Private Lives

Leif Anderson shot a suspicious glance right and left along the block as he stepped out of the expensive apartment building he called home. Like most New Yorkers, he’d normally have thought nothing about darting across the street in the middle of the block if it saved him a couple of steps on the way to the deli where he could satisfy his craving for mint-chocolate ice cream.

That was before Megan’s warning call, however. Now, whenever he left the house, Leif found himself slightly on edge about being attacked by a hit-and-run driver.

One day, he thought, I’m going to end up choking that girl. If I live that long.

His attention was so concentrated on the traffic, he almost missed the figure darting toward him from the darkened service entrance of a nearby building. Leif just caught a suggestion of motion at the corner of his vision.

His Net Force self-defense training kicked in, however. And, given the strained condition of his nerves, it wasn’t exactly surprising that he went with the old saying “The best defense is a strong offense.”

Leif swung around, throwing a punch—

And realized his “attacker” was Bodie Fuhrman.

She flinched away so violently, she almost fell to the sidewalk, even though he pulled back on his blow.

“What are you doing?” Bodie squeaked.

“I should be asking you that,” Leif responded, staring at the girl. Quite frankly, Bodie looked like hell. Her usually wild red curls were matted down on one side, her clothes were dirty…. She looked as though she hadn’t seen a mirror — or a bed — in a couple of days.

Suddenly self-conscious, Bodie brushed at her grungy clothing. “I haven’t been back to the dorm,” she said tightly. “A friend of mine up in Westchester had me over for the weekend. Then I heard what happened to Professor Wellman, and when I checked out my answering system, there were these scary messages….”

Leif rolled his eyes. “Megan O’Malley!” He really was going to shoot her one of these days!

“The kid from Washington? Frack that!” Bodie said. “It was all the hang-up calls. Somebody was trying to figure out whether I was in the dorm or not!”

Her green eyes shone with terror. “They must have found out that I was helping with the article for The Fifth Estate. Now they’re trying to shut me up — just like the professor and Tori. You’ve got to help me!”

“Me?” Leif repeated in surprise.

“Yes, you, Mr. Pickup Artist.” Bodie looked torn between anger and fear, but fear won out. “That girl, Meg. She—”

“Megan,” Leif corrected.

“Whoever,” Bodie said irritably. “She let it out that you were both Net Force Explorers, trying to help that Winters guy. I got hold of Alexis De Courcy, and he told me you weren’t actually Leif Magnuson, but Leif Anderson.”

Oh, yes, she was definitely steamed over Leif’s little bit of undercover work. But apparently she was willing to overlook that right now.

“Hey, I’ve been living in the streets for a day now, trying to find you! You have an in with Net Force. You’ve got to help me!”

Bodie glanced around the almost empty street. “I figured they’d have given you a bodyguard or something.”

“That’s because I’m not as important as you’ll probably be.”

Sighing, Leif took Bodie’s arm and escorted her into his building. My parents are just going to love this, he thought. Maybe we can get Anna Westering on the case….

Jay Gridley opened the door to his home and welcomed Matt Hunter. “I’ve just been hearing from Captain Winters what you and the other Net Force Explorers had been doing for him,” the head of Net Force told him. “I don’t know that I like all the methods, but I am impressed with your initiative and your results. You certainly managed to run a couple of circles around my I.A. people.”

“Internal Affairs has the job of finding people guilty,” Matt said. “We had an incentive to do just the opposite.”

He followed his host into the house, through the living room, and down the hall to the room that served the combined purposes of home office and Jay Gridley’s den. As they came down the hall, Mark Gridley peered out from the doorway of his room, eyes full of curiosity — and a little alarm, Matt noted.

“Sorry, Mark,” Jay Gridley told the Squirt. “This has to be a private discussion.”

Those few words just about tripled Mark’s nervousness.

He thinks his dad is going to hear about him hacking into the Net Force files! Matt realized. Both he and James Winters had agreed it wouldn’t be necessary to reveal that part of the Net Force Explorers’ investigation. But there was no way to tell Mark that — not with his father standing right beside Matt.

Trying to ignore the frightened eyes on him, Matt stepped into the den. It was a small room with bookshelves, comfortable chairs, and a set of techno-toys that would set any computer-literate kid drooling. Nowadays, most home computing system components were built to be unobtrusive. You saw the display — either a hologram projector or screen, and maybe a keyboard. Jay Gridley’s computer had its guts spread across a large wooden table. That’s because some of the components were black-box specials, samples of technology that had yet to find their way into the consumer market.

Matt was so busy trying to identify any new bells and whistles on the system that he didn’t notice James Winters until the captain rose from his seat.

Matt’s cheeks burned as he shook hands. Jay Gridley had said he’d been speaking with the captain. It just hadn’t penetrated Matt’s thick skull as to where and when they’d been doing that.

Oddly, Matt saw that the head of Net Force looked just about as ill at ease as Matt felt.

“I owe you a large apology, James,” Gridley finally burst out. “It’s bad enough you were treated so shamefully, but worse when I think that I was part of it. When this thing with Alcista started, I should have told HoloNews, Tori Rush, and Hank Steadman to take a flying leap.”

“Sure,” Winters said dryly. “It would only mean trashing the public’s perception of Net Force, damaging our relations with the congressmen who control our budget appropriations, and possibly putting your control of the agency at risk.”

“I run a high-profile agency. Supposedly I’m a powerful man, or so I keep hearing in the media.” Gridley sighed. “I feel as though I turned my back on you.”

“You handled a difficult situation in the way your staff suggested,” Winters said steadily. “I can’t say it was fun, but if it had happened to someone else, I’d probably have advised you to deal with it the same way — to express measured support, and then step back and see where events took the situation.”

“I have to say, I’m happier about where events seem to be heading now,” Gridley admitted, “at least as far as you are concerned. These murders worry me….”

“That makes two of us,” Winters said. “And we’re not out of the woods yet. I won’t be until we can confirm that Marcus Kovacs is actually Mike Steele, and that he had a motive for the Alcista bombing and everything that happened around it. It would be nice if we can pin him to these recent killings.”

He sighed. “And even if we can, there are going to be newspeople ready to charge us with a cover-up.”

Gridley looked grim. “The cover-up happened four years ago, when we didn’t go public with Steele’s evidence tampering and the reason for Alcista’s plea bargain.”

“Sealed court records.” Winters shrugged. “It was part of the deal.”

“A deal accepted on the advice of my staff, to keep Net Force from taking a publicity black eye.” Gridley rested one arm against a bookcase. “Looking back on it now, we buried a dirty little secret — and it grew up to be a big dirty tree.”

“More like ‘the weed of crime,’” Winters suggested.

“I’ll be glad when the whole blasted thing is pulled up by the roots,” Jay Gridley said. “We seem to be getting there. The fingerprint lab has promised to give me the full results of their work by tomorrow. And even if we can’t directly link Kovacs and Steele, that college girl up in New York—”