With each year of college that passed, her knowledge and enthusiasm increased. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t do with her laptop. Reading codes was one of her favorite pastimes. After she’d solved the problem for the residents of Sunset Gardens, breaking into supposedly impossible sites became a favorite activity. She began to expand her curiosity and her exploration. The lure of a complicated program was too enticing to pass up, and the more intricate, the better. She loved looking for bugs. These small programming errors were passages into some very sophisticated systems. She entered hundreds of sites this way, and yet she made sure no one would ever detect her presence. Aware that the bugs had the potential for making organizations and companies susceptible to destructive attacks, she took great pains to hide her tracks. Allison knew she was breaking the law by visiting protected sites, but in her defense, her intentions were purely innocent. To her, these were giant puzzles, and she was simply studying them to see how the pieces fit. She wasn’t doing anything harmful. No, she was actually being helpful. If she discovered an intrusion, she would block the hacker, and many times she removed viruses that could damage or even destroy companies. She had no trouble justifying her activities to herself, but deep down inside there was always a nagging voice warning her. If the authorities ever discovered what she was doing, she could have been in a lot of trouble.
She loved college. It allowed her to move out of her aunt and uncle’s home and into a house near the campus. Moving day was as joyful as the Christmas mornings she’d shared with Charlotte and her husband when they had lived in Boston, and it was her fervent hope that she would never have to spend another night with her aunt and uncle. Her freedom meant she could concentrate on what excited her. While most of her classmates were hanging out at local drinking establishments, she was in her room playing with code. She wasn’t completely antisocial. She had made a few friends, but most of them were interested in other pursuits and didn’t share her passion. It was nice to have a friend like Jordan who understood, and Allison was looking forward to her seminar tonight.
When she stepped out of the library, the air was frigid and damp with flurries that would soon turn into a full-blown snowstorm if the weatherman was correct with his forecast. The temperature was unseasonably low for early November. Fortunately, the house she shared with two other students was only three blocks away from the auditorium. She could cut across campus and be there in five minutes.
The house was empty when she arrived. She rushed upstairs to her bedroom and changed into skinny jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt, then pulled on a thick cream-colored cable-knit sweater and reached to the back of her closet for her leather knee-high boots. They were well-worn and comfortable and would keep her toes nice and warm. Her long brown hair went up into a ponytail. Typically she wore very little makeup, the exception being when she was on a photo shoot with Giovanni. After a little mascara and lip gloss, she was ready to go. Instead of her heavy winter coat, she put on her light gray down-filled quilted vest. It had so many zipper pockets she didn’t have to carry a purse or a backpack. Her keys and pepper spray went into one pocket; her small billfold with her money and ID went into another, tissues and cell phone into a third pocket, and there were still two empty pockets for her gray leather gloves. She wrapped the matching gray scarf around her neck twice, then tied the ends the way Giovanni had shown her. She had a killer wardrobe, thanks to him. Not only had he put money aside for her, but he also insisted she take the clothes she modeled as a bonus for a job well-done.
The stairs of the old house squeaked and groaned as she ran down to the first floor. She was surprised to see her two roommates, Dan and Mark, in the living room. They looked very serious as they huddled over a stack of papers on the coffee table. She smiled as she watched them. She remembered how Charlotte had had a fit when she heard Allison was moving in with male students, but after meeting them, Charlotte realized Allison was probably safer with them watching out for her than she would have been living alone. Besides, both of the guys were in long-term relationships.
Dan Campbell was in charge of house finances. An economics major on a scholarship, he would probably graduate at the top of his class next year. When she had answered the post on the student bulletin board advertising a room for rent, it was Dan’s persistence that swayed Mark to let her move in. Dan was built like a linebacker yet didn’t play sports. His physique reminded her of a big burly bear, but he was very sweet.
Mark Strausman was a political science major who planned to go to law school. He was outgoing and friendly, and Allison liked him very much. He had just become engaged and was getting married after graduation to a girl who went to a neighboring college. When he wasn’t in class, he was participating in student government, and Allison had no doubt that someday she would be voting for him in a state—if not a national—election.
For the first couple of months of this term, they had taken in a fourth student; however, Brett Keaton had never quite fit in with the group. While the others pitched in with chores, he was lazy and refused to pull his own weight. A computer science major, he constantly bragged about his grand plan to start a company and take it global. Someday, he vowed, he would own half of Boston. Unfortunately, there was a major weakness in his plan. His academic performance was, at best, below average. He often solicited Allison’s help when he was stuck on a project, and while she was willing to bail him out a few times, she had major doubts about his capabilities. Not to mention his aversion to hard work. The housemates were able to tolerate his rather obnoxious personality for a while, but then Mark found him sneaking into Allison’s room and snooping around her computer one night when she was gone. Mark reported the discovery to Dan, and the two decided that this was the last straw. They told Brett to pack his things and get out.
Since the three remaining housemates got along so well, they decided not to fill his room. They had managed until now, and there really wasn’t any reason to add another person. Everything quickly settled back into a calm normalcy.
“Al, do you have a minute?” Dan asked when he spotted her at the foot of the stairs.
“Sure. What’s going on?” She walked over to the sofa and sat on the arm. Seeing that the papers on the coffee table were bills, she waited for an explanation.
“Everything’s covered this month except Mark’s portion of the rent.”
“I feel like an idiot,” Mark said. “Before we threw Brett out, I never thought to check my things. I was so mad at the time I didn’t think to look at where I hide my money. He took it all. I can’t prove it, though.”
“Did you know he snuck back into the house one afternoon and was in your room?” Dan asked Allison.
She nodded. “That’s what Mark told me.”
When she had heard about Brett’s attempt to snoop on her computer, she was concerned, but when she got the news about the second incident, alarm bells went off. She had been working on a program for months that, if successful, could revolutionize computer security. She had told no one about it, not even her housemates, because she had a few details to add and wanted to test it thoroughly first. Had Brett somehow discovered her work? She couldn’t help being suspicious. She was usually so cautious, but he had been near her on several occasions when she logged on to her computer. Had she let her guard down? All it would take would be one stupid lapse on her part for him to learn how to access her work. She had built in precautions, and she reassured herself with the fact that she had backed up everything. Plus, Brett had only a mediocre understanding of code, so even if he found her work, she felt certain he wouldn’t understand it. Still, there was a nagging worry. Maybe he was attempting to steal something. Her computer perhaps? She realized she had to be more careful. Her life was on that laptop.
“I’m the one who vouched for him in the beginning,” Dan said. He shook his head. “So stupid.”
“How much do we need to make rent?” she asked.
“Six hundred,” Dan replied.
She pulled out her billfold and took three one-hundred-dollar bills from the hidden fold behind the change slot. She had planned to deposit it in her account in the morning. Instead she put it on the coffee table.