Don't Turn Around (18 page)

“Yes?” Amanda asked politely.

“I want to report a missing person,” the girl said, keeping her voice low. Her eyes darted from side to side, as if she was terrified of being overheard.

“I’m sorry, we don’t really do that here,” Amanda apologized. “But we have a contact with the police—”

“No police!” the girl snapped. “And don’t tell her, either.”

“You mean Mrs. Latimar?” Amanda asked, puzzled. If anything, the woman would go above and beyond the call of duty to help a kid in distress. She’d left the office a minute ago to grab more medical supplies from their cabinet. “But—”

“His name is Rob Garcia, but everyone calls him Tito,” the girl continued. “He’s been gone a week.”

The girl appeared genuinely concerned. Amanda bit her lower lip, wondering how to respond. Maybe the girl hadn’t been on the streets long enough to know that disappearances were endemic among runaways, especially at this time of year, with the cold Boston winter coming on. A lot of them hitched a ride south, or west. Some went home to their families. Others ended up the victims of a violent crime, or succumbed to the cold or an overdose. “I’m so sorry,” she finally said. “I’m just not sure there’s anything I can do.”

“Tito wouldn’t have left without me,” the girl said ferociously, as if guessing what Amanda was thinking. “They took him. I know they did.”

“Who took him?”

The sound of footsteps echoed from down the hall. Amanda turned in her chair—Mrs. Latimar reappeared, blocking most of the office doorway. When Amanda turned back, the girl was gone. Amanda stood and scanned the waiting room to make sure, but there was no sign of her, and the outside door was slowly swinging closed.

“Everything all right?” Mrs. Latimar asked, sounding concerned.

“I—” Amanda started. But something made her hesitate. There had been genuine terror in the girl’s eyes. And for some reason, she hadn’t trusted Mrs. Latimar enough to ask about her friend while she was there.

“Everything is fine,” Amanda said, forcing a smile. “I’ll get the next patient.”

CHAPTER TEN

N
oa shuffled uneasily by the enlarged map outside American Eagle. She hated malls on principle, and rarely entered them. But when she’d fished around for a safe place to meet Vallas, the Shops at Prudential Center seemed ideal. Lots of people around, and way too many exits and entrances to cover. It was a massive building that sprawled over a few city blocks and was linked by glass passageways to another mall, hotels, and the convention center. It would be an easy place to get out of quickly.

She still had reservations. After all, Vallas had claimed that armed guys were harassing him, too. For all she knew, he’d show up with a half dozen of them, or his email wasn’t well protected and they’d be waiting for both of them. Anything was possible; that had been made plain over the past few days.

But this was the guy who set up /ALLIANCE/, Noa reminded herself. He had to have enough skills to shield his email account. And at the moment, she was fresh out of options. She had less than fifty dollars left to her name, no way to access the cash in her bank account, and no one else to turn to. Things were truly grim—and she of all people should know. She was an expert on how many grim situations life had to offer.

Noa glanced around. He was late, which annoyed her. She’d gotten there early and staked out a spot a floor above where they were supposed to meet, by the escalator. The freestanding tower in front of her had a map of the entire mall on one side, and of the surrounding buildings on the other. It was a good place to hang out without looking conspicuous. Plus she could monitor the foot traffic on the lower floors.

So far, so good. No sign of goons in suits and combat boots. She wondered what had happened to the two at the high school. Hopefully they were spending the day trying to explain themselves to a bunch of cops.

Rooting for the police was an odd position to find herself in. Noa allowed herself a small smile.

“Hey.”

Surprised, she spun around. Vallas was standing there grinning lopsidedly at her. He looked more disheveled than he had the other night, and there were circles under his eyes like he hadn’t been sleeping. “How did you …”

“I came in through Copley. Just wanted to make sure … I don’t know.” He shrugged and ran a hand through his brown hair. A lock of it flopped right back in his eyes. “Anyway, I like this look better.”

Vallas gestured to her outfit. In spite of herself, Noa flushed. She’d forgotten how she must have looked when they met at Back Bay Station, wearing those baggy sweat clothes and reeking of fish guts. Not that she probably smelled any better now. She’d had a shower at the studio apartment in Cambridge, but even though that was less than twenty-four hours ago, it seemed like ages. Ever since then she’d been running around and climbing down trees, so she probably still stank. Self-consciously, she crossed her arms and clutched her elbows. “I need some help.”

