Pretzel Logic

  Not that he’d ever admit that to her.

  * * * *

  Brita sat down with the list of names Ethan had left for her on his phone. She booted up her laptop so she could Google them all first.

  Then she spotted the icon for the shortcut to Gmail on the menu bar of her browser.

  Knowing this was a mistake, she clicked on it.

  The message had come in at 7:02 a.m. with the subject line HOW’D YOU ENJOY THAT, PIG?

  Sinse u stopped answering ur phone thought we’d throw u a barbecue to get ur attenshun! Why don’t u kill urself before u ruin ur entire families life? Jordan is in for hell. Don’t think we won’t make her our hobby from now on. Once we read ur funeral notice, we’ll forget about her. But u keep breathing, we’ll not only ruin her life, we’ll root out every person ur close to and find all their secrets and post them. Don’t think we can? Just look at these. You took the Chief from us, so we’ll except your suicide as paymnt. Bye! :)

  Attached to the e-mail were photos that made Brita’s stomach curdle. A screenshot of what looked like Jordan’s student records on the Sorrellson computer server, first her grades as they now stood, going all the way back to pre-K.

  The second screenshot was all of her grades changed to Fs.

  All of them.

  And a Google Earth screencap of Alisse and John’s house, and both their work addresses.

  Her parents’ house and her mom’s job.

  Closing her eyes, Brita fought the urge to scream.

  No. I will not let them ruin her future.

  Her eyes flew open as she remembered her FetLife account. Panicking, she immediately logged in and deleted her account from the server, as well as deactivated her Facebook account.

  Then she called Ethan.

  * * * *

  Ethan was just getting ready to go into a meeting when his work cell rang and he realized it was Brita calling from his phone.

  “Ethan, they hacked Sorrellson!”

  She started talking so fast, and crying at the same time, that he couldn’t understand her. “What? Slow down, baby. What happened?”

  She finally was able to get it out, and he reversed course to jog down to where Tom and Gary shared an office with two other detectives. They were there. Knocking on the doorway to get their attention, he waved them to follow him into a conference room.

  There, he put Brita on speakerphone. “Honey, I’ve got Tom and Gary here. Hold on.” He looked at them. “The guy apparently hacked into Sorrellson Academy’s computer. He changed Jordan’s grades.”

  “What?” They sounded like twins. “How?”

  “I don’t know. I only know what Brita just told me. One of you, get the principal and their IT people on the phone. Right now. First, confirm that Jordan’s grades really were compromised and it’s not just a good Photoshop job or something. Then we need to see if they left any electronic evidence we can use to find this joker.”

  After ten minutes, they had all the info that Brita could give them. Once Ethan ended the call with her, Gary brought his laptop into the conference room and they logged into her Gmail account.

  There sat the message, just as she’d said.

  Tom returned from calling Sorrellson.

  From the grim look on his face, Ethan knew.

  “Yeah. Principal confirmed it. Their IT guy has locked down their entire network until he can find where they got in at and fix the security hole. He’s requiring everyone to reset their passwords, across the board, and he’s restoring the system from last night’s backup to get her grades fixed.”

  Ethan’s stomach fell. “Let’s get over there and talk to them. We need to get a report started on this.”

  “This isn’t your case,” Gary reminded him.

  “You want to argue semantics, or you want to catch this guy?”

  “Fine, let’s get moving,” Tom said. “We need to be a step ahead of this joker, and so far he’s making us look like we’re Barney fucking Fife.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  By the time he got off work, Ethan wanted to punch something. Not to mention Brita wasn’t answering his calls to his personal cell phone. Instead of diverting to the cell phone store to get her one, he headed straight to her condo first.

  Fear and frustration warred within him as he drove. He wasn’t sure what was going through her mind right now, but he was going to put his foot down, for good or for bad, and pray it didn’t nuke their relationship.

