Conspiracy Girl

  I’ve been wondering about that too. The truth is I have no idea. ‘As long as it takes,’ I tell her. In some cases the witness has to go into protective custody for years. ‘Hopefully not too long,’ I add quickly, thinking about how that might pan out.

  ‘Come on,’ I say before she has a chance to start pacing the rooftop, or before that beast of hers has a chance to crap all over my fake grass. ‘I’ll show you what I found out while you were sleeping.’

  NIC

  ‘I just need to use the bathroom,’ I say, once he lets us back into his apartment. I feel like a school kid having to ask permission from my teacher and it annoys me. I grab my bag and head towards the door Finn points to, feeling his eyes following me the entire way.

  Once safely locked inside his bathroom I lean against the wall and take a few deep breaths. Sweat prickles my skin and I rip off my sweater. For a moment I cover my face with my hands and try to get a handle on everything I’m feeling. Though what I’m feeling is an all-consuming terror and that’s not so easy to get a handle on. I’m scared I’m going to have a panic attack. I try to remember what Dr Phipps taught me about focusing on my breathing. As I concentrate on that and on slowing my heart rate, I take a look around.

  The bathroom is big. An old-fashioned bathtub sits in the centre of the space, with a lambskin rug laid out in front of it. Antique candlesticks are arranged around the bath. Over in one corner is a walk-in shower with a glass wall. An old wood-burning stove rests against the far wall. The sink is made from copper and inlaid into a slab of wood. It’s like a shoot for Elle Decor. Not what I expected. Though I’m not sure what I expected from someone like Finn. Judging from the rest of his apartment I’d have thought something minimal – something more male and distinctly less boudoiry.

  I walk wearily to the sink and, taking a deep breath, stare into the mirror. I look like death; pale, wrung out, exhausted. I splash water on my face and then open the cabinet, looking to see if Finn owns a spare toothbrush. Of course he does. He has two pink toothbrushes in his cabinet, unopened in their packets, lying there neatly beside three boxes of condoms, a fifty-dollar bottle of massage oil, some aftershave and an electric razor.

  I slam the cabinet with a bang, deciding to finger brush my teeth because I wouldn’t want to deprive any future one-night stands of their rightful toothbrush.

  Then I remember my bag. I think I packed some toiletries, but then again, I barely remember what I slung into my bag in the heat of the moment. When you hear the words safe house and an FBI agent is standing over you holding a gun, you don’t stop to think about packing for every occasion.

  I unzip the bag and notice straightaway that everything inside is folded neatly, which is weird because I stuffed everything in in a state of total panic. I pull out my clothes, feeling hot rage rising inside me. He touched my things.

  From the kitchen I hear noises – the banging of cabinet doors. I storm out of the bathroom. Finn is looking through the cabinet above the stove. He glances my way and I catch the way his gaze falls to my chest and I remember I’m only wearing a grey cotton camisole top. Finally, he remembers that I have a face and looks back up.

  ‘You went through my stuff,’ I say, dropping my bag down on the counter.

  He winces a little, that smug annoying smile of his fading, before he pushes my bag aside so he can lay out two plates and a bowl.

  ‘Why?’ I rage, the adrenaline from earlier returning with force.

  ‘You were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you and I needed to check in case you had a phone or any other electronic equipment with you. I didn’t want anyone to be able to track you here.’ He says the last part pointedly.

  ‘Oh.’ My anger has built but now it has no place to go. My cheeks burn and I can’t hold his gaze.

  The door buzzes. My nerves are so shot that I jump a mile, but Finn is already moving past me towards the door. He hits the intercom and then the entry buzzer.

  ‘Who is it?’ I ask.

  ‘Delivery,’ he says, smiling at me reassuringly over his shoulder.

  He pulls open the door to reveal a teenage boy carrying two bags of takeout containers. Finn takes them and sets them on the floor so he can pull out his wallet. I notice the gun stuck down the back of his sweatpants and realise that, though he’s acting like we’re at a slumber party, he’s clearly not as relaxed as he seems.

  He exchanges a few words with the delivery guy, which wouldn’t be at all remarkable but for the fact it’s in what sounds like Thai. He speaks Thai? Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he?