Vallas barked a laugh. “Join the club.” He glanced around, then leaned in and said, “I think we’re cool for now, but I’d feel better if we went somewhere else.”

“Sure,” Noa said, realizing he was right. A steady stream of people was coming up the escalator, and they were right out in the open. “This way.”

He hesitated, but fell in step beside her. Silently, Noa led the way to the food court. She’d already scoped out the best position, close to the Hynes Convention Center doors and behind a pillar. Luckily, most of the tables were empty. It was only eleven thirty a.m., still early for most of the shoppers to be having lunch.

He pulled out a chair across from her and sat down. After brushing a stray fry off the shiny silver tabletop, he leaned forward on his elbows, intently locking eyes with her. “My real name’s Peter, by the way.”

“Noa,” she responded without thinking.
Crap
. She always told strangers her name was Nora, since it was much more common. What was wrong with her?

“Noa. That’s nice; I like it. Rain works, too, though.”

Noa shook her head, annoyed. “We don’t have time for this.”

He grinned. “I know. Crazy couple of days, right?”

“Did those guys show up again?” she asked, curious.

He nodded. “Yup. Got me at the library when I was trying to blow through their firewall.”

“You tried to do that on a library computer?” Noa’s nose wrinkled. “Seriously?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “The person I paid to do it blew me off.”

Noa examined her hands. “I had a good reason.”

“Yeah? I’d love to hear it. ’Cause if you weren’t going to help, you shouldn’t have taken my money.” He looked genuinely peeved, and Noa felt a twinge of annoyance.

“You have no idea what’s been going on,” she said fiercely.

“Nope, that’s true. But if you think you’re the only one having a crappy couple of days, you’re wrong.” Peter sounded equally ticked off.

Noa sat back and considered him. He met her gaze levelly. When she didn’t say anything for a minute, he raised both hands as if surrendering and said, “All right, I’ll start. I’ve got some jerk after me who walks around with a team of armed guys and somehow knows my parents. And every time I sniff around that AMRF site, he shows up and threatens me.”

He hesitated, like he was going to say more, but instead pointed at her. “Your turn. What do you need help with?”

“I’ve got guys after me, too,” she said.

“Yeah? The same ones, you think?”

Noa chewed her lip, debating how much to tell him. Finally she said, “I think so.”

“Huh.” Peter ran a hand through his hair again.
Flop,
Noa thought as it dropped back in place. “That’s not my fault, is it? Because if they’re after you because of me, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“That’s not why,” Noa interrupted. “They were already after me.”

“Oh, okay.” His lips pursed. “That’s kind of random, isn’t it?”

“Really random.”

“So what should we do?” he asked.

Noa shrugged. “I need more cash.”

“More? What happened to the money I gave you?”

“It’s gone,” she said.

“What did you spend it on?” His eyes narrowed.

“Not drugs,” she said. “I’m not a goddamn junkie.”

“Jeez, I never said you were.” He sat back and eyed the rest of the food court. “I don’t know. I mean, I can get another five hundred dollars, but that’s my daily limit. And hell, I might need cash, too. I can’t go home.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “Just can’t.”

Noa ran some calculations in her head, then frowned. A decent new ID would run at least five hundred. “That won’t be enough.”

Peter laughed again. “Man, you’re demanding. How much do you want?”

“A thousand.”

“Seriously?”

“I can pay you back,” she insisted. “Soon.”

“Sure, soon.” He shook his head. “Even if I wanted to give it to you, I don’t know if I could.”

“Okay, then.” Noa got up and started to walk away.

“Hey, wait!” Peter said, jumping up to follow her. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to figure this out,” Noa said. “Thanks, anyway.”

“Sure, but … you’ve barely told me anything. If the same people are after both of us, don’t you want to know why? I do.” Sounding smug, he said, “And I’ve got their files.”

Noa stopped dead. “I thought they caught you before you got over their firewall.”

“They did.” A slow grin spread over his face. “They took down /ALLIANCE/, too.”