  He was a big boy and didn’t need her to “protect” him from anything. And from some of what she’d said to him before he’d switched the call to speaker phone, he knew that’s exactly where her mind had gone, worried about the hacker discovering their kink involvement.

  He didn’t care about that. He didn’t give two shits.

  All he cared about was Brita and keeping her safe.

  Fighting a growing sense of unease, he let himself in and disarmed the alarm. “B?” he called out despite how empty the place felt.

  Walking down to the master bedroom, he spotted the open closet door first.

  Sure enough, there were several items missing, items that weren’t in her laundry hamper.

  And her big suitcase wasn’t there, either.

  Neither were the two carry-ons that nested inside it when stored in the closet, either.

  “Shit, baby,” he muttered, returning to the living room and standing there for a moment.

  That’s when he spotted the piece of paper on the breakfast bar in the kitchen, weighed down by his cell phone. His heart chilled when he walked over and picked it up to read it.

  E,

  Sorry, I need to do this, but I have to protect you, and Alisse and John, and Jordan, and my parents. I’m going to go away for a few weeks. I’ve put a hold on my mail and emptied out the fridge. I wouldn’t recommend using my place. I don’t want them harassing you.

  Red, don’t search for me. I’ll contact you in a few weeks. Don’t bother calling or tracking my phone, because I turned it off and will buy a burner. I won’t check my e-mail, either. I need to go dark for a while. Don’t bother trying to track me through my bank or credit cards. I already thought about that. I wiped ALL my social media accounts. If you need my Facebook account for the investigation, I only deactivated it. You have the password.

  Please don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay. But I’d never forgive myself if something happened to Jordan, or to anyone in my family. Or to you.

  I know you can take care of yourself, but there’s too much risk right now, and I feel like I can’t breathe, I’m so worried about all of you. Just a few weeks. Hopefully Tom and Gary can find him by then. If not, then I’ll figure it out at that point.

  Love you,

  B.

  Yes, despite what he knew was her less-than-veiled safeword about him Dom-carding and trying to find her, he did try calling Brita’s cell phone, but didn’t bother leaving a voice mail. He immediately called Alisse, who answered her cell on the second ring.

  Not bothering with niceties, he plowed into it even though he already suspected the answer. “It’s Ethan. Have you seen or heard from Brita today?”

  “Not since I talked to her on Sunday. Why? Is she okay?”

  He leaned against the counter as he rubbed at his temple, disappointed at that potential lead coming up empty. “I don’t know. She ran.” He’d honestly figured maybe Brita had asked her sister for a ride or something.

  “Ran what?”

  “Away.” He told her what happened, with the arson, and then read her the note.

  Minus the reference to “red.”

  “Oh, no.” Her tone turned somber. “Now what happened? Why would she do that?”

  “In addition to the arson, apparently the same troll found out about her relationship to Jordan. Sorrellson’s computer system was hacked.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. They had full access to everything in the system, including personal information.”

  “We haven’t
heard anything about that.”

  “When I left the office a little while ago, they were still working with an IT specialist and the detectives assigned to the case. All of Jordan’s grades had been changed, across the board since pre-K, to Fs. No other student’s grades were touched, as far as they could tell.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, she’s a kid! She’s eight years old! What the hell?”

  “I know. They’ve already locked things down and patched the exploit the hacker used. They restored a backup for the data and fixed it. The school is going to notify parents via a robocall tonight. Expect a personal call from the principal.”

  “You bet your ass I’d better get a call from them, as much money as we pay to send her there.” An exasperated sigh rolled through the connection. “So why did Brita leave?”

  “Because the troll sent Brita a screenshot of Jordan’s grades before and after they changed them, and said if she didn’t kill herself, she could expect Jordan’s life to be ruined from that point on. And they had pictures of your house and work, your parents’ house, everything. They also threatened to start digging into her family’s life, anyone close to her, and expose any information or secrets about them.”

  When she didn’t respond, he looked to see if the call had dropped.

