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Ronan flushed. “Kayla’s pronouncement to the club was that I like picking her up at school because she has a hot teacher.”
“She’s telling everyone we have a crush on the hot teacher.” Jett winked at her. “The girl’s not wrong.”
Rafe smiled. “This is true. She was quite adamant about it. I’m afraid I’ll have to report that the princess was not exaggerating.”
“Other than so he can flatter you, the reason for us meeting with this dude is that he has a quality that I don’t—he knows and loves computers,” said Jett as a waitress brought a tray of margaritas. Tessa assumed Rafe must have ordered them.
Rafe held up a finger. “In the interest of accuracy, I want to correct that statement. For the record, I hate computers. I do know a lot about them, and I love to hack them, make them reveal their secrets, but that is only my small action to help make them ineffectual and to rid the world of them.” Then he grinned. “It’s a philosophical distinction that’s clear to me, not some sort of manifesto. In case you wondered.”
Tessa couldn’t help but grin at his obvious pride. “A subtle distinction to most of us.”
“Anyway,” Ronan said, “we asked him to check up on Harvey Taylor.”
“What?”
“After the run-in, we couldn’t stop thinking about some of what he said. He made us nervous.” Jett didn’t seem at all shy about admitting he was worried for her.
“So you asked your friend to spy on him?” How should she feel about that? Flattered or alarmed?
“Me? Spy?” Rafe sat up straight. “I never spy on anyone. I simply steal the information that spies collect on people.”
She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her tone. “Another subtle distinction.”
Rafe shrugged. “But an important one. Philosophically, ethically, in many ways a far different beast. I never, ever, violate anyone’s personal security.”
“Then how do you learn things?”
“From the sites of people who do. For instance, most of what I learned about Mr. Taylor, the important stuff, was easy because I hacked the FBI computer. They had it all collected and sorted.”
“Should we be hearing this?” Tessa asked.
He shrugged. “It was just the computer of the local office, but if you object to being an accessory, probably not. It doesn’t matter, though, because they won’t ever notice, and we aren’t making it public. My point is, they have an interest in him, and they conveniently supplied most of what you might want to know, plus they provided links to some of his more unstable rants.”
“How unstable?” she asked.
“Well, I’m not a big fan of the government, of any government, but even I think Taylor is way over the top in his fears that they’re out to get him. According to his blogs and his comments on other people’s blogs, he doesn’t trust anything the government does and rails against all of it. I think he considers freeways a sign of encroaching world government.” He tapped on the table. “I must say that he never even hints at taking action beyond voting the bastards out.”
Tessa breathed a small sigh of relief. “So he sounds harmless enough.”
“Agreed. Spouting rather unhinged bullshit is not inherently anything but annoying. The FBI’s concern is that he might take some of his own advice and hatred, and direct physical action against the authority figures he feels are persecuting him.”
The meaningful look the man gave her didn’t leave any room for doubting that he saw her in that category. Her heart skipped a beat. “So is he dangerous?”
“He’s volatile, we know that much. All the files suggest is that they, the FBI, think that if he does go entirely off the rails, he has the means to become a major problem. According to the government that hates him, he has been in and out of mental institutions, which is part of the way the government is persecuting him, trying to discredit him and his beliefs. All this makes him what they like to call a person of interest. They think he is potentially dangerous, although it isn’t clear who, other than politicians, would be at risk from him.”
“It all comes down to him being officially a whacko, but not necessarily dangerous,” said Jett. “He’s a small fish. Not really big on their radar at all. It’s likely his file only pops up whenever they ‘round up the usual suspects.’” He looked at Rafe, as though for confirmation, and the other man nodded.
“Casablanca,” Tessa said.
“I like this girl. Anyway, whenever anything happens in his neighborhood, his file will pop up, they take a look, maybe run by his house and say, ‘not him,’ and go home.”
Tessa felt sadness. “So we learned a lot but can’t use any of it.”
“No, we didn’t find a way to use any of it…” said Jett. “If he was busted for shouting antigovernment propaganda, you’d gain nothing in helping Jimmy. He’d go off to foster care and be lost in the system. Trust me on this. Child protective services doesn’t serve the children well, nor does it protect them. It usually just changes the threat.” He sounded as though he spoke from experience.
“You sound like you have something against them,” she said.
“I do.” Jett’s face turned red. “I have personal experience that I hold against them. I was a child they were supposed to protect. Going from a loving mother who went off the rails after… well, I’ll tell you sometime, but I bounced through a lot of foster homes, including ones where I was beaten and neglected, until landing with Willow’s family.”
