the best were asked. Noa had been thrilled when the offer to join came in. One of the only times in her life when she’d really felt like she belonged.

Online, Noa went by the handle Rain. She’d become curious about her name a few years earlier and nosed around into the origins of it. It turned out to be a relatively common Scandinavian name. One site claimed it derived from Odin; in Denmark “Noa-skeppet” and “Oden-Skeppet” were used interchangeably to describe a type of cloud formation that meant rain was coming.

She’d always liked rain anyway, not being much of a sun person. So it suited her.

She waited until Vallas appeared as a user, then invited him into a private chat and typed,
What’s up?

Need help researching AMRF,
Vallas wrote.

That was strange. She mainly knew Vallas from a hacktivist group she frequented, /ALLIANCE/. She generally shied away from that sort of thing, not being much of a joiner. Most were focused on pulling off juvenile pranks anyway, or were downright criminal, and she had no interest in drawing the attention of law enforcement. But /ALLIANCE/ seemed different. Some of what they did struck near and dear to her heart, like when they went after perverts and bullies. So she’d participated in a few of their raids over the past few months.

Still, with everything she had going on right now, she wasn’t about to get involved with someone else’s vendetta. She was busy enough with her own.

Sorry, no time
.

A pause, then Vallas typed,
It’s important. I can pay you
.

Noa was about to respond that she didn’t need money, then hesitated. Actually, that’s exactly what she needed. But she needed it now. Western Union would ask for some sort of ID before handing over cash; otherwise she’d initiate a transfer from her own account. But based on some of Vallas’s posts, she knew he was a local kid—a couple of times he’d referenced things only a Bostonian would know about. Still, that didn’t necessarily mean she could trust him. Dare she risk it?

It has to be cash,
she typed.
Tonight
.

A longer pause before he wrote back,
How much?

A thousand to start
.

I can get you $500
.

Noa smiled—that would be more than she’d need to get her through the next day. And barring any bank screwups, she’d be able to access her own money again by tomorrow or the day after at the latest.

Fine,
she wrote.
Where should we meet?

Peter signed off and closed the phone. He’d logged on to The Quad with his cell since he figured it would be more secure than using Bob’s computer. At least in theory it would be harder for anyone to access the information, especially since he was on a forum created by some of the best tech minds in the world. The Quad was the online equivalent of a medieval fortress.

Still, he was nervous about meeting Rain in person. He wasn’t even sure how old Rain was, or if he should expect a male or female. He kind of assumed it would be a guy, based on the /ALLIANCE/ demographic, but these days you never knew. They’d agreed to meet in Back Bay Station by the burrito cart. This late it would probably be deserted.

He grabbed his ATM card and headed out. It took forty-five minutes to get there, mainly because he had to stop to withdraw the maximum daily amount to pay Rain. Five hundred dollars was a lot to ask for, but Rain was easily one of the best hackers frequenting /ALLIANCE/. Maybe even better than him, he was forced to admit. Plus Peter had the cash. Bob and Priscilla were kind of clueless about money, so his allowance was way more than what most of his friends got.

Peter was more concerned about how Bob would react if he wasn’t back home by the time they returned, so he drove into town rather than take the T.

He parked in a lot nearby and sat there for a second. This all felt very cloak-and-dagger, meeting a stranger late at night in a train station for a payoff. A small part of him was thrilled by it all. It had definitely turned out to be a more interesting night than he’d expected.

He checked his watch; they’d agreed to meet at ten thirty, and it was a little before that. Peter got out of the car and crossed the street to Back Bay Station.

A few homeless people were huddled near the entrance under makeshift shelters crafted from shopping carts and ragged, smelly blankets. Peter gave them a wide berth and tried to walk with a confident swagger. He wished he’d worn something other than his fleece and jeans; he felt hopelessly conspicuous and out of place. Where he lived was technically part of the city, but in reality it was more of a sheltered suburb. He’d been spending more time in Boston proper since Amanda started school at Tufts, but even then they mainly hung out on campus. This felt different, and Peter was suddenly hyperconscious of the wad of hundreds in his wallet.

He shook it off, drawing himself up straight. This was Back Bay Station, not some dark alley. There had to be cops around; he just wasn’t seeing any.

Peter walked in the front doors and stopped. It was cavernous inside, much bigger than he remembered. He had no idea how to find the burrito cart where they were supposed to meet.

The tiled floor echoed under his feet as he wandered around. He went to a few of the platforms, but only saw a handful of exhausted-looking people, most staring at the ground, each clearly in their own world. No one who seemed to be waiting for someone.

Back upstairs, he walked the length of the building, then took out his phone to double-check the time. Nearly eleven. He was frustrated, ready to give up.

“Vallas?”

Peter turned. He hadn’t known exactly what to expect, but it wasn’t this. Facing him was a girl with raven hair and enormous blue-green eyes. She looked like she was his age, or maybe a little younger. Pale skin, to the point where in this light she almost glowed. She had a MacBook Pro box tucked under her arm.

Despite the crazy outfit she was wearing, she was gorgeous. He swallowed hard to fight the sudden dryness in his mouth.

“Rain?” he managed.

“Would anyone else call you Vallas?” she asked, blatantly examining him. Peter got the distinct feeling that he wasn’t what she’d expected, either, and not in a good way. “What’s a Vallas, anyway?”

“It’s the name of my avatar in WoW.”

She gave him a blank look. “W-O-W? Like, wow?”

“No, not wow.” Peter felt slightly silly as he explained, “World of Warcraft.”

“The video game?” Her eyebrows arched.