There were more cars than usual for a Thursday afternoon—for any afternoon—in Devon. I told myself that it was rush hour. But rush hour in Devon? That was a laugh.
With traffic holding the speed to a stop-and-go crawl, I darted a look at Grace. She didn’t see me in her periphery, didn’t blink, didn’t speak, any of which was so out of character that I worried she had gone to some far and irretrievable place. Needing her back, I said, “I’m sure there’s an explanation, Gracie. Jay will iron it out.”
She said nothing.
“Does Chris have his own computer?”
“You’ve been to the house,” was her solemn response. “You’ve seen it.”
“I’ve seen yours, not his.”
“The one on the kitchen table is his. Mine’s in my bedroom.”
I considered that as we crept along. “If his is in the kitchen, you must see what he does.”
“Like I understand it?” she said so quickly she might have been asking herself the very same thing.
“Homework, you mean.”
“Any of it.”
“Even social media? Games?”
She lifted a hand only enough for a noncommittal wave.
Computers were part of my life. I used them at the Spa for recordkeeping, and used my home laptop for research on new products, cyber-shopping, and keeping up with my mother. I used a tablet for reading, sometimes in the middle of the night, when I woke fighting to breathe and needed a diversion. My phone was linked with my other devices, and I had done the linking myself. I could troubleshoot any one of them. But hacking? I had no clue how that worked.
“Does he belong to a club at school?” I asked. “A programming club or something?”
“It’s a class.”
“A class, with lots of kids? Then maybe they’ve mixed him up with someone else? Maybe with another student? Who’s to say one of them didn’t hack into his computer.”
She looked at me then. “And go after our clients? Why would one of his friends do that? They have no connection to the Spa.”
“But they know you work there,” I said. “Maybe one of them has a crush on you. Chris emails you, right?”
“Texts. Kids don’t email.”
“He’s never done it?”
“Maybe once or twice.”
“So your email address is on his computer, and your email connects to the Spa. It’d be easy enough for his friends to get it. He must be online with them every night.” I made it into a question, but wasn’t sure Grace knew the answer. Her work schedule was demanding. Between her loyal following and the fact that she was one of the few massage therapists willing to work evenings, she was heavily booked, which meant Chris was often alone. I had asked her about it once; she said she had taught him how to cook, how to text her, how to call 911.
She didn’t reply now, simply stared at the windshield. At the next standstill, I studied her. Jay had warned her against speaking, but I was remembering what my own lawyer had taught me prior to my first court hearing. Dress simply, Mackenzie. Modest clothes, low heels, light makeup. Court people are plain people, so you need to downplay style. Having been at work, where scrubs were required, Grace conformed in every regard but her hair. As beautiful as those curls were, they caught the eye, which wasn’t a good thing right now. Had I been in her shoes, I’d have put an elastic around them.
Grace did the opposite, finger-combing them fuller and forward to hide her face, and I totally understood. The closer we got to the police station, the more the congestion and the longer the standstills. Cars were pulling over and parking on both sides of the street. Likewise, media vans with satellite dishes. Some had the call letters of Vermont stations, but a few spoke of national brands—national brands. It made no sense. But I saw the logos. Their presence made the situation even more alarming.
Hide, my instinct for self-preservation cried, and it was all I could do not to pull my own hair free of pins and use it as a shield.
But Grace couldn’t hide. Her son was on the other side of the press. “How can they be here so soon?” she cried.
I didn’t know. But if I had been uneasy before, I was beside myself now. There were three things I religiously avoided in life—law offices, police stations, and the press—and here they all were.
I gripped the steering wheel tightly, thinking only about dropping Grace off and getting the hell away. She might be