passed between them — particularly any envelopes.
‘
‘
As much as Joshua Durrant tried to shake the conversation he had overheard loose from his head over the following days, it kept re-playing.
He tapped fast and furiously at the keyboard:
Frank was a good enough guy, and that wasn’t Joshua simply sharing his mother’s standpoint because he’d been good to them; Joshua liked him because Frank gave him quality time when needed and accepted him as if he was his own. But there were times when Frank’s reasoning ran thin, and more often than not it involved Josh’s father.
Joshua had accepted at the time his mom’s and Frank’s reasoning over the e-mails, and the last thing he’d want to do is upset them or cause any problems. But now with what he’d overheard,
‘Are you okay there, Josh?’ his mom’s voice trailed from the kitchen.
His hands paused on the keyboard, heart thumping in his chest. ‘Yes, fine, Mom.’
‘It’s nice to see you getting down to your homework so early… but you do seem to be putting in a lot on this project.’
‘I… I’ve got to finish by the end of the week — I’m already late with it.’
Frank had password-blocked all internet access. Josh had fed in over a hundred possible keywords in the half hour before Frank got in the night before — mostly around Frank’s name, initials and birth-date — without success, and now he was on Frank’s lucky numbers. Hopefully his mom wasn’t getting suspicious. He looked at intervals over his shoulder as he resumed tapping. The computer was in a small recess in the hallway — but even if she came out from the kitchen, she probably wouldn’t know the difference between his searching for entry keywords and his school project work. Just in case, to one side he had a project page with the Civil War and Paul Revere to click on and cover.
He tried another batch of combinations and glanced anxiously at his watch. Another six or seven minutes, then he’d have to quit until the next night. But as he continued, he started to sense the futility: he might have thousands more possibilities to work through, and even if he hit gold, while he could delete the e-mails sent, how on earth was he going to cover-up the replies? Unless they arrived in the half an hour before Frank got home, he was sunk.
His hands slowed on the keyboard. He’d give it his best shot that night, but if there was still no breakthrough, tomorrow he’d approach Danny Thorne, one of his closest school-friends. And, the resolve made, his hands picked up speed again on the keyboard, becoming suddenly a furious race against time to find the password, because he knew now this would probably be his last opportunity…
Or maybe it was his and his mom’s initials or the first three letters of their names — combined with Frank’s lucky numbers.
Joshua continued working through the combinations, and was over halfway through when the screen-door suddenly slamming made him jump. He’d got so engrossed that he hadn’t even heard Frank’s car pull up. His heart beating wildly, his hand trembling and suddenly clammy on the mouse, he quickly clicked off the password page and clicked on Paul Revere.
The document leapt to the forefront just a second before the door swung open and Frank stepped into the hallway.
‘Like FortKnox. Four heavy dead bolts on the door as I was let in. And, as you suspected, motion alarms in the main lounge and the hallway.’
At his end of the line, Nel-M nodded thoughtfully as Barry Lassitter ran through his visit to Truelle’s apartment. The main factors that had stopped Nel-M simply breaking in and planting the bug himself.
‘He hovered for a bit, watching me, but he had a coffee in his hand — so I nodded to it, “smells nice”. He offered me one, and I finished up while he was back in the kitchen.’
‘And he took the bait that his phone had been bugged?’
‘Yeah. Held it up for him to see. Exact duplicate of what I’d just wired in while he was making my coffee.’
‘Good going. Let me know when the other one’s done.’
Lassitter’s return call came at 11.43 the next morning. ‘Just got the nod from Mo. Everything went fine at his office, too. No hitches.’
‘Thanks.’ Nel-M hardly paused for breath before calling Vic Farrelia. ‘That’s a go now for lines two and three as well.’ Then he called Adelay Roche. ‘My man just phoned. Truelle’s just been done too — home
‘That’s good to hear,’ Roche commented. ‘Now we might be able to better decide just who needs to be dead.’
When Joshua broached the subject with Danny Thorne of using his home computer, Danny was wary. ‘It’s not to go porn-surfing, is it?’
‘No, no. Nothing like that.’ Out of his three closest friends at Elbrooke High, he’d chosen Danny because he was the only one to have his own, non-parentally controlled internet access. He’d worked before at Danny’s house on school projects, so no eyebrows would be raised by him going over there for an hour or two after school. But from the concern on Danny’s face, he was suddenly reminded that Danny was probably also his most cautious, conservative friend. ‘It’s to send some e-mails to my father.’
‘Oh.’ From Danny’s heavy exhalation, it was unclear whether that was actually worse than porn-surfing. ‘Why can’t you send the e-mails from home? You were sending some before — I remember you telling me?’
‘My mom would still let me like a shot. But Frank’s stepped in — put his foot down.’ He could see the clouds of doubt forming rapidly in Danny’s eyes. ‘Please, Danny… you’ve got to help me out here. If there was any other way, you know I wouldn’t be asking.’
‘Okay
By the next day, Joshua had spent another frantic half hour keyword searching without success before Frank got home, so was even more desperate. But Danny’s doubts and concerns seemed to have increased.
‘I’m worried about my parents finding out, and from there you know it’s only a heartbeat before yours find out, too.’
‘
‘Get real. You know they speak sometimes on the phone, and they’ll get talking even more if you’re round my place once or twice a week. Reminding you what time dinner’s ready… or Josh has forgot this or that. And I know my dad checks my e-mails now and then. He’d kill me if he found out I was trading e-mails in and out of Libreville when I shouldn’t.’
They were in the corridor just after a lesson, and as their voices raised, they’d started to get the attention of some of the other students filing out.
‘Come on, Danny. I’m real stuck here… can’t you at least…’
But Danny was already sidling away as Joshua reached one hand out imploringly, and then they were both distracted by one of the onlookers, Ellis Calpar, who’d stopped to pay more attention to their conversation.
‘That’s the problem wit’ those oreole’s,’ Ellis called out, moving a step closer. ‘When it comes t’ the crunch —
