Hawk Moon (9 page)

Aaron,
Will thought,
wasn't taking
a
computer
course
. He recalled the song about him that Aaron had made up at Paige's party. It was the same sort of doggerel that had been sent to him on E-mail.

He rolled his chair back and looked down the row of cubicles. The one where Aaron had been sitting was empty now. He must have been leaving when Will arrived.

"What's wrong?" Baines asked.

Will shook his head. "Nothing." He scrolled down to the third letter. "I wonder why
Fanz
here doesn't use a generic."

"Maybe he or she is afraid of getting caught. Using your code is almost foolproof."

"Almost?"

Baines stared a moment longer at the screen. "Let me work on it. I'll see what I can find out."

As soon as school was out, Will drove out to a new ski resort that had just opened a few miles from town. He'd heard that Jerry Wharton was working there for his father, who owned the resort. When Will arrived, the snowmaking machines were at work on the slopes.

It didn't take long to find Jerry. A woman in the gift shop directed Will to the docking area for the cable cars. When Will stepped up onto the concrete pad where the cars were loaded and unloaded, Jerry glanced at him, then turned his attention to the control panel.

"What do you want,
Lansa
?" he asked, keeping his back to him.

"Why were you at Ashcroft Sunday?"

"I was out for a ride and saw all the action so I stopped to take a look." He turned to Will. "Something wrong with me stopping?"

"Why did you take off when you saw me?"

"Because I didn't feel like talking to you. You got a problem with that?"

"Do you know why we were all there?"

"I heard about your girlfriend. Tough luck."

Will thought he saw the hint of a faint smile. He struggled to keep himself from lunging at him. Instead, he changed the subject. "What do you know about a drug called the Chill?"

"What?"

"The Chill—what do you know about it?"

Jerry laughed. "Why, do you want to Chill out,
Lansa
?"

"So I guess you've tried it."

Jerry started to say something, then stopped. He poked Will in the chest with his index finger. "If I were you, I'd keep looking for your girlfriend and stay out of my business."

Will grabbed him by the front of his jacket. "It is my business if you had something to do with Myra's disappearance. Where is she, Wharton? What do you know?"

Jerry shoved him away with both hands. "Get out of here before I have you thrown out. I don't know anything."

Will backed away. "I hope you're telling the truth, Jerry."

As he walked away, he wondered what he'd hoped to accomplish by confronting Wharton. Even if he'd had something to do with what happened to Myra, he certainly wouldn't confess to him.

Still, there was something about Wharton he was forgetting. Something important that related to Myra. It was starting to come to him. He almost had it.

He stopped in his tracks as he saw a woman with short blond hair in blue jeans and a ski jacket standing outside the gift shop. She blended in well with the clientele of the resort. But Detective Olsen wasn't here for pleasure. She must have followed him.

"Hello, Will," she said as he approached. "What's up?" Her tone was casual, as if there were nothing unusual about her meeting him here.

There was no use trying to hide what had happened. He told her in as few words as possible about Wharton and his suspicions about him.

She didn't look impressed by his story. "What if I find out that Jerry Wharton is involved with the Chill and maybe selling a little of it on the side?"

Will looked down at the sidewalk. "That wouldn't be very good for him, I guess."

"Or for you, Will. Or for you. If you're using it, you just may have led me to your source."

"I didn't come here to buy drugs. I told you and Sheriff Kirkpatrick that I've never touched that Chill. I don't know anything about it."

"That's what you said. But I'm finding that hard to believe right now."

"Why?"

Olsen stared at him in silence until Will looked away. "Can I ask you a question, Will? Or do you want to have a lawyer present?"

"Go ahead. Ask me anything you want."

Olsen waited while a couple carrying skis walked out of hearing range. "If I had killed Myra in that parking lot and wanted to hide her body so nobody would find it, I certainly wouldn't leave it near Ashcroft. That doesn't make any sense. Where would you hide it, if you were me?"

Will jammed his hands in his jacket pockets. "I don't like that kind of question."

"Why not?"

"Because I'd never do something like that."

"But what if you did? Where would you hide her, Will?"

"I didn't hide any body. I didn't do it. I've told you that."

"Listen. It'll go a lot easier for you if you tell me the truth. Get it off your chest. You'll feel a lot better."

"I am telling you the truth."

She handed him her card. "Anytime you want to talk, give me a call."

T
here were advantages to having parents in the computer industry. Corey could spend hours surfing the Net without anyone complaining about it. It was almost as if she were expected to be proficient in several computer languages, at data transfers, programming, and even hacking—although the last wasn't a skill her parents encouraged.

Tonight, though, she was determined to put all her talents to use to pinpoint who was using Will's code to post E-mail. She was curious, of course, to find out how the person had gotten the code, but her interest extended much further than that.

It was too early to tell, but she had a hunch that it was more than a simple case of a student's prank. Someone was trying to destroy Will's life. There was a good chance that the intruder knew what had happened to Myra Hodges. Or maybe the intruder had killed her. The thought made goose bumps rise on her arms.

