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Must be Marissa’s cell phone. He retrieved it from his pocket and stared at the lock screen. He knew her password. That was a condition of having the phone, but he’d never used it before. Trusting her, not wanting to violate her privacy. But another chime had his heart racing. Who was sending multiple messages to his nine-year-old? Most of her friends were at camp with her without their phones right now.
He punched in her access code, and a picture of the two of them appeared on the screen. It was one taken their day out on the boardwalk when they bought the glass bulb for Sarah. He scrolled to her messages and saw ten new ones.
He hesitated, hating to violate her privacy, but someone was desperate to contact her and if it was innocent enough, then it wouldn’t matter if he read the messages first.
He was playing the parent card on this one.
He opened the text messages and frowned, seeing the unknown number. Maybe it was some telemarketing thing or an election text service or something. He clicked on the number and images started to load. He squinted to see a man’s chest…stomach…the next photo had his face immediately blazing with heat.
Who the hell was this? He winced as he filtered through the messages until he reached the last one sent.CyberStud480 downloaded your app and wants to chat.
CyberStud480 was going to die.
Enraged, Wes struggled to calm his breathing. His hands clenched at his sides; he’d never wanted to tear someone apart so badly in his life. Not even in his football days had he felt this rage out on the field. But this was so different. This was his daughter. And some middle-aged creep was sending her inappropriate messages and pictures? Some of the messages were from Monday, when she’d left for camp. This must be what had been bothering her. She’d been receiving these disturbing messages but had been too worried to tell him.
He paced in front of the gate, his shoes kicking up the dirt at a breakneck pace. What did he do? Did he respond to the guy? Block the number, obviously. Was there a way to block any incoming messages? Right now, he was tempted to destroy the phone. This creep had found Marissa’s contact information on her app. Her personal information was out there. To be exploited by assholes like this one.
He swallowed hard, but his heart was still in his throat. If she’d had her phone that day and had seen these images…
Seeing Sarah’s car approach, his anger dissipated slightly. She’d made it. Good, someone to talk this through with. Calm him down before he threatened to find this guy and beat the life out of him. But then his anger returned. Unfortunately, she was also to blame for these messages on his daughter’s phone. She’d helped Marissa get this app online in the first place, when Wes had always been against his daughter being active on the internet.
She climbed out of the car and rushed toward him, pulling on her sandals as she went. “I made it!” she said, stumbling over the gravel. “I think I may have a few photo radar tickets in my future, but I’m here!” Her wide smile faded, seeing his expression. “Hi?”
He forced a breath, but it caught in his chest, not making it to his lungs. “Hey…I, um…” How did he even start this conversation? What exactly did he say? He cleared his throat. “So, Marissa’s been getting these.” He handed her the phone. It wasn’t pleasant to look at, but if Marissa had had to endure them, Sarah should see them, too. See the danger she’d opened his daughter up to.
Sarah frowned as she took the phone; then her hand covered her mouth as she saw the images. “Oh my God.”
He nodded, his arms folded across his chest. He was practically vibrating out of his skin right now. If the guy were standing in front of him, he couldn’t be held accountable for his actions. For the first time in his life, he understood the insanity plea.
“This person is disgusting. How did he even get her number?”
His voice was tight as he fought to control his anger. “The app you created for her. It has her contact info.”
Sarah shook her head, but then her eyes widened. “Shit, it must have gotten hacked. Her info was only on the secure seller’s page.”
“Obviously it wasn’t very secure.”
“Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can do when things are online,” Sarah said, sounding remorseful but as though this couldn’t have been prevented.
He stared at her. “That’s why I didn’t want her online.”
Sarah’s gaze registered his anger, and she seemed to retreat slightly. “Right, but this hardly ever happens…”
“It happens often enough,” he said, his voice cold. “This is exactly the kind of thing I was trying to protect her from.”
Sarah scoffed, but her voice was gentle when she said, “Wes, technology is part of the world now. It’s everywhere. You can’t shield her from it.”
She was arguing with him? “Icanshield her from it. It’s my job as a parent to protect her from this shit as long as possible. She’snine…” His voice rose, and he lowered his head. Getting upset with Sarah wasn’t his intent. This was his fault. He’d allowed it to happen.
Sarah sighed. “I’m sorry, Wes. You’re right. I guess I wasn’t thinking about the dangers of her information being in there.”
“No, you weren’t. And it’s not your fault. You’re not a parent. You don’t get it.”
The moment he said the words, he wanted to pull them back. But he couldn’t, and ultimately, it was true. He didn’t expect Sarah to know how to be a parent when he was still struggling with it himself, and he was doing it full-time.
But his daughter’s safety came first.
“You’re right. I’m not,” she said. A long, awkward silence fell between them before she cleared her throat. “I should probably go.”
