Down to the Liar (4 page)

The sketchbook shows panel after panel of graphic-style storyboarding. It’s actually not bad. It’s not Marvel quality, but it’s not bad. More to the point, it shows a more dashing version of Carter ninja-slashing through a horde of masked invaders and saving the damsel in distress—the damsel being a pretty faithful rendering of Skyla.

“This isn’t proof,” I tell her, handing the sketchbook back to a mortified Carter.

She raises an eyebrow at me. The eyebrow says,
Oh, please—any child could tell he’s not involved. Stop wasting time.

“Fine.” I relent in a huff. To Carter, I say, “But you’d better not leave town.”

When I realize how coplike I sound, I make a face. Dani’s lips tilt up at the corner, which is her way of busting up laughing. I give her a dirty look, but it doesn’t make her stop.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?” She opens the door for me. We both ignore Carter.

I sigh. “I guess it’s down to the wire.”

Dani drops me off at the Ballou so I can get my stuff. She offered to drive me home after, but I’ve still got an hour till curfew and I want to do some strategizing before heading back to Mike’s house.

I drop into the comfy, thrift-store-fabulous armchair I usually reserve for clients and prop my feet on my desk. The wire. As if this job weren’t bad enough already.

The wire game (for those of you following along at home) is about convincing a mark you can guarantee he’ll win the lottery as long as he pays
you
for the ticket, rather than buying it like he normally would.

In the telegraph days, when small delays between events and reporting of those events were common, cons would set up fake betting parlors and trick a mark into plunking down all his money on a racehorse they said they knew in advance would win, when in fact, they knew the horse would lose. The mark would bet big money on the “sure thing” only to forfeit all that money to the cons when the “winning” horse actually
lost.
The cons running the scam would then split the cash and move on.

The beauty of the scam is that the mark can’t go to the cops without admitting he was trying to place an illegal bet. It’s a neat little trick that’s netted a lot of people some easy money. But it’s not without its drawbacks.

For one thing, it requires a lot of people to pull it off—people who can turn on you, mess up their parts, or just plain not show up. Marks are easy to lead. Associates are not.

For another, I’ve never successfully run a wire game before. I attempted it exactly once, and it blew up spectacularly in my face (see previous
associates
comment).

I normally wouldn’t touch a wire game with a ten-foot cattle prod. But with this much distance between me and the mark, the wire game is pretty much my only option. It lets me lure the mark out of hiding with the promise of a guaranteed sweet reward and then snag him in a net—the Internet, that is. The telegraph may be long gone, but people are the same. For one thing, they’re still far too trusting of technology. And I can tell you from experience that a mark will still bet all he’s worth on a sure thing.

Now I just have to figure out what sweet reward would tempt a psycho stalker-bully to show himself. A reward I can control.

In the past, I would have asked my dad for ideas. But he’s in prison and not easy to contact. Of course, if Sam were here, I’d ask him. But he’s not here, and he’s not taking my calls. Which I guess leaves Murphy. I’m still pretty irritated with him about the Carter thing, but he can be pretty creative when he wants to be.

I check my phone for the time: 9:49. Not too offensively late to make a call. Not that I mind being offensive.

I drop my feet and lean forward in my chair, resting my elbows on the desk as I scroll through my contacts list. I tap Murphy’s name and press Call. But it’s not Murphy who answers.

“Hi, Julep. This better be good,” Bryn says.

Bryn often answers Murphy’s phone for him. He thinks it’s cute. I think it’s nauseating.

“Frankly, I’m surprised you even picked up,” I say.

“You have something on Skyla’s stalker?”

“Not yet,” I say as I reconsider telling her to put Murphy on the phone. Bryn might actually be the better person to ask about this. “I need some advice.”

“That sweater you were wearing yesterday is hideous. Burn it.”

I rub the bridge of my nose. I did ask. I should know better by now, I really should.

“I need bait,” I say, ignoring the malicious sweater attack. “Something juicy enough to convince Skyla’s bully to crawl out from under their rock. Any ideas?”

“A really big jerk magnet.”

“Come on. Seriously.”

“Fine.” Silence falls on her end of the line as she thinks. “There was that celebrity scandal last year—nude photos. But I don’t know if we can get Skyla to pose nude….”

