Read Online Killing Katie (An Affair With Murder) (Volume 1) by B.A. Spangler - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: B.A. Spangler
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suddenly emerge from the reflection. But it was just me, staring back. I looked good in the outfit I’d selected for my lunch today, and even prettier with my hat and scarf on. With only an orange glow above the hard line of the horizon, the sun vanishing before me, the extra clothes had been a good call.
I leaned into the car window until my warm breath fogged the glass, making my reflection disappear, hiding it from the world. A reservation nagged at my conscience, and I tried to ignore it. I was still innocent and without sin for the moment. The glass cleared, and I saw a fierceness in my complexion I hadn’t seen before. Patient. Poised. The sight sent a chill through me. I searched for who it was that I wanted to be.
Should I ignore the reservations? Could I ignore who I’d become?
My phone buzzed and the shallow vibration made me jump. I’d stared long enough and slipped inside my car. I started the engine, willing the heat to come on as my teeth chattered. I cranked the thermostat on the dashboard until the thin white line sank into the red section. The heat would take a minute, but the idea of it being set helped a little.
Where are you? Steve texted. Are you okay? He didn’t seem mad, but texting could be misleading as far as tone was concerned.
I’m fine , I texted back. On my way home.
My phone said that he read my next text message. I waited for a reply, but there was none. The dread in my gut stayed. He was relieved to know that I was fine, but he would be angry—or worse, disappointed.
The traffic was as bad as I’d expected, but that gave me time to think about what else Nerd had showed me. The Web, as I knew it to be, was nothing more than looking at a storefront. Like walking through a market and seeing what was for sale from the sidewalk. I’d only scratched the surface. Behind the doors, just a few feet from the street, there was so much more going on. In just a short time, he explained more about the Deep Web and showed me different browsers that I could use to access the Web without leaving my fingerprints all over the computer. He’d called it proxy jumping—path hopping across multiple computers, each forwarding requests without leaving a trail. It was more than making just a few simple hops; he prided himself on being able to bounce our traffic over half a dozen servers.
I understood some of what he explained, but he could tell I was becoming lost at times. That feeling of being intimidated by technology sprang forward again, telling me that I’d need to learn as much as I could from him. I nodded like a hungry child when he offered more lessons. But at the same time, I struggled with the idea of trusting him.
Just let him show you, I told myself. After all, who was breaking a law? A conversation is just a conversation. I could be writing a paper, doing research.
It wasn’t as if I was about to bring Nerd along or let him in on the details of my plans.
I turned onto our street. A pretty cul-de-sac with a collection of houses and manicured lawns that was impossibly suburban, impossibly familiar, and everything that Steve disliked because it wasn’t the city. The bricks and lath-and-plaster, which we grew up with, had been replaced by paper shells covered in vinyl siding.
“Must’ve all come from the same factory,” Steve had joked when our realtor brought us to the For Sale sign. “Any flavors available other than plain?” The realtor politely ignored his joking, but I remember giving him a smirk, pleading with him to behave. Our lives had been firmly rooted in the city, and we would have stayed there forever, but the city we’d once known wasn’t the city that it had become. Steve still spent some of his days there, working across jurisdictions to put away the worst of the worst. After all, criminals know no boundaries. For me, home was wherever my family was. And at the time, pregnant with Michael, the best place for home meant a move out of the city.
I turned into our
I leaned into the car window until my warm breath fogged the glass, making my reflection disappear, hiding it from the world. A reservation nagged at my conscience, and I tried to ignore it. I was still innocent and without sin for the moment. The glass cleared, and I saw a fierceness in my complexion I hadn’t seen before. Patient. Poised. The sight sent a chill through me. I searched for who it was that I wanted to be.
Should I ignore the reservations? Could I ignore who I’d become?
My phone buzzed and the shallow vibration made me jump. I’d stared long enough and slipped inside my car. I started the engine, willing the heat to come on as my teeth chattered. I cranked the thermostat on the dashboard until the thin white line sank into the red section. The heat would take a minute, but the idea of it being set helped a little.
Where are you? Steve texted. Are you okay? He didn’t seem mad, but texting could be misleading as far as tone was concerned.
I’m fine , I texted back. On my way home.
My phone said that he read my next text message. I waited for a reply, but there was none. The dread in my gut stayed. He was relieved to know that I was fine, but he would be angry—or worse, disappointed.
The traffic was as bad as I’d expected, but that gave me time to think about what else Nerd had showed me. The Web, as I knew it to be, was nothing more than looking at a storefront. Like walking through a market and seeing what was for sale from the sidewalk. I’d only scratched the surface. Behind the doors, just a few feet from the street, there was so much more going on. In just a short time, he explained more about the Deep Web and showed me different browsers that I could use to access the Web without leaving my fingerprints all over the computer. He’d called it proxy jumping—path hopping across multiple computers, each forwarding requests without leaving a trail. It was more than making just a few simple hops; he prided himself on being able to bounce our traffic over half a dozen servers.
I understood some of what he explained, but he could tell I was becoming lost at times. That feeling of being intimidated by technology sprang forward again, telling me that I’d need to learn as much as I could from him. I nodded like a hungry child when he offered more lessons. But at the same time, I struggled with the idea of trusting him.
Just let him show you, I told myself. After all, who was breaking a law? A conversation is just a conversation. I could be writing a paper, doing research.
It wasn’t as if I was about to bring Nerd along or let him in on the details of my plans.
I turned onto our street. A pretty cul-de-sac with a collection of houses and manicured lawns that was impossibly suburban, impossibly familiar, and everything that Steve disliked because it wasn’t the city. The bricks and lath-and-plaster, which we grew up with, had been replaced by paper shells covered in vinyl siding.
“Must’ve all come from the same factory,” Steve had joked when our realtor brought us to the For Sale sign. “Any flavors available other than plain?” The realtor politely ignored his joking, but I remember giving him a smirk, pleading with him to behave. Our lives had been firmly rooted in the city, and we would have stayed there forever, but the city we’d once known wasn’t the city that it had become. Steve still spent some of his days there, working across jurisdictions to put away the worst of the worst. After all, criminals know no boundaries. For me, home was wherever my family was. And at the time, pregnant with Michael, the best place for home meant a move out of the city.
I turned into our
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