  Finn slides his wallet back into his pocket, kicks the door shut with his foot, then grabs the food bags and heads towards the kitchen. ‘You like Thai food?’ he asks me, setting the bags on the counter.

  I nod. Then shake my head, frustrated. ‘Yes. But I’m not hungry. I just want you to start explaining what’s going on.’

  Finn starts opening the containers, spooning out food on to both plates. ‘I got a selection. Didn’t know what you liked.’

  ‘I just want to know what’s happening. I don’t want to eat Thai green curry or tom yum . . . ’ I break off because now that I’m standing over the plates and the smell is wafting upwards, I’m wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. All I’ve eaten in almost a day is a Belgian truffle.

  ‘Eat first,’ Finn says, handing me the plate. ‘Then we’ll talk. Seriously. I need another half hour for a program to finish running anyway. Then I’ll know more. And besides, I need calories. So do you. When was the last time you ate something?’

  I take the plate. He has a point. I realise that my blood sugar is so low I’m feeling fuzzy headed and sluggish. Grudgingly I follow Finn over to a table that I hadn’t noticed before, hidden as it was behind the giant concrete block in the centre of the room. He clears a pile of electronic equipment and what looks like a soldering iron off the tabletop and pushes out a chair for me.

  I drop into my seat. Goz comes and sits at my side, staring up at me with hopeful big eyes, but there’s no way I’m feeding him chicken curry. He ate some leftover Indian food once, that he scrounged out of the waste when my back was turned. I spent the next two days clearing up poop and had to have my antique rug steam-cleaned. But then Finn tosses a piece of chicken his way and Goz snatches it in his jaws like a killer whale tossing back a baby seal. It’s like they’ve practised their routine while I was sleeping or something.

  Finn glances at me through his lashes, as though checking if I’m OK with him feeding my dog. I look at my plate with a small smile. He can clear up the mess.

  ‘So, you named your dog after Ryan Gosling?’

  I pause with a forkful of curry halfway to my mouth. Finn is chewing while trying not to grin. He’s failing at both. My eyes narrow, which is starting to become a habit around him.

  ‘Just a guess,’ he says. ‘Am I right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I admit, jutting out my chin. I can feel myself blushing though.

  ‘Fan of The Notebook, huh?’ He’s still trying not to grin.

  ‘My mum was,’ I tell him.

  The grin fades. I feel a twinge of guilt. I didn’t say that solely to wipe the grin off his face. It’s true. ‘It was her favourite film.’

  ‘Right,’ he says, frowning at his plate before looking up and fixing me with a stare. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I hold his gaze. What is he apologising for exactly?

  ‘He’s better-looking than Ryan,’ Finn says, nudging Goz with his elbow and tossing him another chunk of chicken.

  The smile comes before I can stop it but I quickly straighten my face. ‘You need to get out more,’ I tell him.

  Finn’s grin returns. He looks at me and I’m struck once more by the blue of his eyes, which are unfairly emphasised by the darkness of his eyelashes and hair. He keeps watching me as he eats, with no attempt at subtlety. He’s staring at me the same way I saw him staring at his computer screen earlier, as though I have code scrolling across my face that he needs to decipher.

/>   I feel my cheeks starting to get warmer. I hate being looked at. It reminds me of the trial, where I spent six weeks feeling like I was the one being judged, by both the jury and the media. And then there were all the articles, including that People story made up of half-truths and intimate betrayals – every one of them speculating on what was going on in my head, as if they could guess. As if anyone could ever guess. It felt like drowning, as if a hundred blood-frenzied sharks were thrashing in the water all around me, taking bites at me.

  ‘What is that thing?’ I ask to distract Finn, who is still looking at me in such a way that I know he too is trying to analyse me. Did he read all the articles? Did he read all about Davis and I? Does he think he knows me, just like all the trolls online, because he read all the lies that made it into the newspapers? I try to ignore the burn in my cheeks, the bubbling anger at the memories that are spilling over.

  Finn glances over my shoulder to where I’m pointing. ‘That’s the cube,’ he says with a smug smile. I note the glint in his eye, and if I didn’t know that he was a hacker I might suspect that the cube contained a collection of pornography or something worse, because frankly, who builds a giant concrete room complete with keypad entry in the middle of their loft, unless for some totally weird and depraved reason?

