Jonas looked suspicious, but said, “Of course. Anyway, about three weeks ago I was explaining to Hailey about how networks aren’t always secure, and I used her computer—I installed Linux onto it last year—and picked up a network that I now know was Mr. Gibson’s. I don’t understand why he needed a network at all, except for desktop to laptop maybe, but I would do it wired if I cared about privacy, and the guy was using WPA but with a PSK, so it was easy. The guy was sharing files between his computers, and within an hour we were sharing them with him.”
“Jonas, I write history books. I have no idea what you just said.”
Their drinks came and Jonas sipped his immediately. He had froth on his top lip as he started talking again.
“I didn’t explain it very well.”
“You have froth on your lip.”
He wiped it off and said, “Thanks. Basically, and I only did this to prove a point, I hacked into Mr. Gibson’s network. Over a couple of days, I just dug around, and we copied a whole load of information.”
“We?”
“We. Hailey knows her stuff. I mean, software and computers aren’t really her thing—they’re not even mine—but she still knows her way around.”
“Okay.” Neither of them struck him as archetypal geeks, but then as Jonas had said, this wasn’t an obsession for them, just something they considered normal for a wired teenager. “Presumably, Gibson found out.”
“First thing we knew was when all activity ceased. I thought he’d gone away. But then his network went live again, this time with the kind of security he should have had in place to begin with.”
“So you couldn’t hack into it?”
“I doubt even a hacker would have been able to hack into it, but like I said, it’s not really my thing. I mean, that’s what’s crazy about what happened—we weren’t even interested in his stuff. We just did it to prove to ourselves that we could.” He took another sip of his drink and said, “Do I have froth on my lip?”
“No.” Finn stifled a laugh and took a gulp of his coffee, too hot, before saying, “Go on.”
“With what?”
“What happened next?”
“He spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Portman. He just knocked on their door and was all friendly, like it was just a misunderstanding, wondering if their daughter had accidentally accessed his network. He made some joke about not understanding how it worked but his technician had told him that’s what had happened. Only it wasn’t a joke if you think about it, because he actually didn’t understand it—if he did he would have had the right security to begin with.”
Finn nodded, but he was wondering why Ethan and Debbie hadn’t mentioned this. He’d specifically asked about Gibson, about the possibility of his departure being linked with Hailey’s disappearance, and they hadn’t mentioned that he’d spoken to them. It might just have slipped their minds, he supposed, but it was odd that they’d remembered other unimportant things and forgotten that.
Finn said, “Hailey said she hadn’t, of course.”
“She was clever. She said she didn’t think so, then asked if she’d know about it or if it was possible to do it by accident.”
“Smart reply.” Devious, he thought to himself. Hailey Portman was devious, a fact that filled him with a little more optimism.
But Jonas said, “Not smart enough. A few times, she noticed him staring at her from his window as she came in, then one night a car followed her when she was walking home from my house, then someone broke into their apartment.”
“Into the Portmans’ apartment?” Jonas nodded, and Finn was once again knocked back, wondering why they hadn’t mentioned this to him, wondering if they’d mentioned it to the police.
Then he came to the obvious—perhaps too obvious—conclusion, that these were just kids with overactive imaginations. How many teenage girls haven’t thought they were being followed at some point or other? And by a car? It suggested a kid who’d seen too many made-for-TV thrillers.
“They didn’t take anything, but Hailey knew they’d searched her room. Of course, they’d tried to access her laptop, too, but thanks to Linux, they didn’t stand a chance.”
Finn thought again about how devious Hailey was, and hit upon another explanation, one that depressed him, because it made a fool of Jonas and he was already taking to the kid. But he had to admit, it seemed a lot more likely than a psychotic hedge fund manager.
Hailey had changed her image, which his instinct told him was a response to a boy—or a man. She’d wanted to go and meet him, had wanted a reason for doing so, and had fabricated these various threats: the pursuing car, the searched room. If she was really smart, she might even have cajoled Jonas into hacking Gibson’s network in the first place, setting up the scenario in advance.
“What do you think they were searching for?”
Jonas shrugged. “The material we collected, I guess.”
“They could have just taken the laptop.”
“True.” Jonas thought about it and said, “It wouldn’t have helped them, but they weren’t to know that. Of course, it would have made Hailey’s room a crime scene, instead of the location for a teenager’s paranoid fancies.”
Finn laughed, impressed on some level—it was as if Jonas had read his thoughts and sought to counter them.