The Housewife Assassin's Killer App (28 page)

Aunt Phyllis has made a pie—sort of. I can’t really tell what kind because the crust is burnt.

Still, she welcomes my offer to clean up the kitchen so that she can take off. “By the way, Mary asked if she could go to the mall with her girlfriends. I saw no harm in it,” she declares.

“Of course not.” Anything to get her mind off her weekend with Carl is fine with me. “Jack, text her and tell her you’ll pick her up there. In the meantime, I’ll retrieve Trisha and Jeff, and get him to baseball practice.”

But first things first: clean up the mess Aunt Phyllis made in the kitchen.

When I open the oven, I notice that the heating element is coated in something thick and red. It’s no longer hot to the touch, so I place a finger on it and taste it.

Cherries.

It’s the thought that counts.

Two hours later, I pull into the driveway with my two youngest children. I would have expected them to be home before us, but no, the Jack-mobile is nowhere in sight.
 

I ring his cell. No answer.

I do the same with Mary’s, but there is no pick up.

So that I don’t spend the time gnawing my fingers down to the knuckles, I busy myself by making dinner.

I hear Jack’s car pull into the garage. He walks in with his arm around Mary’s shoulder.
 

She has been crying. “Mom, may we talk to you?” she asks.

I nod and follow them into the living room. Whatever they have to say, it’s formal enough for this venue. I’m glad that Trisha and Jeff are upstairs in their rooms, doing their homework.
 

Jack lets Mary do the talking. She hesitates, but starts, “I—I got picked up for shoplifting.”

The noise I make is a cross between a small animal caught in a trap and a balloon with a pinprick.
 

“It was a stupid thing to do. It was a skirt, from the Hilldale Bloomingdales. I was with Babs and Wendy—”

I stand up, angered. “Was it their idea? Wait until I call their mothers—”

“No, Mom! They had nothing to do with it. I did it alone. I—I was angry. At all of you. I thought, ‘Hey, if my whole life is a lie, what the hell, why not?’” She chokes out the words in between sobs. “I wouldn’t be surprised if my friends never talked to me again, after they saw the police take me away in handcuffs.”

“Handcuffs!” I look at Jack. “You found her in jail?” I turn back to Mary. “Why didn’t I get a call?”

Mary looks down at her feet. “I…I called Dad.”

“Jack, why didn’t you say something when we were together?”

Before he can answer me, Mary replies, “Not Jack. I called Carl Stone!”

This new bit of news pulls me back down onto the couch. “Did he come for you? Is he here?”

Mary shakes her head. “No. He told me that despite his position, he wasn’t my ‘get out of jail free’ card, and would never be. He told me…he told me he was ashamed of me, and that a night in juvie jail would do me good.” She raises her head so that her eyes meet mine. “He was right. I was testing him. I guess I know where I really stand with him.”

I might think the same thing at this very moment, but it’s nothing I’d say out loud to my very frightened daughter.
 

When he’s needed most, he won’t be there for her.

“Store Security had a video of her taking the item,” Jack informs me. “When she admitted to it, the guards called the police. Walking out of the store in handcuffs acts as a deterrent for others.”

“Mary, may I presume you were ashamed enough that you’ll never do it again?” I ask gently.

As she nods, her tears fall from her face.

“The store’s policy is that she pay three times the item’s cost,” Jack continues. “And she must never enter the store again without being accompanied by an adult. Children’s Services says that she must also do forty hours of public service. However, since she’s under the age of eighteen, this restitution, and a clean probationary period of six months, will expunge her record.”

“Mary, beyond your public service, you’re to be grounded for two months. No cell phone. You can use your computer for homework, but without the Internet. I’ll pay your debt to the store. You’ll repay me by doing chores.”

She runs to me and hugs me. “I was stupid. I’m so sorry,” she murmurs. “Mom, he—Carl—asked where you were, and I told him you were at work. He just laughed. He told me that my actions were more proof that you’re a lousy mother, and that the sooner he gets full custody of us, the better.” She smears her mascara as she wipes away her tears. “I’ll never go with him. Now that I’m fourteen, I don’t have to, do I?”

“No. At your age you’re allowed to choose which parent you prefer to live with.”

“I want to stay here with you—and Jack.” Her eyes implore him:
Do you forgive me?

He nods. “I’m honored you feel that way, Mary.” Patting her head, he adds, “I may not be your father by blood, but I’ll always love you like a father. I’ll always appreciate your love for me. And I will always be there for you.”

She hugs him as if she’ll never let him go.

I know I will remember this moment for as long as I live. I wish I could savor it, but the reality of our situation leaves a bitter taste in my mouth: If Carl can prove I’m an unfit mother, I’ll lose all of my children, even Mary.

This tender moment is interrupted by the beep of Jack’s cell phone. He looks down at it. “Ryan,” he tells me. He then turns to Mary. “Go on up to your room and start your homework.”
 

