“Mrs. Hill?”
“Yes?”
“What happened to Spencer,” Adam said. “It was my fault.”
A S soon as Mike and Tia turned onto their block, they could see the man with the long hair and those dirty fingernails pacing on their front lawn.
Mike said, “Isn’t that Brett from your office?”
Tia nodded. “He was checking that e-mail for me. The one about the Huff party.”
They pulled into the driveway. Susan and Dante Loriman were outside too. Dante waved. Mike waved back. He looked over at Susan. She forced up her hand and then moved toward her front door. Mike waved again and turned away. He had no time for this now.
His phone went off. Mike looked down at the number and frowned.
“Who is it?” Tia asked.
“Ilene,” he said. “The feds questioned her too. I should take this.”
She nodded. “I’ll talk to Brett.”
Tia got out of the car. Brett was still going back and forth, animated, talking to himself. She called out to him and he stopped.
“Someone is messing with your head, Tia,” Brett said.
“How?”
“I need to go in and check Adam’s computer to be sure.”
Tia wanted to ask more, but that would just waste time. She opened the door and let Brett inside. He knew the way.
“Did you tell anyone about what I put on his computer?” he asked.
“About the spying program? No. Well, I mean, we did last night. With the police and everything.”
“How about before that? Did you tell anyone?”
“No. It wasn’t something Mike and I were very proud of. Oh, wait, our friend Mo.”
“Who?”
“He’s almost Adam’s godfather. Mo would never hurt our son.”
Brett shrugged. They were in Adam’s room. The computer was on. Brett sat and started typing. He brought up Adam’s e-mail and started running some kind of program. Symbols scrolled by. Tia watched without a clue.
“What are you trying to find?”
He tucked his stringy hair behind both ears and studied the screen. “Hold on. That e-mail you asked about was deleted, remember? I just want to see if he had some kind of timer send function, nope and then…” He stopped. “Wait… okay, yep.”
“Yep what?”
“It’s weird, that’s all. You say Adam was out when he got the e-mail. But we know the e-mail was read at his computer, right?”
“Right.”
“You have any candidates?”
“Not really. None of us were home.”
“Because here’s the interesting thing. Not only was the message read on Adam’s computer, it was also sent from it.”
Tia made a face. “So someone broke in, turned on his computer, sent him an e-mail from this computer about a party at the Huffs, opened it, and then deleted it?”
“That’s pretty much what I’m saying.”
“Why would someone do that?”
Brett shrugged. “Only reason I can come up with? To mess with your head.”
“But no one knew about the E-SpyRight. Except Mike and me and Mo and”-her eyes tried to meet his, but his danced away-“you.”
“Hey, don’t look at me.”
“You told Hester Crimstein.”
“I’m sorry about that. But that’s the only person who knows.”
Tia wondered. And then she looked at Brett with his dirty finger- nails and the unshaven stubble and the hip albeit flimsy T-shirt and thought about how she had trusted this man she really didn’t know all that well with this task-and how foolish that really was.
How did she know anything he was telling her was accurate?
He had shown her that she could sign in and get reports from as far away as Boston. How much of a stretch was it to assume that he had set up a password too, one so that he could get into the software and read the reports? How would she know? How would anyone know what was actually on the computer? Companies put on spy- ware so that they knew where you surfed. Stores give out those discount cards so they can keep track of what you buy. Lord knows what computer companies must have preloaded into your computer’s hard drive. Search engines kept track of what you looked up and, with the simple cost of storage these days, never had to delete it.
Was it such a stretch to think Brett might know more than he said?
' HELLO?”
Ilene Goldfarb said, “Mike?”
Mike watched Tia and Brett enter the house. He pressed the phone up against his ear. “What’s up?” he asked his partner.
“I talked to Susan Loriman about Lucas’s biological father.”
That surprised Mike. “When?”
“Today. She called me. We met at the diner.”
“And?”
“And it’s a dead end.”
“The real father?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
“She wants it to be confidential.”
“The name of the father? Too bad.”
“Not the name of the father.”
“What then?”
“She told me the reason why that particular avenue is not going to be helpful to us.”
Mike said, “I’m not following.”
“Just trust me here. She explained the situation to me. It’s a dead end.”
“I can’t see how.”
“Neither could I before Susan explained it to me.”
“And she wants the reason kept confidential?”
“Correct.”
“So I assume it is something embarrassing. That’s why she spoke to you, not me.”
“I wouldn’t call it embarrassing.”
“What would you call it?”
“You sound like you don’t trust my judgment on this.”
Mike switched ears. “Normally, Ilene, I would trust you with my life.”
“But?”
“But I just got through being grilled by a joint task force of the DEA and U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
There was silence.
“They also spoke to you, didn’t they?” Mike asked.
“They did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“They were very specific. They said my talking to you would compromise an important federal investigation. They threatened me with hindering prosecution and losing my practice, if I said anything to you.”
Mike said nothing.
“Keep in mind,” Ilene went on, an edge in her voice now, “that my name is on those prescription pads too.”
“I know.”
“What the hell is going on, Mike?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Did you do what they said?”
“Please tell me you’re not seriously asking me that.”
“They showed me our prescription pads. They gave me a list of what was prescribed. None of those people are our patients. Hell, half that stuff prescribed we never use.”
“I know.”
“This is my career too,” she said. “I started this practice. You know what this means to me.”
There was something in her voice, something wounded beyond the obvious. “I’m sorry, Ilene. I’m trying to sort through it all too.”
“I think I’m owed a little more than ‘it’s a long story.’ ”
