Cold Case

colleagues had a past.” Matt hadn’t been sure how he’d handle the information about Harry Knox. Now he made up his mind — full disclosure.

When he finished, Suze Kellerman blinked in bafflement. “Then, Krantz — I mean, Knox — was the hacker. But he’s dead. So why are we still getting complaints about hacking?” She pulled out a piece of paper that was all too familiar — a virtual copy of the letter Matt had received that afternoon.

From the way Father Flannery reacted, he’d received the same sort of mail. The priest gave them a sour smile. “If this were a mystery story, the villain would have knocked off Saunders to keep him from exposing his identity along with everyone else’s. Knox, because of his own hacker background, would have somehow realized who the hacker was and be trying to blackmail.”

“Nice theory.” Jones barely kept the sneer out of his voice. “But it doesn’t explain what happened to Derbent, does it?”

“Have you got a better explanation?” Matt challenged.

The college guy was definitely wearing his game face as he scowled at Matt and Flannery. “There are two choices here. Either the things that have happened really are all accidents, or somebody’s making them happen.” Jones took Suze Kellerman’s hand. “If they aren’t accidents, from what I see, that means one of you two is a killer.”

For a second Matt glanced at Father Flannery. The priest was outraged. Then Matt swung back to look at Jones. You know what they say, he thought. The best defense is a strong offense.

Suze unexpectedly broke the standoff. “I don’t know what is going on here,” she confessed, her voice shaking. “Coincidence, or — whatever.”

Then she began to cry. “I–I just want it to stop!”

Matt silently watched as Jones folded his arms around Suze, trying to comfort her. Father Flannery’s face was a little pinker — obviously, he empathized with the girl.

If that’s acting, she has some major awards in her future, Matt thought.

Kerry Jones had some tissues out and was trying to coax Suze back to calmness. Right now, he didn’t look like someone who could pull off a string of cold-blooded “accidents” to hide his guilt.

Jones was right about one thing. The circle of suspects kept shrinking and shrinking. And none of the people left struck Matt as likely cold-blooded, efficient killers. What did that leave them with, then? A nasty set of coincidences heightened by paranoia and scary letters from lawyers?

Matt shook his head as if a tiny buzzing insect were trapped in his ear. No! There was a hacker — or, perhaps, there had been one among the sim participants.

Still sniffling, Suze took her boyfriend’s hand. Jones glared furiously at Matt as the two of them disappeared.

Father Flannery spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness and cut his connection, too.

Alone, Matt felt his lips curve in an ironic smile.

The Callivant lawyers shouldn’t waste their time badgering us to find out who the hacker is, he thought. They should just wait to nail the last of us who is still standing!

13

The lobby wasn’t exactly bustling. But there were enough people walking past Matt to the visitors’ desk, getting oversized passes, and boarding the elevators for the floors above.

Matt, however, had nowhere to go. The hospital clerk had just turned down his request for a pass. After all my research, Matt thought, that’s one bit I never thought to check.

He’d spent every free moment in school today working the Bradford Academy computer system, trying to get more information about the fire that had burnt out Oswald Derbent’s home. Along the way, he’d picked up the fact that Derbent had been brought to the burn unit at George Washington University Hospital.

So, when classes ended, instead of going home, he headed in the opposite direction, south and east to Foggy Bottom. Here was the hospital, there was the visitor’s desk — but passes were only for family members.

You should have thought of that, Matt accused himself. Derbent’s situation is worse than critical.

He wanted to do something, not just head back with his tail between his legs. But a get-well balloon or flowers seemed like a pretty empty gesture.

The last thing Matt expected was a hand on his shoulder. He nearly jumped out of his skin as he whipped around to see Father Flannery.

“I thought it was you,” the priest said.

“My school isn’t all that far away.” Matt shrugged, feeling awkward. “When I learned that Mr. Derbent was here — I thought maybe I could visit him. But they wouldn’t let me in.”

Flannery nodded. “My collar cut no ice with them, either. But they gave me some information.”

He sighed. “Derbent is in one of the hyperbaric oxygen modules — that’s the best hope, given the severity of his burns. If they can keep his condition stabilized long enough, they’ll try for synthetic skin grafts. But they aren’t optimistic.”

Matt nodded. Derbent wasn’t a big man, and he was no kid.

“There’s a small chapel.” Flannery nodded off to one side. “I was in there praying for him.” The priest hesitated, then went on. “Before that, I was visiting with Mrs. Knox.”

“Those — both — were kind things to do,” Matt said.

“As we said before, they come with the job.” Flannery looked embarrassed. “The poor woman is a wreck. She has no idea whether her husband was keeping up his insurance, and there’s still no money coming in. There are children to be fed, and a roof to be kept over their heads—” The priest shook his head. “I gave her some advice, suggested some places she could go. She was almost pathetically grateful. She talked a great deal — I suppose she was glad to have a friendly car.”

He grimaced. “But it seems I haven’t quite shaken off the influence of Spike Spanner. I asked some questions, too.”

Matt sighed. “And did you dig up any clues?”

“I suppose you’d call it something more like background information. It seems Hard-Knocks Harry was a bit of a dreamer,” Father Flannery said. “He talked big, but never accomplished anything.”

“He wound up with that big rig.”

“Financed with a legacy from his uncle,” Flannery said. “When he wasn’t on the road, he was synched into his computer. After his juvenile brush with the law, Knox apparently fancied himself as quite the outlaw. He liked sims about hacking. He and the missus apparently had some arguments about it. She didn’t want him leading the children astray.”

“So he decided to be a great detective instead?” Matt asked.

The priest nodded. “But that wasn’t the kind of reform Mrs. Knox had in mind. She’s a bit of a technophobe. Computers give her the creeps. She complained about her husband lying around, connected to what she called a ‘soulless machine.’”

“Maybe she had a point,” Matt suggested.

“If she went too far in one direction, Knox went too far in the other. He was determined to solve the fictional Van Alst case. In fact, he hinted that it might lead to real-life benefits.”

Matt paused for a second. “The hacking.”

“The widow Knox doesn’t know about that,” Flannery said, “and I didn’t tell her. But it sounds like he may have been behind it.”

“Well, we’ll certainly never find out.” Matt shrugged.

Now it was the priest’s turn to pause.

“We might,” said Father Flannery. “The arguments over Hard-Knocks Harry’s virtual life ended with his wife