Nude photos.
Of course.
The con suddenly flares to life in my tired brain, forming connections, cataloging resources, calculating odds. Now all I need is a hacker.

“Bryn, you’re a genius,” I say. “Put Murphy on the phone.”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take longer than a school day for my shiny new outlook on the job to wear off. The dean seems to have caught on that something’s up, because she was lurking not-so-covertly around every corner today. Plus, Skyla was out sick, which just makes me that much more cranky. I don’t like the idea of her holing up alone when who knows what kind of crazy is waiting to pounce.

“You’d better be right about this, Murphy,” I mutter under my breath.

I kick a plastic empty out of my way as we navigate a musty commercial basement in Washington Heights, avoiding sticky patches and candy wrappers littering the floor as best we can by the cold light of clustering laptop screens and mobile devices. Murphy’s leading the way, since he’s actually been here before. Dani’s trailing just behind us, her eyes scanning the room, though how she sees anything in this dismal cave is beyond me.

“Installing spyware I can do,” Murphy says. “But if you want the honeypot, you need a real hacker.”

“Like Sam,” I mumble to myself.

Murphy shakes his head in the dim light. “There’s nobody like Sam. He’s the best I’ve ever seen. But this guy’s almost as good.”

I snort in disgust as I brush past a stained sofa with a couple making out to the four-four rhythm of the punishing techno beat. Almost everyone else is tapping keyboards and trash-talking each other in an equally techno language. The whole scene drives the spike of anger deeper. I shouldn’t have to be here.

“What kind of name is Tog, anyway?” I say.

“You want the Tog?” interrupts a disembodied voice from behind a nearby monitor.

Murphy stops. “You know him?” he says, addressing the general direction the voice came from.

“Depends who’s asking.”

“We need help with a honeypot scam.”

“That ain’t saying who’s asking.”

I don’t have time for this crap. I push Murphy aside and round the rickety table supporting the monitor.

“
I’m
asking.” I pour all the
HULK-SMASH
surging through me into the two words.

“Damn,
mami.
That’s all you had to say. Catholic schoolgirl wants me to do something….” Which he then follows up with a wolf whistle. Classy.

I size up the scrawny guy who just volunteered to be our guide. He’s older than us, but not nearly as badass as he thinks he is. Oversized sunglasses. Enough bling to blind a prophet. He’s lounging in a ripped chair, balancing a keyboard on one leg and his beer bottle on the other. I’m itching to knock that smirk off his face. I may let Dani do it for me.

“What you want with the Tog?”

“I have a proposition for him. Can you get him?”

“What’s the payout?”

“That’s between me and him.”

He laughs. “Baby, you talking to the Tog right now.”

I should have guessed someone named Tog would refer to himself in the third person. I just can’t win for losing today.

His grin turns decidedly lecherous. “This proposition involve you paying me with that smoking body? Because I could be down with that.”

I can feel Dani tensing behind me, which is just silly. I’ve faced zucchini scarier than this guy.

“This proposition involves me paying you with cash. Still interested?”

“Maybe.”

I outline the basics of the scam Murphy and I cooked up last night. It’s called the “honeypot” and has been used by hackers since there was a network for them to hack. It consists of a website on a controlled server that can fish out a visitor’s IP address. In other words, I provide bait—nude photos of Skyla, in this case—and give the perpetrator a link. But instead of leading to nude photos, the link leads to an empty site that captures the jerk’s IP address.

Once I have the IP address, I can use it to look up the stalker’s
physical
address. And then I can have a little one-on-one with our perp about etiquette and the proper way to treat a lady. There might be some thumbscrews involved. I like to be thorough.

After I’ve laid it out, Tog shrugs. “Doable. How much?”

“Three grand.”

He purses his lips, pretending to mull it over. “I don’t do white-hat. Could sully my rep.”

“You’ll bounce back.”

This is why I hate bringing in contractors. Attitude, fair-weather loyalty. They’re even worse for reliability than people who owe me favors. Plus, I have to pay them, which goes against every grifter grain in my body. But this is the only play we’ve got.

“You’re lucky I have a weakness for spitfires with great legs. Otherwise, your mouth might try my patience. And I don’t put up with
gabachos
who try my patience.”

