Looking uncomfortable, Tabby hesitates before she answers. “But she’s busy living her happily-ever-after, and I’m busy…doing my thing.”
It’s obvious that she’s happy for Victoria, but the undercurrent is loneliness. I want to reach out and squeeze her hand but know I risk losing it, so instead I try to lighten the mood.
“Don’t worry, sweet cheeks, I’m sure you’ll get your happily ever after too.”
Unsmiling, she looks up. “There are no happily ever afters for people like me.”
People like me? I tilt my head, studying her, fascinated. When she flushes and looks away, I decide to leave that subject for another time.
“Back to you attending MIT barely out of diapers.”
She rolls her eyes. “Getting in at fifteen isn’t that impressive, Connor. My first year there, a twelve-year-old graduated with a PhD in molecular biology. Geniuses are a dime a dozen at that school.”
“Just because you’re used to being surrounded by other stars doesn’t make your star shine any less bright to the rest of us down here on earth.”
Taken aback, she blinks and self-consciously laughs.
I wonder how often she’s been on the receiving end of a compliment. Judging by her surprise, not often.
Why that should irritate me, I don’t know.
She says, “Anyway, as part of a project in my quantum computing class, we were assigned to work on a cryptology software program for businesses that could theoretically be hack proof. Protection for data at banks, universities, hospitals, that kind of thing. Totally hypothetical, of course, but we were supposed to come up with a new way of protecting data, and then test it in a real-world environment.”
“Like with an actual business?”
“Bank of America of all things.” Her lips twist. “I think someone at the bank must’ve been in on it because whoever thought it was a good idea to give a bunch of geeky teenagers with gigantic intellects and no impulse control access to billions of dollars’ worth of financial information was definitely guilty of something. Criminal short-sightedness, at the very least.”
I lean back in my chair and take a swig of my beer. From the corner of my eye, I see one of the girls at the bar who’s been watching me lean over and whisper something behind her hand to her companion. They both look at me and then giggle.
Tabby didn’t miss it either. A muscle in her jaw flexes. That small reaction makes me want to jump from my chair and do a touchdown victory dance, complete with chest pounding and Tarzan roars.
I say mildly, “Go on.”
She takes a breath. “There were four teams of six students. Maelstr0m and I were on the same team. His real name is S?ren Killgaard, by the way. But don’t bother looking for him. You won’t find any data about anyone, living or dead, with that name.”
I keep my face and body perfectly neutral. Not even a muscle twitches. I hardly even breathe. But the odds that Tabby went to school with the very man I’m searching for are staggering.
I don’t believe in fate, but there’s something really creepy about this.
I motion for her to continue.
Fingering her fork, Tabby looks down at her plate. “He was different, even in a roomful of kids who were definitions of the word ‘different.’ He was…” She searches for the word. “Wrong, somehow. I don’t know how else to put it. He was wrong.”
“I know exactly what you mean. Some people look right, they say all the right things, on the surface they appear to be normal, adjusted members of society, but you can sense on an animal level that they’re off.”
Tabby’s nodding. “I was the only person who felt that way about S?ren. Everyone else was dazzled by him. In complete awe. I think in part it was because he was so beautiful—”
“Beautiful?” I drawl. “Did someone have a crush?”
She looks at me for a long, silent moment. She’s not wearing any makeup, and in the candlelight, her bare skin gleams like a polished stone.
“No. I didn’t have a crush. Even at eighteen I knew that beautiful things can be toxic. I’m simply speaking the truth. S?ren Killgaard looked like a Renaissance painting of an angel. Golden hair and fair skin and eyes the color of ice in an alpine lake that never thaws. A body so proportionate and perfect, it was made to be sculpted. I always thought he looked like a fairy-tale prince, he had that sort of untouchable, otherworldly beauty.”
Slowly, my brows lift. This S?ren Killgaard must be some looker to get the rabid Tabitha West waxing poetic.
I decide I hate him.
“So what happened?”
Tabby’s expression hardens. “He skimmed millions of dollars before they caught on to what was happening. He used a loophole in the bank’s code to divert money into an account he controlled. Fractions of pennies at a time, so no single transaction would be detected—”
“Salami slicing. Classic hacker technique.”