Read Online SPYWARE BOOK by B. V. Larson - Free Book Online Page B

room?” asked Ray.
    “No, I changed my mind. He’ll do it himself when he comes home. I don’t want you to touch a thing in there, either.”
    “Okay.”
    For a time the only sound was that of the TV. A commercial came on selling diet soda. Next there was a car ad that told a funny story about animals but seemed to have little to do with cars. Sarah wondered vaguely if such ads sold cars, or if the ad men were just running out of fresh ideas.
    A sudden, sharp knock at the door made them look at each other. It was an almost musical series of knocks, a rythmic rap-rap-RAP-rap-rap. Sarah and Ray glanced at each other. It was the kind of a knock that a friend would use to let you know who it was.
    “I’ll get it,” said Ray, heading for the door. Sarah followed him, hoping, but trying not to, that it would be a smiling policeman with their sheepish son at his side.
    Ray threw open the door with Sarah right behind him. They both blinked in confusion. An attractive woman in a red business dress greeted them. Her hair and nails were perfect. Her nail polish matched the red of her dress as exactly as her white teeth matched each other.
    “Dr. and Ms. Vance, I’m Susan Cohen,” she said.
    Ray and Sarah just stared at the woman without responding. Sarah blinked in confusion. Where was Justin?Then she saw the wire running up from the woman’s collar to the earplug. Her eyes followed the wires down to the microphone that she held nonchalantly at her side. Then she saw the men coming up behind her with camera equipment. One man with a boom-mike was shrugging on his jacket and slamming the door of their van. CHANNEL 7 NEWS blazed across the side of the van with the seven stylized as a jagged lightning bolt. Sarah’s frown grew as she realized that they had even had the gall to park in their driveway.
    “Dr. Vance, we would like to interview you. We want to know if there is anything to the rumor that you are the man who released the virus that is even now raging across the internet?”
    “No, we don’t have anything to say about that,” replied Ray.
    “Are you aware sir, that according to my sources you are the FBI’s primary suspect?”
    “What’s this about a virus?” demanded Sarah. “Don’t you people know anything about my son?”
    Susan gave them each a calculating glance and smoothly switched tactics. The microphone came up to her lips and the cameras flipped on. Ray and Sarah blinked in the sudden glare of the portable floods. The man with the boom-mike had gotten his jacket on now and managed to thrust the instrument over everyone’s heads.
    “Your son? Tell me more,” said the woman, waving the guy with the mike in a bit closer. The camera swung to zero in on Sarah. She could feel the heat from the bright lights on her cheeks. Out on the street she heard the squeal of brakes. Past the news crew, she could see another team unloading quickly onto her lawn. The second group came running. It was then that she realized that they really could smell blood.
    “No, we haven’t —” began Ray.
    Sarah stopped him with her hand. “Yes, we do want to talk to you. Wait here one moment.”
    Sarah closed the door most of the way, but left it ajar. Through the crack came a gush of shifting white light. She thought crazily for a moment of an X-files episode and of brilliantly lit alien silhouettes. It did indeed feel as if her house were being invaded.
    Running to the hall, she pulled a large 8x10 photograph from the wall. The picture was hung on a nail, which pulled until she ripped it loose. It came away from the sheetrock with a tearing sound. A piece of the baskets-and-flowers wallpaper sagged down. She barely noticed. The picture was of Justin, wearing a sweater and smiling for his school portrait just six months ago. When she got back the hall she discovered that a newsman had poked his head into the house and was talking very quickly to her husband.
    Her first instinct was to bash him with the picture, but she