I sense more than see his bouncers shifting position. The air in the room chills, though the keyboard clicks and mumbled conversations haven’t lessened. Dani’s hand circles my upper arm, but I shake her off. I’m not leaving without a deal.

I rest my hands on either arm of his overstuffed chair and lean in, stopping an inch from his nose.

“What a coincidence. Because I have exactly zero tolerance for posers like you. But it so happens my far superior hacker is on walkabout right now, so I’m in need of a temp. You don’t want the job, fine. I’ll dig up your nearest competitor and give him the money and the bragging rights instead. And then I’ll find your mom”—I stroke his neck suggestively and wind one of the gold chains around my finger—“and tell her exactly what happened to all her costume jewelry.”

Then I push against his chest to lever myself to standing. Murphy gapes at me. Dani’s as stoic as always, but I can tell she’s angry. Strangely, I’m not anymore. It’s the grifter’s high that comes from reading a mark and knowing
exactly
how to get him to do your bidding. Tog is a masochist in sadist’s clothing. Deep down he wants someone to push him around.
Give the mark what he wants….

“Six grand,” he says, his voice husky.

I flash a version of his smirk back at him, hand perched on my hip bone in my best impression of a bikini model. Then I turn and walk away.

“I’ll be in touch,” I call over my shoulder. Dani and Murphy follow me out.

Dani stews in silence the whole drive back to Bryn’s house, which is where we picked up Murphy for our cracker-fishing expedition. I know she’s mad, and I know why she’s mad. But she’s just going to have to get over it.

When I get out to let Murphy out of the Chevelle’s backseat, he glances between Dani and me. “Want me to drive you?” he asks.

It’s a gentlemanly offer, but I’m even less scared of Dani than I am of Tog, though not for the same reasons. Tog is all posturing and no teeth. Dani is the reverse. Her teeth are razor sharp, and she’d never give an enemy advance warning. But I’m pretty sure she won’t bite me, no matter how much I might deserve it.

“Nah. Thanks, though. I’ll text you if I make it to the office.”

He nods. “All right. Just try not to piss her off any more tonight.”

“Come on, Murph. This is me we’re talking about.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

I push the passenger seat back into position and slide into it, shutting the door with the soft slam unique to muscle cars. Dani pulls away from the curb. She waits two whole minutes before laying into me.

“It makes me crazy when you do that,” she says as she shifts gears.

“It makes
me
crazy when you act all overprotective. I was playing him, and it went perfectly.”

“What if it had not gone as you planned? I counted three guards at least. Not to mention his thirty acolytes. It was an unnecessary risk. You always gamble as if your life is worthless.”

“Look, I didn’t pick a job baking cupcakes. What I do is lousy with risk.”

“You think I cannot tell when you are working and when you are being recklessly self-destructive?”

Okay, I might have gone a tiny bit off the rails back there, but I’m not confessing that to her.

“I wasn’t being reckless. I needed his help and I got it.”

“It is as if you are trying to punish yourself, or prove some sort of point.”

“I’m not punishing myself.” Though I deserve it, and then some. “I’m just doing my job. And anyway, you’re the one trying to prove something.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she growls.

My heart is hammering, and some part of my brain is screaming at me to shut my stupid mouth. But I’m not famous for doing the right thing. I’m about to say something I know I’ll regret. I say it anyway.

“You saved me from Petrov. Your promise to my dad is done,
finito,
over. But you’re still here. And you still think it’s your duty to protect me. Just so we’re clear, I never asked you to.”

She’s silent for the rest of the trip to the Ballou, which to be fair is only a few minutes. But still. You could melt an iceberg with the heat scorching the car. I’m mad at her for being mad at me, but there’s a significant amount of guilt churning in my gut as well when she pulls up to the door.

“You are right,” she says, sounding resigned. “You did not ask. But I was not doing it for you.”

“Dani—”

“Enough. It is your life to risk as you want. Just as it is my life to risk in your place.”

“That’s not—”

“All I am trying to say is that you do not have to suffer to earn forgiveness.”

My breath seizes in my lungs like I’ve been tackled. She has no right to say that to me. No right and every right. She’s the only friend I have left who’s not just sticking around because she owes me a favor. How much longer until I drive her away, too? Or worse, get her killed?