“Really?” Noa said, her mind whirling.

“Yup. Even stole the domain name.”

“Wow.” Noa had never heard of such a thing. “So why are you smiling?”

“Because,” Peter said, his smirk widening, “I got all their data off the server, then bricked it.”

“You what?” Noa said, dumbfounded. She’d heard of that sort of thing being done, but it was rare. Only a handful of people on the planet were capable of initiating a serious phlash attack on a system.

“Yeah,” he said, looking self-satisfied. “And it only took three hours.”

“What? How?” It had taken her longer than that just to get through the firewall.

“Using the HBGary method. Well, with some modifications.”

“Damn.” Noa had to admit she was impressed. All the folks at Rocket Science had secretly taken great glee in the downfall of that particular security giant. And the way it had been done was elegant. It was the first hack she’d ever heard of that she probably wouldn’t have been able to accomplish. “You did that?”

“Well, I had help,” Peter admitted. “It was mainly Loki and some of the others.”

“But with HBGary, they got the data and messed with the site but didn’t actually brick it, right?”

“Nope. That was something we came up with. We went in through their firmware.”

“Huh, that was smart.” Noa was impressed. A few years earlier, she’d heard about a geek on HP’s security team who developed a program that used firmware to brick a server. But that program only worked on a small scale with a digital camera. Bricking a whole server was, as far as she knew, unprecedented. And highly illegal.

Worse yet, if Peter was telling the truth, he had her AMRF folder stored in a database somewhere. “You came up with that?”

“It would help if you didn’t sound so shocked,” he said with a twinge of annoyance. “I did found /ALLIANCE/.”

“Yeah, but you asked me to hack in.”

“That’s because a bunch of Special Forces guys had just bashed in my front door.”

“Gee, thanks for setting me up for that,” she said.

“I told you to be careful, right?” He shifted uncomfortably. “Anyway, did you ever get in?”

Noa debated lying, but if he really had gotten all their data, there was no point. “Yeah, I did.”

“So why were you avoiding me?” Peter sounded annoyed again. “Wait.” He grabbed her elbow, stopping her. They were standing in front of a juice bar.

“What?” She glanced back over her shoulder, prepared to bolt, but his eyes were fixed on her.

“You said they were already after you. Why?”

Noa shook off his hand and walked away, arms crossed over her chest, head down. He followed, lowering his voice as he said, “Did they do something to you?”

Noa didn’t answer. She kept walking, eyes on the ground. Peter fell in stride beside her but didn’t say anything else.

They passed a slew of stores. It was a weekday, and the mall was mainly filled with housewives pushing strollers and elderly men and women carrying battered-looking shopping bags. They walked through one whole wing; then Noa turned a hundred and eighty degrees and retraced her steps. She didn’t look where she was going, didn’t check to see if goons were lurking in the doorways of Victoria’s Secret and Forever 21 and the Sunglass Hut. Suddenly, she simply didn’t care. It was like all of her survival instincts abruptly switched off. She’d lost the will to run.

Peter suddenly stepped in front, stopping her. “You hungry?”

“What?”

“Hungry. You know, as in you want to grab some food?”

Noa looked up and realized they’d arrived back at the food court. It had filled up; more than half the tables were occupied now. The smell of pizza wafted over to her. Noa frowned. She was suddenly completely famished.

“I’m starving,” she said.

“Great.” Peter looked relieved. “You want tacos? Or something else?”

“Everything,” Noa said, gazing greedily at the array of options. “I want everything.”

“Man, you were hungry.” Peter propped his chin on his hand as he watched her eat. He was experiencing a mix of stupefaction and admiration. She was a tiny girl, almost painfully skinny, yet he’d just watched her sock away a slice of pizza, two beef tacos, and a chow mein panda bowl. He’d never seen a girl eat like that. Hell, he’d rarely seen anyone eat like that. After tucking the final spoonful in her mouth, Noa looked up hungrily, like maybe he was dessert.

“I want more,” she said.

“Okay,” he agreed uncertainly, opening his wallet and squinting into it. “I’ve got ten dollars left; after that we have to go to an ATM.”

She snatched the bill out of his hand and made for the vendors.