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The word the coding teacher had used was reaver. She was in her late twenties and had pink dreadlocks and silver studs up her left ear. She said a reaver was like a pirate.
And she didn’t teach all of us how to use “brute force”—again, those were her words—to get a Wi-Fi password. Just me, because she knew I was a foster kid and needed any advantages I could snag, and because she thought I was the only kid in the class smart enough to be a reaver. (That was just her opinion. I’m sure there were kids smarter than me.)
It takes time, and most people don’t need to steal their way into a network. You just go to Starbucks or a library or anyplace with free Wi-Fi.
Well, I had nothing but time when I was being held hostage at Frankie’s, even if he didn’t call it being held hostage because I was waist deep in his swimming pool. So, I took my tablet and put on my pirate’s hat. I “reavered up.”
And, when I started to work, I realized just how much I knew about Frankie. I hit lots of dead ends. His wife’s name and his kids’ names and their birthdays: he actually had all these “dad dates” on his calendar on this corkboard in his kitchen, such as their birthdays, Betsy’s birthday, even mine. I tried all kinds of Futurium mishmashes and the license plate on his Tesla, and all the crypto lingo he and Betsy used to toss about. WAGMI, for instance.
Nope.
The teacher called this process “brute force” because, basically, you’re just punching in combo after combo, adding a hashtag here, an exclamation point there.
It was about one thirty in the afternoon when it dawned on me: I’d heard Frankie make a big deal about the fact that the house was on five acres, had five bedrooms, and was five years old. So, I started punching in combos of fives with random keys.
And none worked.
But I knew I was on to something. This just felt like such a Frankie thing to do. And then it clicked. The triple fives were why he called his house the “slot machine dacha.”
And that was it: slotmachinedacha. Not even a hashtag or random key.
Of course, I had no idea how to spell dacha. It must have taken seven tries before I got it right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Crissy
Nigel was gone, but he’d left the wicker tote with the weapon and the small box of bullets beside the leg of my chaise. When I looked up, I saw Bud McDonald peering into my cabana. Behind him, as if they were gawkers hoping for a glimpse of a real celebrity versus the ersatz version that was me, were Felicia Johnson and Patrick O’Connor. Given that I hadn’t a license for the Glock, I sat up and lifted the bag so it was beside me and I could drape my arm over it, if need be. Felicia, Patrick, and I had met because a three-night stand of mine was dead, and I didn’t think I should give the two detectives more ammunition to suspect me by parading before them a pistol for which I lacked a license.
“I told them this has to be brief, because you have two shows tonight and need your afternoon rest,” Bud said, his voice protective and firm. The idea careened across my diazepam-soaked frontal lobe that they might be here to arrest me because they believed—mistakenly—that last night I was with two crypto crooks, but I was able to swat the notion into some more shadowy corner there. Still, this had to be important if they were back again and insisted that management bring them poolside to see me.
“Well, aren’t we becoming the best of chums?” I told them, hoping that a little false bluster would get me through this. “This is three days in a row, isn’t it? As Bud said, I’d love for this to be one of our shorter tête-à-têtes.”
“It might be,” said Felicia, as she sat where Nigel had planted himself a few minutes earlier. Bud and Patrick stood behind her. “We’ll see. First of all, thank you for putting two tickets aside for my parents tonight. And thanks for squeezing them into the early show. That was very kind of you.”
I gave them my congenial smile, my princess-meets-a-head-of-state face. I had forgotten I’d done that. “It was nothing. I was happy to do it,” I said.
“Well, they’re excited.”
Bud was still present, and almost as if it were choreography, both detectives turned toward him and he got the message. “I’ll wait over at the lifeguard station,” he said, retreating, but it was a grudging withdrawal.
“So, what can I do for you?” I inquired politely.
“Well,” Felicia began, “we have the preliminary toxicology reports on Yevgeny Orlov. Clean as a whistle.”
I nodded, but said nothing.
“And the coroner found no injuries on the body that might suggest the death was not accidental—or, perhaps, a suicide.”
I planned once more to remain silent, but when she failed to continue, I felt an uncontrollable need to say something. “I suppose I should be relieved because that must mean you no longer believe that I killed him,” I remarked.
“We never said we believed that,” Felicia said. “We’re simply doing our due diligence. You’ve seen or read the news. We’ve said all along: this could very well be a suicide or an accident.”
“The news,” I repeated. “Could that be the police hoping to throw someone off by broadcasting those theories? Make someone believe they’ve gotten away with murder so they let down their guard?”
Patrick glanced at Felicia, and it struck me as a rather knowing glimpse.
“I’m a right smart bird,” I said.