  ‘Well, yeah, I can see it’s a cube. What’s inside?’ I ask. ‘Your servers?’

  He looks impressed that I figured it out. ‘You’re the first person who ever guessed right,’ he tells me. ‘One person thought it was my torture chamber.’

  I arch an eyebrow at him and he has the decency to look down at his plate. ‘You need to start hanging out with smarter girls,’ I say.

  He impales another piece of chicken with his fork. ‘Figure I am,’ he says, glancing back up at me.

  I blink at him in surprise. What’s his deal? If he’s really trying to hit on me given our situation and our history, then he’s going to become the baby seal to Goz’s killer whale.

  ‘What’s in all the boxes?’ I ask, choosing to ignore the comment.

  Finn finishes chewing his mouthful of chicken. ‘You ask a lot of questions,’ he remarks.

  ‘You don’t answer many.’

  ‘It’s stuff for Martha Stewart,’ he says, tilting his chin in the direction of the boxes stacked by the door.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘A lot of companies ask her to endorse their products.’

  I wait for him to finish his explanation but it appears he’s done explaining.

  ‘And?’ I push. ‘What are you to Martha Stewart? Is she some kind of relation?’

  He laughs. ‘No. I just . . .’ he clears his throat and tosses another chunk of chicken to Goz. ‘I thought I would do her a favour. You know, help her upcycle.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I ask, staring blankly at him.

  ‘She gets sent an obscene amount of stuff. Pasta makers and cupcake trays and Magimixes that look like they’re from the future. All from companies who want her to promote and endorse their stuff. So I figured, rather than have it all go to waste, because there’s no way she’s going to ever use it all, I would have it diverted to me instead. And what I don’t want I give to the Goodwill.’

  I set my knife and fork down. ‘You’re not joking, are you?’ I ask.

  Finn grins at me as he finishes scraping his plate clean.

  ‘But how?’ I ask.

  He hands his plate down to Goz, who starts licking it clean. ‘Easy. I hacked into DHL’s system and whenever an item from a supply company gets flagged for Martha’s delivery address a new address gets downloaded instead. My address. It’s not every time, but once every ten or so. It’s randomised.’

  ‘But you don’t even cook,’ I say, blinking at him in disbelief. ‘What do you need any of that stuff for?”

  ‘How do you know I don’t cook?’ he asks, looking offended.

  I point at the kitchen counter. ‘Because none of that equipment looks like it’s ever been used. And your fridge contains only Snapple.’

  He gives me an appraising look and I realise that he’s surprised by my levels of deduction. That doesn’t speak volumes about the girls he must normally hang out with.

  ‘I’m just waiting for the right occasion, that’s all,’ Finn says. He scowls briefly down at the tabletop.

  ‘So, does your Martha Stewart fraud also account for the lifetime supply of Snapple?’

  ‘No, that’s something else. I won a year’s supply. Though in actual fact, it’s more like a three-month supply. That stuff is addictive.’

  ‘You won it?’ I ask, my eyebrow lifting.

  ‘Are you accusing me of cheating the system?’ he asks, a smile pulling at his lips.

  ‘Well, from what you just told me,’ I say, ‘and from what I already know about you, I don’t doubt that you lied and somehow found a way to cheat the system, depriving the rightful Snapple winner of their deserved prize. And I also don’t doubt that in your mind you can probably find a way to justify it.’

  He sits back in his chair, his foot tapping, his head cocked to one side. Then he nods and abruptly stands up.

  ‘Come on,’ he says, striding towards the cube.

  I jump up and follow Finn around to the other side, where the door is. He presses his thumb to a pad and the door springs open. Finn steps aside to let me in and I walk past him, trying to keep as much distance between us as possible, which is hard to do because the room is only about three metres wide and there’s very little space to move. Along one wall is a long desk that holds a twenty-seven-inch screen, several smaller screens and two keyboards.

  Finn shuts the door behind us and I spin around, panicked.

  ‘I need to keep the temperature steady,’ he says by way of explanation when he sees the look on my face.

