Truly Devious (Truly Devious #1) - Maureen Johnson Page 0,94
sure Pix was gone.
Just a little look around.
He had a video game system, lots of computer gear. Good speakers—Stevie had seen the brand advertised. Good headphones. Good everything. His books were haphazardly piled. Subjects: philosophy, game theory, lots of literature, books on how to write (interesting), graphic novels. There was an e-reader on the stand next to the bed. She flipped through the library contents: more graphic novels, lots of sci-fi (David liked a space opera, clearly), books about history. David was a reader. An avid one.
She put the e-reader back on the page it had been on when she picked it up and replaced it. She had a look at his bedside light: an Italian brand, another quality piece. Everything in his room was just a little bit better, from the weight and smoothness of his sheets (she sat down on the bed and gave them a feel; they smelled of him) to the heavy down comforter.
She allowed herself to rest back on the bed for a moment.
What else was in plain view? Police could look at things in plain view when they came inside with no warrant. The room was clean. Not tidy, but generally clean. An effort had been made to keep things in the right place. There was one old Led Zeppelin poster, but Stevie got the impression that it had just been put up as a kind of non-decorating. Get the first object you see, stick it up. The vast majority of the room was a blank canvas, without photos or decorations.
She leaned back and her hand struck something hard. She reached into the sheets and pulled out his laptop.
His laptop, just sitting there.
She looked it over for a moment. No stickers, no markings. She put her hands on the edge of the computer.
To open or . . .
The thing about looking just a little bit means it’s really easy to look a little bit more. Once you’ve touched it, well, you’ve touched it, and if you have the computer in your lap and you open it and a screen comes up, there you are.
Maybe this was what Pandora felt like when she got her famous box. Open it and the light pours out . . .
“What the hell are you doing?”
Everything stopped for a moment. How he had come upstairs without her hearing him was unknown. She must have been too into what she was doing—of course, what she was doing was going through his computer.
Answering his question would have been self-incriminating, so Stevie sat there, still and silent. Still things can sometimes appear invisible.
“What,” David said again, “are you doing?”
“I was just . . .”
He came over and put his hands out for the computer. She passed it over.
“I . . . didn’t even look.”
“It seems like you did,” he said.
Well, yeah. It did. He was right. Stevie felt her defenses snap back into place.
“What’s the big secret?” she snapped back. “You’ve met my family. You just got in the car and came along. You’ve had a look at me.”
“And you wanted a look,” he said. “Did it ever occur to you there’s a reason I don’t want to talk about my family?”
“We all have reasons,” she said. “You’re not special in having a weird time with your parents.”
“My parents are dead,” he said. “Does that count as special?”
One time, when she was little, Stevie was outside playing on a cold day. She caught some speed on a patch of ice and went, full speed, into a wall. As her abdomen made contact, she remembered the feeling of all the air being violently forced out of her body, scraping her throat as it exited.
It sort of felt like that now. The angles had come back into David’s features, and something else.
Hurt.
“Just get out,” he said.
“I . . .”
“Get out,” he said quietly.
* * *
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
INTERVIEW BETWEEN AGENT SAMUEL ARNOLD AND ROBERT MACKENZIE
APRIL 17, 1936, 7:10 P.M.
LOCATION: ELLINGHAM PROPERTY
SA: Just a few more questions, Mr. Mackenzie. We have to go through these things several times.
RM: I understand.
SA: When did you start working for Albert Ellingham?
RM: When I left Princeton, eight years ago.
SA: And you are his personal assistant in business matters?
RM: Correct. I am his personal business secretary.
SA: So you see quite a number of Mr. Ellingham’s transactions.
RM: I see nearly all of them, if not all.
SA: Do you find it odd, running the business from up here in this mountain location?