Investigating the Hottie (11 page)

I turned back to smile at him, since he’d acknowledged my existence and all. Any excuse to steal a look at him.

“We watched you last night. You played well.” Nic must have been trying to bond with him.

“Thanks,” Will said.

“So Amanda says you two are working on some Art project together.”

Don’t go bringing that up when he’s in a decent mood
. 

“Yes, sir,” Will answered.

I’d have smacked Nic, but Will would have noticed.

“Amanda doesn’t seem to think she has much artistic ability.”

Now I wished Nic would speed up so he’d have less time for questions. “Thanks, Nic,” I muttered.

“She doesn’t,” Will said, clearly amused.

“Hey!” I mean, it wasn’t that funny.

Will said, “Well, you know it. Besides I’m terrible too. This computer project will probably save us from failing.”

“And we’re starting on it tomorrow night, right?” I prompted.

“Yeah, whatever.” Will didn’t sound enthusiastic.

“Rough way to spend a weekend,” Nic commented. As if he wasn’t making me waste my entire fall break in school.

“Yeah. I’m not really looking forward to it.” Will’s long legs whacked the back of Nic’s seat as he tried to get comfortable.

We turned into Maple Hills and Will directed us to his house.

“Oh, yeah,” I said pointing to the white two-story. “I recognize it from your drawing.” I smirked at Will.

He snorted. “Shows what you know. I wasn’t drawing my house at all. It was my uncle’s house.”

Nic pulled the jeep up to the curb and hopped out.

Will gathered his bags and clambered out. “If you have time, I’m sure my mom would want to meet you guys.”

Finally! We’ll get to see inside the house.

“Sure. We’ve got time.” Nic reached in and killed the engine.

When I stepped onto the sidewalk, I saw some pretty impressive tulips drawn with chalk. “I thought the little girl was in kindergarten.”

“She is.” Will threw his bags over his shoulder.

“She’s good. Or we’re terrible. Or both,” I admitted, following Will.

Halfway up the brick sidewalk, the racket of drums reached us. Will didn’t slow, but Nic and I shared a confused moment.

Nic shrugged.

“Uh, Will. Is that coming from your house?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He climbed the steps to the porch.

The noise was more obnoxious than Christie’s alarm system. Was someone really doing that on purpose? It must be a little kid.

The banging grew louder as Will opened the door. I could just barely make out some actual music in the background.

I braced myself and followed Will into the living room. Through the flailing drumsticks and frenzy of movement, I made out an older woman with a hot pink sweater and red hair beating the hell out of a set of drums. The drums themselves took up the whole living room, crowding the formal looking floral sofa and loveseat and the dark wood coffee table.

It took a moment for me to realize it was the lady from the concession stand who’d warned Christie away from the cheese. She wore the same purple crystal earrings.

She saw us, and thankfully stopped abusing the instrument. The walls and floor continued to vibrate for another moment. “Will,” she greeted, standing up to reveal pants with brightly colored patterns that almost made me squint.

He went over to the stereo and turned down the vaguely familiar music. Wasn’t it from a car commercial?

“Sorry,” she said to me and Nic. “I just love to rock out with the Stones.”

I glanced at Nic.

He grinned, truly amused.

“She likes the Rolling Stones,” Will explained, “a lot.” He walked back to us tossing his bag and backpack on the couch as he passed. “She’s been playing ‘Satisfaction’ over and over since they delivered the drums last week.”

 “This is my grandmother Tarver,” Will said. His smile looked pained. He tried to take the drumsticks from her, but she jerked them away.

“Thank God!” A tall woman said with exasperation as she entered the room. Other than the pink fuzzy earmuffs, she dressed conservatively in a navy cardigan and pants. She looked a lot like Will. She had to be his mother. She pulled the earmuffs off and then removed an earplug from each ear.

I laughed. She was obviously one smart woman.

Will’s mom smiled wearily. “They don’t do much good anyway. You must be Amanda.”

She’d heard of me? Cool. “Yes,” I reached out to shake her hand. “And you’re Will’s mom.”

“Call me Jan.” Her smile was friendly. “Have you met my mother?”

Will’s grandmother zoomed closer and hugged me. “Nice to meet you, Amanda. Call me Brenda.” She still clutched the drumsticks.

