Authors: Julie Compton
"Yeah. I'm staring at the desktop signin as we speak."
"Okay, hold on a sec." Jack hears tapping of a keyboard. "Look," Nick says with a sigh when he comes back, "I gotta ask you one more time before we do this, because once we're in, it's too late. Are you sure we won't compromise your ability to use whatever you might find?"
"I own the machine, Nick. It's in my house. I can't violate my own rights.
Anyway, I don't represent the State in this case. I’m the defendant, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, but you lawyers always come up with creative arguments for why the regular rules don't apply.
You're sure someone won't argue that your son had some sort of expectation of privacy that required a warrant, even for you?"
Jack can't help but laugh. "You're good. Maybe you should go to law
school."
"I spend way too much time with you fuckers."
"Anyone can make any argument he wants. But I don't think it'd fly."
"Okay, you're the boss. Are you at the sign-in screen?"
"Yeah, I clicked on the icon, and now it wants his password."
For a moment, Nick is quiet. Then he says, slowly, "How many other icons are there?"
"Two others. Mine and Claire's. It used to be our computer."
Nick laughs. "Jack, who is the system administrator?"
"Beats me."
Nick sighs, the amused sigh of one frustrated by the ignorance of others who lack his expertise. "Click on your own icon, go into your desktop. Once you're there, click on Control Panel and then find the folder for Account Users."
Jack does as instructed. "Okay."
"Did you click on it?"
"Yeah." He checks the screen. Now he laughs, too. "Oh, I guess I am."
"That means you already have access to his files without the password. You don't need one to get in. Now, if he has his email password-protected, which he probably does, that's another story. And he might have individual files protected, too."
"I'm in."
"Let me know when you get to the email account sign-in."
"Okay, found the email. Just a second, it's slow."
"He's probably got his hard drive packed with videos and music, like most kids. They take up a lot of space and slow everything else down.
"And games," Jack adds. "He plays a lot of video games." He clicks on the email icon and, just as Nick suspected, he's prompted for a password. "I'm there."
Nick walks Jack through the necessary steps to hack into Michael's email account. In a few minutes, the inbox appears. Except for a few emails about homework assignments and others Jack would classify as junk mail, it's empty. A quick check of the "old mail" and
"deleted mail" folders reveals the same thing.
"There's nothing here."
"Kids don't use email much anymore.
They're into their texting and instant messaging. And Facebook, of course."
Jack gets a kick out of Nick's frequent reference to what "kids" do and don't do.
He's all of twenty-three years old.
"So how do I see the instant messages?
Can you get me into those? The
investigators pull up those records for us all the time."
"Yeah, well, they get them from either the service provider or the company that makes the software, because most of the instant messaging programs don't save the messages. You would need to install software for that purpose."
"So you're saying I could see future messages if I get the right software, but I won't be able to see what's already been done unless I go the regular route of a subpoena to the company that makes the instant message program he's using?"
"Yeah, basically."
Jack makes a mental note to talk to Earl about a subpoena. Yet he's leery of having a subpoena issued for records that could expose not only Celeste but his son, too. "So what do you recommend?"
"Web Watcher is good. Go online and Google it. You can buy it and download it in a few minutes. You'll be able to see everything he does going forward."
Better than nothing, but Jack hoped to get a history of what's happened with Michael and Celeste these past few months. And maybe glean some clues to Celeste's state of mind.
"Don't forget, Jack," Nick says, interrupting his thoughts. "Any messages they exchanged on Facebook might still be there, if he didn't delete them. I can help you hack into that, too, but you may not even need to. He may stay signed in."
As Nick talks, Jack opens a window, types in the URL for Facebook, and sees that Nick is right. "Perfect."
"And unless he's password protected his other files," Nick continues, "you have access to them, too. My guess is, he didn't.
He wouldn't see a need since he thinks his desktop is protected."
Of course
. Jack exits email and minimizes Facebook to examine the subfolders in Michael’s documents folder.
