Deep Wate - Sarah Epstein Page 0,65

‘Wait, let me save this.’ He turns back to his computer and clicks his keyboard. ‘I’m stacking some of the photos I took the other night.’

‘Stacking?’ I walk over to sit on the edge of his bed. I’m finally able to see Raf ’s pinboard up close. It’s full of photos of his family, a couple of Amir in a soccer jersey and a selection of our friendship group from childhood all the way through to now.

‘Long story short,’ Raf says, ‘if I take a bunch of photos in quick succession, I can layer them in Photoshop to create a much more detailed image of the Milky Way.’

‘Impressive,’ I say.

‘You think that’s impressive, prepare to have your mind blown.’ He smirks and Sabeen rolls her eyes at him. ‘Wait till you hear how I cracked this password.’ He closes the file he’s working on and opens his internet browser. In the blink of an eye he’s got Facebook open. He stands and offers me his chair so I have a closer view of the screen.

‘This is my account open right now,’ he says, leaning over me to access the keyboard. He types Henry Weaver into the search bar and the long list of profile images comes up. ‘I knew the key would be figuring out which one, if any, is our Henry.’

He runs his finger down the screen until he lands on a profile picture of a cartoon parrot wearing a pirate hat. ‘I had to get inside his head,’ Raf explains. ‘And this here—’ he taps the screen, ‘—is him giving a nod to his favourite joke.’

‘A parrot?’

‘A pirate,’ Sabeen says behind me as she sits down on the bed.

Raf stares at me expectantly. ‘A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel down his pants. The bartender asks the pirate: “Isn’t that annoying?” And the pirate responds …’

‘Arrr, it’s driving me nuts!’ we all say together. I snigger. ‘You’re right. It is his favourite.’

‘So it got me thinking if the password might be related to the profile pic.’ He logs out of his account and it takes him back to the login screen. ‘As we suspected, Henry used his Gmail account to log in. And after a bit of trial and error, I figured out the password is drivingmenuts.’ He types it into the password field and presses the Log In button. Henry’s page opens up in front of our eyes.

‘You’re brilliant,’ I say, my eyes scouring the page. Henry has no activity on his profile and only one Facebook friend. Somebody called Missy Ellwood.

‘There’s nothing there,’ Sabeen says. ‘He never posted anything or joined any groups.’

‘However,’ Raf says, clicking open the Messenger icon, ‘there’s one single message thread between him and this girl called Missy Ellwood.’

‘A girl?’ I say, feeling dazed.

Raf backs away from the desk and sits on the bed beside Sabeen.

‘Read the whole thread,’ she says.

I scroll right back up to the beginning. Henry and Missy had been chatting for months. I don’t get very far before pulling out my phone.

‘What are you doing?’ Raf asks.

‘She says her high school is Airsden High in Sydney’s North Shore. For some reason the name is familiar, but it’s an odd name for a school, right? I want to google it.’

Sabeen nudges Raf in the stomach. ‘We should have thought of that,’ she says. Then, to me: ‘What does it say?’

‘No results.’ I hold my phone out to show them.

Raf arches an eyebrow. ‘Oooh. The plot thickens.’

I keep reading, surprised at how much Henry talks about looking for his dad. It’s both terrible and wonderful to hear Henry’s voice coming through in these messages, but more than a few times Missy’s words have me narrowing my eyes.

‘This Missy person is totally bogus,’ I say. ‘Her school doesn’t exist, she’s conveniently the same age as Henry and she forgets she has a sister. Henry has to remind her.’

Sabeen nods in agreement. ‘Dodgy.’

I click through to Missy Ellwood’s profile. The privacy settings are tight. There’s nothing to see except her profile picture: a girl in a hat and sunglasses standing on a beach at sunset, taken from a distance so it’s difficult to make out any defining features. Returning to the message thread, I re-read parts. One thing it confirms is that Henry was looking for his father, and nothing was resolved about it. According to this, Henry never found him. Or if he did, he didn’t tell Missy.

My throat closes over when I reach Missy’s last few messages