I mumble something and bolt out of the car. I pass Yaji again without a word and climb the stairs to my office. When I get to my desk, my history book is still open to the textiles chapter. I put my head on my arms and cry like I haven’t since Tyler died.

The next day after school, Bryn and Murphy and I reconvene at the Ballou office to lay the bait for the honeypot. Bryn and Murphy read over my shoulder as I type a private Facebook message from my own fake account to one of the bully accounts:

Psst. You really want to go after that skank Skyla? I found her boyfriend’s phone and downloaded some naked pics. Check out this link….

“Can’t you say ‘boobs’ in there somewhere?” Murphy asks.

“No, I cannot. Perv.”

“I’m just saying it would sweeten the pot.”

“I think ‘naked’ is sweet enough.” I paste in the link Tog sent me and send the message. “Now we just have to wait for the mark to click the link.”

“What does the page say when the attacker clicks it?” Bryn asks.

“It just throws up an error message,” Murphy says.

“You don’t think that seems suspicious?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “As soon as someone clicks the link, we’ll have their IP address.”

“And then what?”

“Then I look up who it belongs to and make them rue the day they ever heard of the Internet. The details depend on who it turns out to be.”

“Why are we not telling Skyla about this?”

“She doesn’t want to know who it is. Besides, she might accidentally let the plan slip to the wrong person.”

I type a quick, insulting acknowledgment to Tog. It’s our thing now—I take out all my pent-up, grief-fueled rage on him, and he reads the thank-you between the lines.

“How long will it take the attacker to click the link?”

“Hard to tell. It seems like the mark is posting every other day or so. It could be sooner than that, though, if they’re set up to receive notification emails.”

“Well, I hope it’s worth the six thousand dollars you’re going to bill her.”

“Me too.”

Bryn takes off to pick Skyla up at her boyfriend’s place, leaving me and Murphy to sit and twiddle our thumbs.

“How’d your come-to-Jesus with Dani go?” Murphy asks from his desk a few minutes later.

I really don’t want to answer that question. I’m still nursing a sore spot over the argument.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he says.

I hide behind my laptop, answering emails, scheduling intakes, finishing up a homework assignment for government class.

“Murphy?” I say finally.

“Yeah?”

I stop typing, but I don’t look at him.

“I’m glad you’re—you know—here.”

He doesn’t answer, but the room is comfier than it has been in a while. He’s not Sam, so I can’t be sure he heard the apology I didn’t quite say. But I feel a teeny tiny bit better. Now if only I could work stuff out with Dani. And Sam. I roll my eyes at myself. Might as well wish for the reappearances of Ralph and my mom while I’m at it.

I get an email from Tog. I assume it’s an invoice for his services, but when I open the message, I wave Murphy over.

“We’ve got a hit. The mark already tried the link.”

While Murphy’s crossing the distance to my desk, I highlight and copy the IP address Tog just sent me.

“Ready for the moment of truth?” I say.

“Always.”

I paste the IP address into the search field on Whois.net and click the Search button. In seconds, the search engine returns a bunch of gobbledygook data that makes no sense to me. But in the middle of all the random netname, admin-C, source, and mnt-ref information is the pot of gold I’ve been waiting for. The mark’s home address.

“Field trip?” I say.

After a quick jaunt in Murphy’s van to residential Lincoln Park, we pull up to a Georgian three-story with immaculate lawns and a hedge separating it from the bourgeois sidewalk. Pretty much what I expected.

Murphy meets me on my side of the van. “What are you going to say? ‘Who lives here and what do you have against Skyla Woodbridge?’ ”

“Yep. You coming?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for all the panels at Comic-Con.”

We walk up and ring the bell. A maid answers.

“May I speak with the head of the household?” I say, smiling pleasantly.

“Mr. Olson isn’t home right now. He’s at his son’s baseball game. May I give him a message?”

“I’m sorry. Did you say ‘Olson’?”

The maid’s eyes narrow. She’s trying to figure out if she’s done something wrong.

“As in Garrett Olson?” I continue.

Murphy looks as shocked as I feel.

Skyla’s victimizer is her boyfriend.