She nods, and runs up the stairs.

He waits until he hears her door close before putting the call on speaker, so that I can hear Ryan as well.

“We have a breakthrough in the case. Susan Crowley was found in a Barcelona hotel, dead of an overdose. She had written a note that takes full responsibility for the IC network breach, working in collusion with the Mad Hacker.”
 

“Did she mention anyone named Charles Babbage?”

“No. Then again, it could be the Mad Hacker’s real name.”

“So, what you’re saying is that the NSA is declaring the case solved, and our mission is over,” Jack says.

“Officially, yes.”

It’s easy to read between the lines: Unofficially, no.

But where is the auction being held, and when?

“Mom, did you know you’re the star of Shazaaaam’s new game?” Jeff points to the screen of his new MacBook Air, the crowning glory of his stash from his deadbeat dad.
 

He’s the only one keeping me company as I finish the dinner dishes. Jeff is certainly giving his free Shazaaaam subscription a workout.
 

Mary has confined herself to her room. Aunt Phyllis is practicing her samba moves in the great room while listening to
La Vida Es un Carnaval
through her Beats. Jack is upstairs with Trisha, helping her learn the times tables.
 

I drop the last of the dirty pots into the suds-filled sink before turning to him with a smile. “Yes, I was the model for the heroine. If you want, I’ll show you a few of Emma’s awesome shortcuts.”

“Do you mean like this one—where you blow up the White House but you make it look as if the Russians did it?”

“What did you say?” I run over to his computer.

He’s right. Virtual Donna is setting the timer on her Electrolux convection oven. Suddenly a Google Earth map appears, and the player is transported across the country, to the White House—

Just in time to watch it blow sky high.

The devastation doesn’t stop there. The player is now in the Situation Room, where the heads of the U.S. National Security Council, led by Virtual Carl, debate on a course of action—

Only to agree with Virtual Carl that retaliation is needed before other major U.S. cities also come under attack.

As nuclear missiles are launched, Virtual Donna pulls a golden brown turkey out of the oven. With a blissful sigh, she murmurs, “Perfect, just as I planned it!”

No, no, no! I’m not planning to start World War III!

Frankly, I don’t remember Emma showing me this shortcut. And quite frankly, I’ve never had an iota of trouble with my oven. If there’s a short somewhere, I better find it—now—before the meatloaf is burned to a crisp.

I text Emma:
MAJOR glitch in game!

A moment later, she texts back:
Checking now.

“Mom! MOM! Look! Your avatar is changing—into Alice in Wonderland!”

Jeff is right. Virtual Donna is morphing into the character.
 

Virtual Alice reaches high into a kitchen cabinet and pulls out a tiny vial that is tagged. On the tag are the words:
MEET ME.

These coordinates are below it:
34.264251, -117.260414 No GPS. Use Phyllis’s car.

I pull up a GPS app on Jeff’s laptop. It shows me that the location is in the middle of the San Bernardino National Forest, just north and east of Los Angeles but right before Lake Arrowhead, off something called Dark Canyon Road.

Emma emails back:
Vulnerability not system wide! Jeff’s account only.

Thank goodness for that.
 

“Dad and I have a meeting. Keep all the doors locked. No one goes in or out.”
 

A small worry frown appears on Jeff’s forehead. I know he’s wondering what it all means.

I wish I had an answer for him.

I wish I had an answer for me too.

I shout up the staircase, “Jack, honey, we’re late—for a very important date!”

With the Mad Hacker.

Chapter 16

Halt and Catch Fire

In the computer industry, the acronym “SDI” stands for “self destruct immediately.” It is a security feature, attached to external tamper detection circuitry that activates when a vulnerability is detected. Nothing really destructs. It disengages.

SDI is also known by the term, “halt and catch fire.”

You too have an SDI feature. It kicks in (a) when someone does something obnoxious to your child; (b) when you’re going out of your way to impress someone who really couldn’t care less who you are; and (c) at the sight of old boyfriends.

In other words, you halt to say something stupid, and immediately afterward, you’re so ashamed that you wish you’d catch fire.

Since you contain no automated circuitry to dismantle the SDI within you, your best course of action is to do so manually.
 

In other words, smile supremely, hold your head high, and keep your mouth shut.

From Hilldale in mid-day traffic, the drive to the San Bernardino National Forest will take us an hour.
 

The rest of Mad’s middle-of-nowhere destination is another half-hour by foot on a trail barely wide enough for a rabbit.

As per the instructions, we’re carrying no devices that allow for GPS tracking.
 

We wear black garb, but it is Jack’s contention that once we are within proximity of the meeting place, we will have been spotted anyway.
 

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Mad Hacker has webcams all over these woods,” he whispers.

In due time, we come across a cabin. It is tiny: all on one level, and twenty feet by twenty feet, tops.