She tapped at the keyboard, then leaned forward as the first of the mysterious letters to Will appeared. This was the one that everyone with an E-mail address had received. But this time she'd gone into the E-mail system itself and could see Will's private E-mail code, which was not available to regular users. Even though the code had been changed, the intruder had quickly regained access.

She looked at the time the letter was sent. Seven-ten A.M. Before the first class, before almost anyone was in the school. The time element was the first thing she and Baines had discussed when he'd asked for her help. He'd talked to the custodian, who'd claimed that the door to the computer lab had been locked Monday morning, as usual, until 7:45.

She sat back in her chair and puzzled over the time and the code, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Her thoughts drifted to Will.

There was so much she wanted to say to him, but she still felt too uncertain of herself to say anything directly. She'd taken the first step in that direction by sending him E-mail, telling him how certain she was that he was innocent. Sure, she'd only used her initials, knowing there were nine other students with the same initials. But it was a step, a baby step, but a step nonetheless.

She would never have sent the note to him at all if Will hadn't sat at her table yesterday at lunch. They'd actually eaten together and it had been Will's choice. The thought still astonished her. Not that she thought he was interested in her. She knew that his so-called pals were giving him the cold shoulder. But that was their loss. As for her, she'd hardly been able to eat a thing or even look at him. All she'd done was babble to Charlie about programming. Will had probably thought she sounded like a machine, but she couldn't help it.

She focused again on the screen. There was something wrong with the code. It took her a moment to pinpoint what it was. Too many digits. She counted them. One extra. What did that mean?

She bit her lower lip. Of course. The E-mail had come from outside the school's computer system. That explained the time it was sent. But how could that be? You couldn't send E-mail from outside the system. The school administration had restricted E-mail usage a couple of years ago after some jerks were caught using the system to buy and sell steroids. Baines had said something about it after she'd started working as a sysop.

Only someone with her own level of expertise could get into the system from outside. Unless the administration had approved an outside user. There was one way of finding out. She'd hack into the administration's file of E-mail codes. If there was an outside user, she would pinpoint who it was. It might take a while, but she was prepared to stay up all night.

T
hat evening Will was trying to concentrate on his chemistry homework when he heard the engine of his mother's Grand Cherokee as it eased into the driveway. He'd been dreading telling her about his encounter with Detective Olsen and especially the reason she'd confronted him.

He leaned toward the door and listened to the voices in the hallway. He heard his mother and Tom Burke, but there was another voice. A quieter voice that he couldn't place. Yet it was familiar. He pushed away from his desk, then walked out of his room and over to the bottom of the stairs. He listened for the voice again and this time when he heard it, a smile spread across his face.

He bounded up the steps to the landing and looked past his mother and Burke. "Dad!"
       

Pete
Lansa
wasn't the type of man who hugged people, so Will stuck out his hand.
Lansa
smiled, shook his hand, then clasped him on both shoulders.

His dark eyes stared into Will's and the look of support he saw bolstered his confidence.

Will and his father were both five-foot-eight and husky. But the elder
Lansa
outweighed Will by about ten pounds. His shiny ebony hair brushed his shoulders, a contrast to Will's, which was shaved off an inch above his ears. "Good to see you, Son. How are you doing?"

"Well, things haven't gone too well since the game."

"Your mother called and told me all about it this morning. I took a plane from Flagstaff as soon as I could."

"Tom and I just picked him up at the airport," Marion said.

"You didn't have to come, Dad. I didn't do anything wrong."

"I know you didn't. But you still need all the help you can get."

"There's something you don't know, Will," Marion said. She spoke calmly, in an even voice, but Will could tell she was tense and nervous.

Just then the front door opened and Will's grandfather walked into the house. Will knew he'd just come back from the Ute City
Banque
where he'd probably had a drink or two with his friends. When his gaze settled on
Lansa
, he frowned, then a smile spread across his face. "Well, look at this. Pete
Lansa
. Good to see you. How come nobody told me about this?"

"Well, I wasn't sure Pete could make it, Dad," Marion said, sounding somewhat uncomfortable. "Why don't we all go sit down at the dining room table."

Talking in the dining room meant that whatever needed to be said was important. After they were seated, Will's mother got right to the point. "This morning at about nine o'clock I got a call from Sheriff Kirkpatrick. He told me that your urine sample tested positive for the drug that was on the knife."

Will leaped to his feet. "But that's impossible. I've never taken it."

"Will, please, sit down," Marion said firmly.

"It could be a mistake,"
Lansa
said. "You may not have been the only one tested. The samples could've gotten mixed up."

No one said anything for a moment.

"I want to take you to a lab where we can get a second test,"
Lansa
said. "If it turns out negative, we'll have something to counter their evidence with."

"I don't like any of this," Will said. "I wish it would all just go away."