that,” Kendra said gently. “I’m sure he’d appreciate what you’re doing. We’ll all miss him.” She paused. “And you didn’t send me an email asking me to meet you here at six?”
He shook his head. “No, the only reason I didn’t leave earlier was that I needed to trim the hydrangeas.” His gaze went to the yellow barrier tapes several yards away. “And I kept putting it off because it was…here…too close to where he died. It hurt too much.” He added, “But they say the police are done now and won’t be back. Maybe it will be better now.” He started to turn away. “It was nice to meet you, Dr. Michaels.” Then he turned back. “You really shouldn’t have come here alone. Please don’t do it again. Like I told you, my grandfather always talked about you and the other kids. He wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
She was touched. “Thank you, John.” She gestured to Olivia and Harley a short distance away. “I’m not alone. And I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He lifted his hand and headed for the gate.
She watched him leave. Mr. Kim had been such a part of her youth and who she had been during her growing years, and yet she couldn’t remember him ever speaking of his family. When he was here with them, it was as if he were one of the strong, beautiful plants that he nurtured so carefully, giving everything, taking nothing.
“He’s nice, isn’t he?” Ariel Jones came out of the shrubbery behind her. She had her white cane and was carrying a bouquet of the same white hydrangeas that John Kim had been trimming. “His name’s John and he’s Mr. Kim’s grandson. He gave me these flowers when I was up here before. He said that he was trimming them anyway and I might as well enjoy them.”
“He’s very nice,” Kendra agreed. She fixed the girl with a stern glance. “But you shouldn’t be out here without someone with you. I thought we addressed the buddy system the last time we talked.”
She nodded. “But you didn’t use it. I heard John tell you that you shouldn’t be alone here. Does that mean I shouldn’t have told you to come?”
“What?” Kendra frowned. “First, I have a friend and a dog up on the hill. I’m not alone. And does that question mean what I think it means? You’re the one who sent me that email message? Was it some kind of joke?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that. If I did, you wouldn’t pay any attention when I did need you. It would be like that boy-and-the-wolf story. I just wasn’t sure what I should do so I wouldn’t get in trouble.”
“You made it sound very dramatic. No FBI? Really, Ariel.”
“Well, I think the FBI puts hackers in jail. And maybe I should have told you about Ms. Wessler.”
She stiffened. “More than you already told me?”
“Not about the hacking. I told you I was nervous.”
Kendra tried to stifle her impatience. “Okay. Tell me about the hacking and everything else. Who hacked whom?”
“I did. I get bored sometimes and I’m really good at hacking. You find out so many things that are more interesting than all the things they let kids know. It doesn’t seem fair. Well, I was sitting in Ms. Wessler’s class and I’d finished my work and I was trying to find something to do.”
“And you found it,” Kendra said grimly.
“Ms. Wessler had one of those old-style flip-top phones, and she had to use the hard buttons with that beep I could hear when she logged into the faculty bulletin board. I memorized it and later, I used it to log in and use my text-to-speech app to read all kinds of interesting discussions between the faculty members.”
“Private discussions,” Kendra said pointedly.
“Yes, but I’m telling you about it now, aren’t I? Anyway, I could also read private messages between Ms. Wessler and other faculty members, including unsent drafts. It was kind of exciting.” She hesitated. “But then I sort of got carried away and I listened and managed to pick up Ms. Wessler’s email password. That way I could hack into her email account.”
“Ariel!”
“I know I shouldn’t have done it. It was an experiment. I was only going to do it for a little while. But then stuff started to happen and I didn’t know what to do.”
“What ‘stuff’?”
“Ms. Wessler emailed Mr. Kim about something strange she’d thought she’d seen while she was up on the cliff path