1st Case - James Patterson Page 0,46

he yelled. People were starting to stare. “And the pathetic thing is, you don’t even know how obvious you are.”

Then he stepped back, reached out with one hand, and dropped an invisible mic. Just when I thought he couldn’t hit the douchiness any harder, he did.

“Hey, Darren,” I called back, also loud enough for anyone to hear. “How are those small balls working out for you?” It wasn’t an empty insult. I knew from A.A. that it was true, and I waited just long enough to watch Darren’s face fall before I turned and headed up the stairs.

I didn’t stop this time, either. At least, not until I was standing outside A.A.’s door. That’s when I noticed how hard my heart was beating. There was a hollow thump in my chest, like someone was chasing after me. And it wasn’t from climbing stairs.

It was what Darren had said, I realized.

She’s never going to be your girlfriend.

Something about it had stuck to me. And the reason why was just starting to light up my brain.

Was it possible? Could Darren Wendt have seen something about me that I hadn’t even seen myself? I was usually immune to his comments, but this one had gotten under my skin, and I couldn’t just shake it off. Which was humiliating.

But also—strangely enough—interesting.

No. Exciting.

Energizing.

Or maybe just plain … true.

CHAPTER 50

A.A. TOOK ONE look at me and called it as soon as I was through the door.

“What’s up?” she asked. “You look weird.”

I set the drinks down and cracked open the Jameson. Then I took a first shot from the bottle before I poured another into each of our coffees.

Whatever was going on inside me, it was all moving too fast. I couldn’t completely deny what Darren had said. But my attraction to Billy Keats was just as undeniable. Unless I was fooling myself about one thing or the other.

Oh, man. My head was going in circles.

All I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to say a word about Darren. If I was going to talk about this at all, it had to be on my own terms, not his.

And not right now.

“It’s been a day,” I said.

“And a half, I guess,” she said, watching me take another swig of whiskey. It burned its way down my throat and started settling with that warm, comforting feeling in my gut. I didn’t want to get drunk. Not right now, anyway. I just needed to slow down my system a little and change the subject—back to the real reason I’d come.

“Hey, so anyway,” I said. “If I asked to look inside your phone, no questions, would you let me?”

She gave me a squint and I just stared back. She knew me well enough to know that I’d be asking for a good reason. And then sure enough, A.A. smirked, took her phone off the desk, and handed it over.

“Still weird, but okay,” she said. “And how flexible are we on the no-questions policy?”

“Drink your Ritalin,” I said.

I trusted A.A., of course. Hundred percent. But I was determined to maintain the case confidentiality that was required of me at the Bureau, no matter what.

Without another word, I cabled her phone to my laptop and took a look around inside. First, I checked for any files with an .aaw extension, or .mw, accounting for her birth name. There were none. Then I searched for email attachments containing executable programs. And that’s where I found it.

As it turned out, A.A. was one of the fifteen million people with a copy of this insidious thing sitting right there on her device. I wasn’t shocked, considering that the app’s epicenter was Boston. But still, it sucked to see it here, so close to home.

From what I could tell, the original email was four days old. A.A. had trashed it right away, of course. She knew better than to open an attachment as fishy as that. I permanently deleted it from her trash anyway, just to be safe. Then I handed back the phone.

“Did I pass?” she said.

“Close enough,” I told her, and gulped my doctored coffee. It was everything I could do to keep from sharing at least a few key details with her. Not because I was afraid for her safety, but because I knew how badly she’d love geeking out on something like this.

“I don’t mean to sound like a broken record,” she said, “but are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

She sat back on my old bed. I’d always kept it