Will’s mother cautioned, “Watch those drumsticks, Mom. You’ve already broken two vases.”

So that explained why the coffee table and mantle and every other surface in the room was bare. But if there was nothing left to break, why the warning?

Will continued, “And this is her aunt’s boyfriend, Nic.”

“Ladies,” Nic said, inclining his head.

“Nice to meet you, Nic,” his mom said.

Grandma almost whacked Will with her drumsticks trying to shake Nic’s hand. Now I got it. The only thing left to whack with the drumsticks was us.

“My car wouldn’t start,” Will explained, “so they gave me a ride. I called, but . . .”

“No one heard the phone.” Will’s mother groaned and shook her head. “But it was nice of you to run Will home.” She motioned for us to sit.

“I can’t imagine what happened to his car,” his grandmother said. “It runs like the Energizer bunny usually.”

I was relieved when she placed her drumsticks on the mantle.

“Could be the battery,” Nic said.

“Well,” his mother said, “we’ll run over there later with my brother. He knows a thing or two about cars.”

“Sounds like a good idea.” Nic must be a good agent, because I didn’t detect any guilt at all in his voice.

“Sit down,” his grandmother urged. “I’d love to get to know you better. Would you like some cookies? I bought some chocolate chip.” She started toward what must have been the kitchen.

“We really can’t stay long,” Nic said.

Grandma stopped and turned back to the room, clearly torn between talking to us and playing hostess. She eyed Nic. “He’s too young for you, isn’t he, Jan?”

“Mom!” Will’s mother growled.  “Mom retired three years ago,” she explained. “She never manages to burn up all her energy.”

His grandmother continued unfazed, “Will doesn’t bring many friends home. You’re new to school?”

“Yes. I just moved up here. I’ll probably be back tomorrow night because we have a project to work on.”

Grandma and Will’s mom exchanged a look. I’d love to have known what that’s about.

“That’s right. The big computer project,” Will’s mom said.

That reminded me that I had an agenda.
Time to try and see his room.
“Speaking of which, where is your computer, Will? Can you show me where we’ll be working, as long as we’re here?” I was pretty sure I’d failed at trying to sound casual. 

He jumped at the chance to leave the overcrowded living room. He must have felt as uncomfortable with all the attention too. “Sure, it’s upstairs.”

I followed him up the hardwood staircase. “I like your house.”

“It’s okay.” He led me down the hall. “The computer’s in here.”

I totally expected it to be in his bedroom, so the floral yellow curtains at the window kind of threw me. The pale yellow room was a sharp contrast to the neat living room. This room held a desk with a CPU and monitor, a zip drive, external CD burner, and a table with more components on it, including a second CPU that looked like it was vomiting wires. The doors were closed on computer armoire in the corner. Post-it notes were stuck everywhere on every surface. “Oh,” I stammered. Stammering sucks. “It’s got its own room?”

Stupid
. 

“This way we can all use it,” he said looking at me funny.

“Oh.” I could
not
picture his grandmother surfing the net, but whatever. Especially seeing how inept she was on the drums. I doubted she could sit still that long anyway. She’d struck me as super peppy at the soccer game, and that appeared to be an understatement. 

“So, this is it. Anything else you want to see?” He shifted from foot to foot, fidgeting.

I wanted to see his room, but it wouldn’t sound right to say that. He already had to think I was way interested in him, so I just said, “Guess we’re all set for tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the ride, Amanda. Nic seems nicer than he did the other day.” Will actually looked right at me.

Being alone in the upstairs room seemed so intimate suddenly. I blushed under his gaze, especially when I remembered Nic’s chocolate cake comment. “He’s okay. He’s a little protective of me.”
And the rest of the United States of America.
 

Will motioned me ahead of him and I led down the stairs. The novel sensation of having a guy follow right behind me with nothing to see but my backside unnerved me. I probably should have added a little wiggle to my walk instead of walking like a jock, but I was afraid I’d overdo it and look like an idiot, or worse, fall down the stairs.

Nic was waiting by the door. “There you are. I’ve got to get you home and get to work.” He turned to Will’s mother and grandmother. “It was wonderful to meet both of you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” his mother said.