  It hadn’t. “Alisse?”

  “You think B’s going to kill herself?” she softly asked.

  “No, I think she’s disappeared for a while. She knows how to do it, too. She thinks if she lays low, that the trolls will either be caught, or will get tired of her and move on to a new target.” He didn’t bother going into his personal situation with Brita. “And we already have FDLE working on it as a courtesy. They’ll be calling the FBI into it now, too.”

  “Jesus fucking christ, all this because some Internet video asshole basically signed his own death warrant?”

  “I’m not saying it’s logical.”

  “Ya think?”

  The sisters obviously shared a sarcasm gene. “Can you call your parents for me, please? I think they have all my contact info, but make sure. And please have them call me immediately if they hear from her.”

  “I will. I can’t believe she’d run away like this.”

  Ethan knew her family didn’t understand the full extent of what Brita went through in high school, or her personality of trying to shoulder burdens alone.

  Unless he knew her life was in danger, he wouldn’t break her confidence. “She’s very protective of Jordan.”

  “But she should know we wouldn’t want her to leave. That’s letting the assholes win. She’s a cop. She knows this.”

  “Logical or not, Brita’s made what she thought was the best decision. Now I have to find her.”

  “Please find her, Ethan. And when you do, promise me something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Spank her ass for disappearing, okay? She’s my sister and I love her.”

  He fought the urge to laugh, because Alisse wouldn’t understand why he was laughing. “I promise to convey the depth of your love to her, yes.”

  Despite the dire circumstances, he wasn’t sure if he could promise to spank Brita without laughing when he said it.

  * * * *

  Brita hadn’t dared use Uber or Lyft or any ride-sharing services.

  She called for an old-fashioned taxi, using a free Internet VOIP service for the phone call via her phone’s wireless connection. It would likely take Ethan at least two days to find out the info about her new car, since he wasn’t expecting she would replace her old one that quickly.

  And he wouldn’t be polling every taxi service in Sarasota to look for her, either.

  She’d pick up a burner phone after she replaced her car.

  The used Kia was small, less than a year old, had low mileage, and would be easy on gas. It also meant she didn’t have to go through any protracted haggling with the dealership, or finance the difference between the insurance settlement and the sticker price.

  From there she bought a burner phone, hit the bank, then back home to grab her luggage—and her nine millimeter—and leave.

  By one, she was on her way north on I-75, still not sure where she’d be heading. Part of her wanted to run far and fast away, anywhere, far away.

  Part of her chafed at leaving, her training and instincts telling her this was the worst thing ever. To stand her ground—again—and fight.

  Except she knew she’d never forgive herself if Jordan’s life was ruined because of her trying to maintain her principles. Worse, if it got out about what she and Ethan did in their spare time.

  And the bastard had threatened to go after Alisse and John.

  And her parents.

  She really needed to have a long talk with all of them about locking down their social media accounts, but that was something that’d have to wait.

  How long, she didn’t know. She hoped not longer than a couple of weeks. If she had to be gone longer than a month, she’d check in with Gary and Tom to see how the case was going and if they needed any testimony from her. The case wouldn’t go to trial for six months or longer, so her leaving wouldn’t screw things up there, at least.

  Disappearing in the digital age wasn’t an easy proposition. Ethan would discover the bank withdrawal within twenty-four hours, she suspected. He had all her logins, just like she had his.

  Sure, she could change all of that, but then he’d likely pull strings and use the material witness angle to get a warrant to watch them.

  Why make it harder on him than she had to?

  Unless someone at the four stores she’d stopped at to buy the pre-paid debit cards reported seeing her, he wouldn’t know about those.

  Between using cash and those, unless Ethan tracked her new license plate—if he thought to look to see if she’d replaced her car or he wasted his time trying to figure out how she’d rented one without tripping credit card charges—she’d have some breathing room.

