“You know you took a chance with the ID.”
“Not a big one,” he said.
“Bigger than you should have.”
“I made Nate do it.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” she said.
Quinn smiled. “So what’s up?”
When she spoke again, all the playfulness that had been in her voice was gone. “Somebody tripped one of my flags.”
Orlando knew her way around computers better than most people knew how to walk. One of the things she had done was set up electronic tripwires throughout cyberspace that would notify her when someone looked at whatever it was she’d flagged.
“Okay,” he said. “Is this something we need to worry about?”
“It got me to check some of the other related flags I’d set up,” she went on, ignoring his question. “There are at least five that should have sent me a message, but didn’t. Someone bypassed them.”
Quinn started to feel uneasy. “What does that mean?”
“It means someone’s been poking around where they shouldn’t. It’s been going on for over a week. The only reason I found out is that there was a dual flag set up this time. They got around the first, but missed the second.”
“What exactly are we talking about?”
“You, Quinn,” she said. “Someone’s been trying to find out all they can about you.”
THE PAST.
It was something Quinn had tried to cover up and, in many ways, tried to convince himself had never happened in the first place, convince himself he’d been born Jonathan Quinn.
The awkwardness with his father—his
From early on, Harold Oliver had shown no more than an uneasy tolerance toward him. It had confused him. Especially so after his brother was born, and then his sister, neither of whom received the same disdain from their father as young Jake did. And now that his father was dead, it was too late to try and mend that wound.
Liz was still around, of course, but the wall that had grown between them when he’d left home had become as wide and as insurmountable as the Himalayas. Even if he did try to explain, she wouldn’t even listen.
And then there was Davey …
“I just want to see it,” Davey said. He was five, strapped in his child’s seat in the back, behind their father.
“No,” Jake told him. “You should have brought your own.”
“Just for a minute. Please, Jakey.”
He leaned over in front of their one-year-old sister, Liz, who was asleep in her car seat between the brothers. Jake flipped the page of the comic book, and turned so Davey couldn’t see.
“Mom, Jake’s not sharing!”
“It’s mine,” Jake pleaded. “I don’t have to share with him.”
“Jake, just let him look with you,” their mother said. “He doesn’t have to touch it.”
Jake looked pained. “Do I have to? He’s got plenty at home. He should have brought one of them.”
“I’ve looked at all those!” Davey said.
“Boys, you’re going to wake your sister. Just share, okay?”
“Fine,” Jake said, then turned just enough so that at the right angle his brother could see half a page.
“Mom!” Davey cried.
“What?” she asked, sounding weary.
“He’s not really doing it.”
“Jake, honey. I told you, you need to—”
“Right now,” Harold Oliver’s voice cut through from the driver’s seat. “Give it to him.”
“What?” Jake asked. “Why?”
Davey reached toward Jake, but Jake leaned away from him.
“Give your brother the comic,” his father ordered.
“But it’s mine.”
“I said give it to him!”
