“How soon?” Cady asked.
“I’m on my way to the colo.” Conn heard the sound of a coat being pulled on, then a door slamming and feet on the stairs. “Once I’m there I can bridge a hub in-line and analyze the traffic. I’ve got a ticket escalating with the ISP, and I’ve switched to a secondary ISP and set up a quick page to let your fans know the site is down. That should be up in a couple of minutes.”
“What’s a colo?” Conn asked.
She gave him a bewildered shrug. “Bryan, you know I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“I’m on it. That’s all you need to know, until I find the little fuckers who did this,” Bryan said. The call disappeared from Cady’s phone. Cady looked at Emily, then at Conn. It was the first time he’d seen her looking even a little lost.
“Sounds like he’s got that under control,” Emily said brightly. “Don’t worry about the website. Bryan will fix it. I’m going to put on comfy clothes. We can still watch the movie, then I’ll show you my designs. Okay, Cady?”
“Okay,” Cady said. Her smile was forced, something Emily didn’t seem to notice. She trotted into the bedroom and closed the door.
First the drunk guy, then the car, and now this. “I don’t like the timing,” Conn said.
Cady scrubbed her fingers through her hair. “Me, either. It’s the main hub for my connection with my fans. The database stores all their email addresses for newsletters, their birthdays, all the boards where people talk about concerts and songs and the things I’m doing. I’ve got other social media accounts, of course, but they all feed back to the website…”
She trailed off, and he put two and two together. “If you drop the record they want you to drop, they don’t need it. But if you go out on your own…”
“I need it. It’s my only consistent connection to my fans. I set up my first website before I left home.”
He folded his arms across his chest and tried to think about the big picture. “How likely is it they won’t drop this album?”
“Extremely unlikely, unless I write new material to convince them to hold it, something to show that if we go in a different direction, it’s going to pay off.”
“You don’t get any say in this?”
“You have to be huge before you get much control over your career,” she said. “You’ve got control when you’re nobody, or when you’re Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. Or totally independent, like Amanda Palmer.”
“Where do you fall in that scale?
She huffed out a laugh. “I’m somebody, with a small s. If the album drops and goes big, I could be somebody with a capital S.”
“Mostly what I’m worried about is you. This feels like a purposeful effort at sabotage.”
“It’s probably kids messing around, seeing what they can do.” Her eyes went blank for a moment. “Wait, do you think the drunk guy from the concert is behind this? Because you arrested him?”
“I’ve been at this less than forty-eight hours,” he said. “My gut reaction is no. This is different than beer-fueled courage. I’m wondering if it’s one of the psychopaths from the file.”
“Why?”
“It’s a logical next step from anonymous threats in the comments section,” he said. He stepped closer, the better to keep this away from Emily’s listening ears. “The drunk guy was a crime of opportunity. This is a calculated psychological attack. It’s a direct hit on your business, and on you.”
He wasn’t sure how it happened, if she decided to do it or if he did, or if they both did, but her hand turned in his, then his fingers slid along hers, then they wove together. Looking deep into her eyes, he squeezed gently, hyperaware of her slender bones, her wide hazel eyes.
“I didn’t think about it that way,” she said quietly.
“That’s my job. I’ve got this. You think about your new music.” He covered her fidgeting fingers with his own, debating whether to tell her about the mysterious car. In the end, he decided not to worry her further.
The bedroom door opened. Cady picked up her phone and tapped in her lock code. A moment later a new text appeared on his phone with Bryan’s contact card attached. “I’ll let him know to keep you up to date. Let’s get this party started, Em,” she said.
There was a lot of bouncing and squealing to this sleepover thing, Conn reflected as they sat down in the living area. He hauled in a couple of armloads of wood from the pile and built a fire while Emily popped popcorn and opened bags of snacks. The wood popped and crackled in the background as the opening credits for Love and Basketball flashed on the screen.
“Do you have sisters?” she asked Conn when Emily got up to make hot cocoa.