trouble will follow for BOTH of us, I am sure I do not have to tell you. Please do not be late, as I must leave promptly at 4. By the way, I am not pleased about this. I think it puts you at an unfair advantage.
JS was Jane Schmidt. The intended message recipient was Nicole.
I triple-checked my online anonymity and took a shot at worming my way into Detective Jessica Barrone’s laptop. I had to see where she was on Sabbatini, if anywhere. At this point I was back to feeling fairly certain Barrone wasn’t onto my hacking. Again, she would have shown up at the apartment door by now with a search warrant if she knew about it. I was less convinced that she didn’t have a car of plainclothes officers tailing Nicole. Maybe they caught me following her into CVS? Why else would she have called my father? While I was poking at Barrone’s drive, her firewall was re-upping with new patches, and I had to get out of there.
I had to overcome my want to trust Nicole blindly. I texted her, Want to hang tomorrow?
Nicole got back to me with, Sounds cool. When where?
4pm BHHS?
4 @ BHHS out front. Jay?
Yes?
‘night.
Wednesday afternoon I was in the media center, reading my favorite book,
The
Invisible Man,
or pretending to. Really I was looking out the window. I’d positioned myself in the front west corner, where I had a view of the parking lot. The buses and most of the cars were gone by 3:15. Nicole pulled into the lot at 3:38, when everybody was at practice or in chess club or whatever and she would have the lowest chance of running into anybody. She pulled right up to the front entrance and did her usual 360-degree scan for that idiot photographer Puglisi, or maybe she was looking out for the Recluse. Except that if Sabbatini or Schmidt was the Recluse, and Nicole knew this, then she was faking fear. Was she just acting scared, putting on a show in case Detective Barrone had eyes on her? Was I any better, spying on her from the library window?
I checked the lot for a tail. A couple of cars could have been unmarked police vehicles, a Ford sedan, a Chevy cruiser, but they were empty. I checked the woods for telephoto lens flare and didn’t see any.
Nicole was wearing a ball cap with the bill pulled low. She adjusted her sunglasses, flipped up her collar, put her head down and marched into the building.
I hustled out of the media center and put myself out in front of the main entrance doors to sneak a peek down the corridor. Sabbatini’s office was at the end of the very long hall, but this vantage point was better than none. I didn’t want to get caught just hanging out in front of the building, staring through the door glass, so I pulled out my skateboard and knife pliers and pretended to tighten my wheel truck.
“Thought you would’ve had that fixed by now,” Mr. Sager said, leaning out from behind the school’s welcome sign. He had steel wool in his heavily gloved hand. He dipped it into that same bucket I’d kicked a few days earlier. He scrubbed a graffiti tag somebody had scribbled onto the sign with indelible marker. “I saw you,” he said. “In the library window. Scanning the lot. Do you really think he’s that stupid to attack her again, what with everybody on guard?” He slopped the acid onto the graffiti. The marker faded as Sager scrubbed it. The paint was coming off the sign too.
“Nail polish remover,” I said.
“Say again?” Sager said.
“The indelible marker. It takes it right off, no scrubbing, just a wipe, without messing up the paint underneath. In other words, you don’t need the muriatic acid.”
Sager stopped scrubbing. He stared at me. “Except I’d need a whole lot of nail polish remover now, wouldn’t I?” He gestured to the side of the building with his chin. I leaned around the corner to see it. The entire three-story brick wall was bombed with graffiti, taunts from our rivals, the Blue Devils.
I felt like a jerk, but at least I could cross Mr. Sager off my suspect
JS was Jane Schmidt. The intended message recipient was Nicole.
I triple-checked my online anonymity and took a shot at worming my way into Detective Jessica Barrone’s laptop. I had to see where she was on Sabbatini, if anywhere. At this point I was back to feeling fairly certain Barrone wasn’t onto my hacking. Again, she would have shown up at the apartment door by now with a search warrant if she knew about it. I was less convinced that she didn’t have a car of plainclothes officers tailing Nicole. Maybe they caught me following her into CVS? Why else would she have called my father? While I was poking at Barrone’s drive, her firewall was re-upping with new patches, and I had to get out of there.
I had to overcome my want to trust Nicole blindly. I texted her, Want to hang tomorrow?
Nicole got back to me with, Sounds cool. When where?
4pm BHHS?
4 @ BHHS out front. Jay?
Yes?
‘night.
Wednesday afternoon I was in the media center, reading my favorite book,
The
Invisible Man,
or pretending to. Really I was looking out the window. I’d positioned myself in the front west corner, where I had a view of the parking lot. The buses and most of the cars were gone by 3:15. Nicole pulled into the lot at 3:38, when everybody was at practice or in chess club or whatever and she would have the lowest chance of running into anybody. She pulled right up to the front entrance and did her usual 360-degree scan for that idiot photographer Puglisi, or maybe she was looking out for the Recluse. Except that if Sabbatini or Schmidt was the Recluse, and Nicole knew this, then she was faking fear. Was she just acting scared, putting on a show in case Detective Barrone had eyes on her? Was I any better, spying on her from the library window?
I checked the lot for a tail. A couple of cars could have been unmarked police vehicles, a Ford sedan, a Chevy cruiser, but they were empty. I checked the woods for telephoto lens flare and didn’t see any.
Nicole was wearing a ball cap with the bill pulled low. She adjusted her sunglasses, flipped up her collar, put her head down and marched into the building.
I hustled out of the media center and put myself out in front of the main entrance doors to sneak a peek down the corridor. Sabbatini’s office was at the end of the very long hall, but this vantage point was better than none. I didn’t want to get caught just hanging out in front of the building, staring through the door glass, so I pulled out my skateboard and knife pliers and pretended to tighten my wheel truck.
“Thought you would’ve had that fixed by now,” Mr. Sager said, leaning out from behind the school’s welcome sign. He had steel wool in his heavily gloved hand. He dipped it into that same bucket I’d kicked a few days earlier. He scrubbed a graffiti tag somebody had scribbled onto the sign with indelible marker. “I saw you,” he said. “In the library window. Scanning the lot. Do you really think he’s that stupid to attack her again, what with everybody on guard?” He slopped the acid onto the graffiti. The marker faded as Sager scrubbed it. The paint was coming off the sign too.
“Nail polish remover,” I said.
“Say again?” Sager said.
“The indelible marker. It takes it right off, no scrubbing, just a wipe, without messing up the paint underneath. In other words, you don’t need the muriatic acid.”
Sager stopped scrubbing. He stared at me. “Except I’d need a whole lot of nail polish remover now, wouldn’t I?” He gestured to the side of the building with his chin. I leaned around the corner to see it. The entire three-story brick wall was bombed with graffiti, taunts from our rivals, the Blue Devils.
I felt like a jerk, but at least I could cross Mr. Sager off my suspect
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