  ‘So what are we doing in here?’ I ask, frustration biting at the edge of my voice. Despite the air conditioning it’s hot in here and there’s hardly any room to breathe, let alone move.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Finn says as he moves to squeeze past me. I step back and bump into a cabinet. Finn shoots out a hand to steady it and we find ourselves pressed chest to chest. We both draw in a breath and there’s an interminable moment where neither of us moves. Me because I can’t and him because he’s trying to stop the cabinet from rocking. I can feel the heat radiating from his chest and sweat trickles its way down my front. Finn’s forearm is by my head and I get a hit of his scent, which riles me, because my automatic reaction is to lean in closer for another hit. But Finn moves swiftly past me, pulling out a chair from behind the desk and swivelling it in my direction.

  ‘Have a seat,’ he says.

  It’s the only chair and I have no idea where he’s going to sit, but I decide sitting would be a good idea, if only to get me out of his way. He swivels me towards the computer screen, then leans over the chair and starts tapping on the keyboard.

  So much for getting me out of his way. I’m trapped between his arms and now it really is impossible to breathe. I want to get out of here. He has no idea how hard it is to sit here and not make a break for the door. My foot starts tapping, my breathing feels asthmatic. I try to focus on the screen but I’m quickly distracted by Finn’s hands flying over the keyboard. And then by his arms. He’s faintly tanned and the muscles work furiously beneath the skin. I watch the screens as words and symbols appear and I catch myself wondering about all the things Finn knows how to do; hack computers, speak Thai, shoot a gun, touch-type at a thousand words a minute . . .

  ‘Why do you have computers in here and computers out there?’ I ask.

  ‘Out there’s the legitimate stuff,’ he says, not taking his eyes off the screen. ‘Where I do my work for big corporates and non-profits. A lot of pro bono too for legal teams,’ he adds. ‘Like the work I did for the court case you were involved in.’

  He may as well have punched me in the gut and backhanded me across the face. He testified for free? He treated the men who killed my mum and Taylor as tho
ugh they were deserving of charity? I thought at the very least he must have been paid for it.

  ‘In here,’ he goes on without pausing, ‘I do the grey area stuff.’

  I grit my teeth and take a breath, trying to damp down the angry fire in my belly. ‘You mean the illegal stuff.’

  He makes a noise in his throat, half laugh, half snort, his fingers still tapping. What looks like an array of blueprints appear on the screen. ‘Who makes our laws?’ he asks. ‘And who decides what’s illegal or not? And don’t say lawmakers, because most of our lawmakers are working on behalf of corporations who have their own agenda. Justice is not blind. And when it is, it’s blindly stupid.’

  I want to twist in my chair to confront him but I’m pretty much locked in position by his arms.

  ‘Did you find my iPad?’ I ask him instead. Last night he talked about using GPS software to locate it.

  ‘They disabled the GPS two blocks from your house. Somehow they overrode your password. These guys are good. They killed the cameras in the building, overrode the alarm system and the electronic locks and managed to duplicate your keys.’

  My stomach churns and sweat starts to snake down my spine. I don’t get it. But I instantly want to get on the phone and start yelling at the security company to which I paid tens of thousands of dollars to fix up my house.

  Finn drops suddenly to his haunches at my side and points at the images on the screen. ‘These are the blueprints of your security system.’ He points at the other monitor. ‘This is the program whoever broke into it used.’ I blink at lines of nonsensical data. He points to the other monitor. ‘This is the program that was used to hack your house in LA two years ago.’

  I stare at the third monitor and back at the second one. I do this several times before giving up and turning to Finn. ‘What am I supposed to be seeing?’ I ask impatiently.

  ‘It’s the same programmer. A few tweaks to the code, but it’s the same person.’

  I look at the screens. ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘It’s like a signature. All hackers have one. I don’t mean that they sign their name into the code, it’s like . . .’ he pauses and chews his lip for a second. ‘You can look at a painting by Picasso and another by Rembrandt, right, and know who painted what? Well, it’s the same with hackers – after a while, you can tell. People code in unique ways and whoever wrote this code is good. Not many people are this good.’ He nods, his expression tinged with respect, if not a touch of awe. ‘Security companies like the ones who installed your systems do not mess around. Reliability is everything. The company that installed the one in your LA house went bust after the trial. So these companies don’t take hacking lightly – it’s their livelihood at risk. They have numerous firewalls, and they constantly test them. To get through their defences takes concerted effort and time, as well as talent.’