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Erin smiled faintly. “I really hope so.”
Adam returned to the living area forty-five minutes later. “I have good news and bad news,” he announced, pushing his glasses up his nose.
I sat up straight. “Hit us with the bad news first.”
“Whoever runs the app is a total whiz kid. They’ve made it absolutely impossible for their identity to be figured out with the usual methods.”
“Dammit,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Adam lifted a palm. “Hold on. There’s still hope,” he said. “I think we might be able to track them down manually.”
“What do you mean?”
“We might be able to find them in person.” Adam tilted his head slightly. “Like I said, I couldn’t track them down via the usual methods. But I was still able to figure out a few things about their general process.”
“Like what?”
“He or she is smart enough to use a computer at CPA to create all the posts on the app. If they did it from anywhere else—like their house—I’d be able to track their IP address, and from that I could get their name and physical address. But every single post has been made from the same IP address, which belongs to the school.”
“But there’s a thousand students at CPA. So it could be practically anyone.”
“True, but I managed to figure out some other stuff as well,” Adam replied. “I narrowed it down to a specific computer in the CPA library.”
Erin’s eyes widened. “How did you do that?”
“It’s too long to explain right now. But I can show you one day, if you want,” he replied. “Anyway, RXorcist uses this exact computer every single time. They also schedule most of the posts. For example, they might create a post at 8:30 in the morning, but then it doesn’t go live on the app until 11:46.”
I nodded slowly. “That way they always look totally innocent, because they could be sitting there doing nothing when the Dirt notification hits everyone’s phones. So no one would ever suspect them.”
“Exactly.”
“Do they always use that library computer at the exact same time?” Erin asked. “Like, say they always use it to schedule the posts at 8:30 in the morning. We could just go there and wait for them to show up, right?”
“I had the exact same thought process. Unfortunately, they seem to use the computer at totally different times every day. So you could wind up sitting there for ten hours waiting for them,” Adam replied. “But if that’s what it takes, and you’re as desperate to find them as you say you are, then that’s what you’ll have to do.”
Erin looked over at me. “Do you still have that spy camera?” she asked. “The one you put in Kinsey’s room.”
“I think it’s in my car somewhere,” I said, rubbing my jaw. “The cops didn’t want it when I tried to hand it in. They just wanted the footage of my dad.”
“Well, we should find it and put it on the wall somewhere near the computer. Then, when the Dirt app posts the daily poll about Kinsey, we can get Adam to find out exactly what time RXorcist scheduled the post. Then we can rewind the footage from the camera to that exact time, and bam… we have RXorcist’s identity.”
My brows shot up. “Holy shit. That would totally work.”
“Yeah, that’s a really good idea,” Adam said. “I had no idea you guys had a full-on spy camera.”
“Long story.” Erin gave him a tight smile. “I’ll tell you all about it when you teach me those tricks about tracing IP addresses to specific devices.”
Adam nodded. “Sounds good. I’m looking forward to it.”
I stood and extended my right hand. “Thanks so much for all your help, man.”
“No problem,” he replied, shaking my hand. “I hope you catch this asshole soon. They’ve caused a lot of drama for a lot of people.”
We said our goodbyes and left. As we trudged downstairs to the parking lot, Erin let out a groan.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I just realized something. We’ll need to install the camera in the library before anyone else gets there, because RXorcist might schedule the daily poll post first thing in the morning. If the camera isn’t there by then, we’ll end up missing them.”