"Jack? You there?"
"Yeah. I'm checking the names of all the folders, trying to see if anything looks promising."
"Anything good?"
"I'm not sure yet. He's got a bunch of subfolders. Hold on." He scans the names of the subfolders. School, iTunes, CDT.
"CDT" has to stand for Celeste Del Toro, doesn't it? He clicks and sees even more subfolders. Pix, Poems.
Poems? Is his son a
poet?
"Well?"
"Listen, let me hang up and look at some of these. I'll call you back if I need you, okay?"
"Sure, whatever you want. I'll be here."
Jack sets his phone on the desk without removing his eyes from the screen. He clicks on the Poems folder and finds numerous files. Most are well-known poems and one contains song lyrics to Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun." One file titled "Relief" doesn't ring familiar.
He double-clicks on it.
It's not a poem or song lyrics. It's a . . .
what? A story? An essay? He's not sure.
Yet he doesn't have to read past the first few lines to understand Michael didn't write it.
I always lock the bathroom
door behind me but I don't turn
on the exhaust fan. If he comes
home unexpectedly, I need to
hear him.
I wash my hands, and then I
spread the hand towel flat
across the counter next to the
sink, smoothing it gently with
both palms. I open the medicine
cabinet and grab the rubbing
alcohol and Band-Aids. I
careful y set them in their
assigned spots—the alcohol in
the far left corner of the towel, because I need it first, and the
Band-Aids on the far right. They
come last. I then open the
cabinet underneath the sink.
The large box of cotton bal s is
always near the front next to the nail polish remover and the can
of Scrubbing Bubbles. I retrieve
a fistful of bal s from the box and place them on the counter next
to their partner, the rubbing
alcohol. The last item on my list is the only one I real y have to
keep out of sight. I get down on
my knees and tug at the strip of
molding that connects the
bottom of the cabinet to the tile floor. It doesn't real y. The
molding just covers the gap
behind it. It gives easily, just as I've fixed it to.
I stretch my arm toward the
back of the space, feeling
around for the smal Ziploc bag
where I keep my most important
supply. I hate doing this. I hate to touch the floor behind the
molding. The space under the
counter feels dirty and I always
expect a roach or something to
scurry over my hand.
I feel the bag way in the back,
exactly where I last left it, just in case, and pul it from its dark
hiding spot. In the light, I see
the razor blades are stil neatly wrapped in toilet tissue. After
opening the bag, I set it on the
bare counter—I don't want to
soil my towel with any debris
from under the cabinet—and
then for the second time I wash
my hands with soap and water. I
dry them on the large bath towel
hanging over the shower curtain
rod.
Careful y, so I don't touch the
outside of the bag, I retrieve the wrapped blades and move them
to the center of the towel.
I lower myself onto the toilet
lid, take a deep breath and then
let it out. Only then am I aware
how tense I was as I set up my
work space. My hands tremble
as they always do, but I know
they wil stop once I have the
blade between my fingers and
am poised to act. The heady
anticipation of the relief waiting for me just on the other side of
the cut has a way of stil ing my
nerves and calming my fear.
He sits back and stares at the screen. He tries to comprehend what he's just read, and why it's on Michael's computer. He moves the cursor, clicks "File" on the toolbar, then "Properties." The document was created in October, almost five weeks ago. Celeste is the author. He can't tell when it first showed up on Michael's system, though. He doubts she wrote it while at their house; he assumes she wrote it at home and sent it to him.
Is she
a cutter?
Or is this meant to be fiction?
Jack prints the document, closes it, and moves to the folder entitled "Pix." He hesitates, the cursor resting on the folder, blinking. He fears what he'll find. The lawyer in him asks whether pictures might be relevant. If he were in front of a judge, could he reasonably make the argument that he should be entitled to pictures? But the father in him doesn't care. Relevant or not, he wants to know what kind of pictures his son has on his computer.