  She’d only gotten as far as Brooksville when the shakes hit. Pulling off into the parking lot of the McDonald’s she frequented after her skeet lessons, she parked in the back, in the shade, and laid her head on the steering wheel to cry.

  This was not how she’d pictured her life.

  She damn sure didn’t want to ruin Jordan’s. And she didn’t have the strength or stamina to stand guard over her niece 24/7. It wasn’t possible.

  But by disappearing, and the trolls not being able to track her, it would give her time to breathe and think.

  To recover from what felt like a non-stop barrage from life itself. This felt like living in hell, even worse than those weeks in the hospital following her injury.

  Then she had a thought. Inspiration, really.

  She headed west toward Brooksville until she was parked across from the entrance to the range complex where she came for her lessons with Sachi.

  Sure enough, she could see through the trees that the woman was there, giving lessons to an older man at one of the distant skeet fields.

  Brita parked in the lot of a shopping complex just down and across the road from the range. Then she grabbed a ball cap and sunglasses from her luggage in the trunk. Using an elastic band to pull her hair up, she tucked it under the cap and donned the glasses before crossing the highway and walking down the range’s long driveway.

  Sticking to the shadows provided by the trees, she watched Sachi, waiting until the man headed back to the clubhouse between rounds to approach her.

  Sachi startled when she spotted her, then started laughing. “Jeez, you scared me. You all right?”

  “While I would never ask anyone to impede a police investigation, I need a favor. Unless you can promise not to tell anyone you’ve seen me, we don’t need to talk any further. I don’t want anyone tracking me down.”

  Sachi’s expression immediately turned serious. “What’s going on?”

  “Can you promise me?”

  “Are you in legal trouble? Is this about the shooting?”

  “I??
?m not in trouble, but it’s related to it. I’m being stalked by a fan of the guy. They threatened my eight-year-old niece and torched my car.”

  “Does your family and boyfriend know where you are?”

  Brita shook her head.

  Sachi glanced around and grabbed her hand, heading quickly to the concrete low house bunker for that field. Unlocking the door from a ring of keys she produced from her pocket, she led Brita inside and closed the door behind them. In the dim light from sunbeams trying to pierce through the louvered vents on the building’s side, Brita nearly cried with relief when Sachi smiled.

  “What can I do to help, my friend? You have my silence.”

  “Do you want to hear the whole story first?”

  “No. You can tell me tonight.” She pulled her cell out of her pocket and texted someone. “I’ll have Oscar meet you at our house and let you in.”

  “I don’t want to put anyone else at risk.”

  Sachi glanced up. “I trust them to hold your secrets. They know what I went through. They understand sometimes people need to hide. For tonight, at least, you need to stay with us.”

  “I can’t risk my car being spotted in your driveway.”

  “No problem. He’ll drop his there and take yours over to John’s aunt’s house.”

  “No. I don’t want to involve more people.”

  “Relax.” Sachi smiled even as she texted. “It’ll only be there for a few hours. Tonight, once John’s guys have gone home, we can park it at his warehouse.”

  This was spinning out of control. “What about his aunt? How do you explain that to her?”

  “It’s a present for a friend’s girlfriend.” She told the lie without hesitation. “Need to stash it for a couple of hours before the party, someplace where she won’t spot it. Seriously, toss me a harder one, Jessica Fletcher.”

  The laugh burped free, quickly followed by a cascade of tears. Sachi stopped texting long enough to hug her.

  “Look, I might not necessarily agree with you running without telling your family, but I’m no Judgey McJudgestein, because I have no room to talk. I fucking changed my legal name and ran to Florida from Idaho, for crying out loud. At least take tonight to breathe and regroup and I’ll help you. You can stay with us for days or weeks or longer, if you need to. I can even offer you the apartment over the store, rent-free. No one’s living there right now, and I know Mandaline would be cool with it. She knows what I went through and how I had to hide out. If my dad wasn’t living full-time in Florida now, I’d send you to Idaho to stay with him.”