Grandma smiled up at Nic. “It’s nice to know people are looking out for my grandson.”

Was she batting her eyelashes at him?

Looking out for . . . trying to put in jail. Same difference.

“Ma’am,” Nic said in a way that made me think he should be tipping a cowboy hat.

“Thanks, guys,” Will said.

“Bye.” I waved and followed Nic out the door.

They called more goodbyes and shut the door behind us.

“What’s with all that ma’am stuff?” I asked. “You trying to sound like some kind of cowboy?”

“How do you know I’m not some kind of cowboy?” How did Christie not find him irresistible? The man must practice that mischievous look.

“Really. Are you from Texas?” He’d seemed more of a Yankee to me.

“I was just being polite. Respecting my elders and all.”

“Okay, pardner.” I opened the door of the jeep.

“Did you see the computer setup?” He held the door open for me.

“Yep. But it’s not in his room. There’s a computer room.” I climbed in preparing for the faint scent of motor oil that lingered in his jeep.

“We’ll look at the images when we get home. In the meantime, do you want to know how I managed to disable his car?” He slammed my door and walked around to the driver side.

When he opened the door and got in, I said, “Yeah. What’d you do, steal a part?” I could totally picture him holding out car parts like the nuns in the
Sound of Music
, my mom’s favorite movie. 

“No.” He started the engine and motioned to the back seat. “I have a device which pulses and disrupts electronic devices. See it back there?”

I turned and tugged at Nic’s discarded leather jacket to reveal a large square box in the back seat. It looked like a guitar amp. “So will his car start when they go back to get it?”

“Yes.” He shifted into first gear. “It will magically work.”

I gestured to the box. “Do you use that thing a lot?”

“Some.” Checking the rear view mirror, he pulled out from the curb.

“Is that how you usually get dates?” Not that he’d need to, but it sure would be handy for that.

He gave me a sharp look. “Now you’re sounding like your venomous aunt.”

Oh my God, I was. I laughed.

Christie was still out when we got home, so I changed into soccer clothes and retrieved the digital support unit from my bra. Nic connected to his laptop and typed in “computer.” Twenty-seven images came up on the screen. Some were from the school computer lab, but most were from Will’s house. Nic enlarged those images. “Okay,” he said as I flopped on the couch. “Here we go.”

We went through the images. The CPU with wires spilling out. He enlarged the post-it notes to show URLs.

“Looks bad,” Nic admitted. “Definitely a hacker set up.”

I hated to admit it but I’d been hoping it wasn’t. “Do we have enough to question him?”

“No.” He shut down the images. “I want to see his activity and exactly what he’s been up to lately. If you can get in there tomorrow, you have two things to do. One is to back up his activity to a flash drive. The other is something the agency developed. I call it the Hacker Tracker. It scans for hacking activity. You get results in twenty seconds.”

“Okay. I can do that.” I took the drive and put it in my backpack. “But what if he catches me?”

“You’re a smart girl. Talk your way out of it.” He closed the laptop. “We’ll be on standby.”

“That’s reassuring.” I needed a break from espionage. “Are we ordering take out? I’m ready for dinner before the scrimmage.”

“You know Will won’t be there,” he said.

That’s right, he had guitar. I shrugged, “I just want to play.”

He glanced at his watch. “I’ll drop you at the field, but the psycho driver will have to pick you up. I think Christie’s got some microwave dinners in there. Why don’t we eat those?”

“Okay. I just wasn’t sure if the microwave really was a microwave.”

He laughed. “It is.”

“Good.” I walked to the kitchen and pulled two meals from the freezer. I vented the corner of the first one and set the microwave for six minutes.

I had just left the kitchen when the burning smell hit me. “What the—”

“Oh, Amanda!” Nic ran past me and opened the microwave.

I followed him into the kitchen. He shook his head at the charred remains of the meal. “I forgot to tell you. It’s sixty times more powerful than a normal microwave.”

I just put my hands on my hips and glared.

He took the dinner out with tongs and set it in the sink. “We’ll go through a drive thru,” he said.

In a way, I was kind of right the other day. The microwave did take out all the fat, carbs, and calories. It turned food to dust.