“I don’t know.” She sank back onto the cushions. As precisely as possible, she described everything that had happened. “I know I saw a woman in that window, but he claims there was no one in the house. I have this weird feeling I need to tell someone about it.”
“Probably worth checking out. Tell you what, I’ll stop by there in a little while, take a look around. It’s probably nothing, but you did the right thing telling me, Emma.”
Her face felt warm to the touch as she covered it with her hand. Sometimes meek old Emma reared her head and filled Spider with self-doubt. Was she actually doing this? “I appreciate it, Jack; but do me a favour? Please be discreet in case I’m wrong. Please don’t mention this to my father either.”
Last thing she wanted was a visit from her overprotective old man during her vacation from him. There was a point at stake here: the point that she could very well take care of herself without needing him or anyone else to look after her.
They ended the call on Jack’s promise to keep it their secret, and Spider’s chest tightened. What if Noah West had already gotten rid of any evidence because of what she’d said? What if this made him so angry he came after her next?
Grimacing, she rushed to the window and looked at the house across the street. No car in the driveway. How long would it take the cop to get here?
Something wet and warm touched the back of her arm, and she screamed. Charlie shrank back and cowered away from where he’d licked her.
“Charlie! You scared me to death!” Hand over her heart, she reached out to pet the dog, even as she glanced at her laptop. She’d forgotten about her computer problems.
Focus on work. Don’t fret over the possible serial killer next door coming to murder you.
Biting her fingernails, she tried to connect to the Internet again and… nothing.
After she double-checked her laptop’s settings, she got up to reset the router. If that didn’t work, she’d call and check to see if there was an outage in the area. Could be a good excuse to hit up the closest Starbucks and avoid a possible confrontation with Noah.
The computer pinged once, twice, three times. What?
The screen was black except for fast scrolling green characters. It shouldn’t be doing that. Not at all.
She sat down and reached to hit the ESC key when she noticed what those green characters said.
HELP!
DANGER#
HELP!
DANGER#
HELP!
Shrieking, Spider scrambled up onto the couch cushions and clutched a pillow to her chest. Looking around, she only saw the cat stretched out in the bay window and the two dogs curled up on the floor, each staring at her as if she were a lunatic.
Heart pounding loud in her ears, she pointed at the screen. “That is not normal!”
She chanced a lean forward and watched the words continue to fly up the screen. The hair on her nape and arms lifted as a chill settled along her spine.
Enough of that. It was freaking her the heck out.
Her fingers trembled as she held the power button, forcing the computer to shut down. She waited ten seconds and rebooted the machine.
Don’t overreact. There’s a logical explanation for this.
Could be a virus. Some a-hole probably infected her machine and set the creepy message to display upon startup. Shaky laughter bubbled in her chest as she pressed her palms to her eyes. Of course. That had to be what it was. Not anything irrational, like a ghost or demon or anything. Only a virus.
She sagged against the cushions.
Well, crap. That could take a couple of days to clean up. She had work to do, not to mention she wanted to cyber-stalk Noah West. Photographer. Maybe professor. Possible serial killer.
The familiar chime and login screen popped up.
She input the information and everything came up normal, including the Wi-Fi this time.
“Weird.”
A virus scan should have been her first order of business, but she shook her head instead, pulled up the Internet browser, and searched for Noah West, Atlanta, GA to see what hits it returned.
Absolutely nothing of any worth.
Facebook. Couldn’t find him. Not on Twitter either. She ran through every social media site she could think of. Seemed kind of odd that a professional photographer couldn’t be found on Instagram.
“Hmm. Should I be bad?” she asked the dog at her feet.
Costello lifted his head and looked at her. Charlie’s doggy eyebrows shifted in concern as he released a long drawn-out sigh. He probably knew she was going to do it regardless of their opinions.
“You’re right. I should totally do it, just this once. He could be a serial killer, after all.”
Still, she hesitated before putting her fingers to work. Hacking without permission was plain wrong, and Spider didn’t take that lightly.
But hello, possible serial killer!
“I’ll only check the database we use at work,” she told the dogs. “Promise.”
Her hands flew over the keyboard, tapping for several minutes until she had accessed the professional database the firm subscribed to for access to public records, telephone information, social network hits and other useful goodies. She located a handful of people named Noah West in the agency’s database. Noah’s sinfully handsome picture stood out amongst the others.
Crystal green eyes stared back at her, and his handsome smile added a charming and intelligent character to those eyes she didn’t see very often in the guys she knew. They drew her in, sending a thrill of excitement racing through her veins.
He had great eyes.
So what? Ted Bundy was handsome.
She shook herself and tried to remain objective.
Seriously. What human looked that good in his driver’s license picture? That alone was suspect. She noted his age. Twenty-nine. Four years older than her. Huh. She would have put him in his mid-thirties.
She trusted Jack about Noah’s lack of a criminal record, but you could learn a lot about a person from their public records. If they had any outstanding fines. Whether or not they paid their property taxes on time. Previous addresses.
So much information was out there.
Noah’s address had changed about a month ago. Prior to that, he’d lived in Savannah. Actually, the guy seemed to move a lot. Six different addresses in the past five years.
A series of high-pitched beeps from her phone reminded Spider of the time. She closed out of all of the browser windows and pulled up the video chat on her computer.
Her boss and his new wife were honeymooning in Europe, and Hannah had insisted on checking in on her animals once a day, usually around noon Atlanta time.
Hannah, being the overprotective pet mom she was, insisted on seeing the animals, too.
Spider initiated the chat, angled the camera toward Charlie, who was snoring away, and went in search of her feline charge.
Abbott was curled up on the pillow Spider had been using at night – seriously, cat? – and hissed when she scooped him up.
When she re-entered the room, she heard Hannah’s voice cooing to Charlie. Costello had lumbered over to the coffee table and lifted himself to stand at the edge of the computer, his fluffy tail wagging.
“We’re here,” Spider called out. “I had to get the cat.”