He clicks on the folder and waits as the photo software loads. He's aware of his racing pulse and the tight nervousness in his stomach. Closing his eyes, he tries to calm himself. Whatever he finds, it can't be that bad, can it?
But nothing prepares him for what he sees when he opens his eyes.
Small photo squares form an array across the screen. Four across, four down.
He blinks, he tries to swallow the emotion welling up in his throat.
Otherwise he doesn't move. As much as he knows he should, he can't pull his eyes away from the woman in the pictures. In most, she gazes directly at him, smoky-eyed and eager, beckoning him to come closer.
I'm all yours
, she seems to say, her eyelids heavy and her lips slightly parted.
In others, she looks away from the camera, but still posing brazenly. Most of the photos show her scantily clad in lacy attire lifted from the pages of a Victoria's Secret catalog, but in a few, she's completely nude.
His body responds even though his brain tries to send it a different message.
He closes his eyes, but that only brings more attention to his physical reaction.
Finally, his right hand obeys and he moves the mouse. But instead of closing the whole folder, he clicks on the first photo. It quickly expands to fill the screen.
It's Celeste. She appears older than her sixteen years, but there's no doubt the woman in the pictures is Celeste. Yet it's not Celeste that Jack sees.
It's Jenny.
The ring of his cell phone on the desk startles him. He sees that it’s Claire calling. He takes a deep breath. Despite his attempt to answer with a simple
hey
, he hears the false note in his voice.
Claire doesn’t notice; she gets right to business. "Can you pick up Michael today?" she asks. "The Dean called an impromptu meeting. I won’t get away until late this afternoon."
Before Jack’s arrest, he and Claire had agreed that part of Michael’s punishment for breaking curfew was the loss of his car. Even after the full account of Michael's role that night came to light, his punishment, through mere inertia, remained the same. But Jack has noticed it’s not Michael, but Claire, who suffers the punishment. If Michael can’t drive, someone else has to. So far, that has been Claire. Jack wonders if she really has a meeting or if she's simply decided it's time for him to bear some of the burden.
"Sure," he agrees readily. "I'll be out and about anyway"—no need to tell her he already is—"so I’ll swing by and get him."
Jack can’t imagine Michael will be glad when his dad picks him up, but after what he just saw on the computer, he doesn’t care. He’s anxious to have a talk with his son.
Practice ends at five, but Jack shows up at four fifteen. He parks Mark's car in the lot outside the new gym and walks past the double glass doors at the main entrance. He heads instead to the single metal door at the rear, which he knows is mostly obscured by the bleachers. During the school day the door is locked from the outside, but after school the students who stay for sports prop it open with a brick so they can go in and out with ease.
Sure enough, the brick is in place. He slips into the gym undetected. For a moment he stands hidden behind the bleachers and waits until he thinks he can turn the corner and climb to the top without being seen. His chance comes when the coach hollers for the boys to gather round him for a talk. Climbing the bleachers two steps at a time, Jack quickly reaches the top. It’s darker up here; he sits at the end of the highest bench with his back against the gym wall, confident he’s invisible.
He watches his son. Unlike the
slumped stance Michael affects at home, on the court he stands as tall as a Maasai warrior and moves as gracefully as a gazelle on the plain. He traverses from one end of the court to the other, moving from side to side to evade an opponent.
He makes it look so simple that Jack wishes he could join them for a few scrimmages.
Michael’s face is always tight with intensity while he plays. Today is no exception, but Jack notices that his sideline countenance is different: his usually quick smile is scant and the good-natured teasing of his teammates is nonexistent.
A gaggle of shrieking young females interrupts Jack's worrying. The
commotion comes from the direction of the same door Jack used. The volume grows as the girls' volleyball team emerges from the side of the bleachers into the open gym. They must have been practicing in the old gym. They head across the lacquered wood floor to the locker rooms at the south end. Several of the girls stop at the bleachers. Only then does Jack register the jumble of