“I don’t want to leave my dad. He doesn’t have anybody else since Mom died. He and I think that maybe I can live with him during the school year and spend time with my birth family during the summer.”
“That sounds like a very reasonable solution.”
“They say I look just like my real mom. She never stopped looking for me. How lucky could I be? I think I want to be in the FBI. Did you know that they have a team of specialists who locate and return missing kids? That’s what I want to do.”
I gave her a big hug and tried very hard not to cry. Peyton was one strong young woman. I had no doubt that she would accomplish her FBI dreams.
That afternoon, I baked a lasagna and took it over to Francie and Eunice. Daisy went along to see her buddy, Duke.
They fussed over the heavenly aroma. I sat down to chat with them.
“We just returned from visiting Charlene and Griselda,” said Francie. “They were sitting outside enjoying the sunshine. I think I’m going to arrange to stay with Charlene for a few hours to give Griselda a break now and then.”
“That’s very kind of you. I’m sure both of them will enjoy that.”
“She was thrilled to hear that Oscar lives with me now,” said Eunice. “She really loves cats. But she’s worried about Fred’s cat called Nika. We went down to the shelter, just in case she was there. But she hadn’t been turned in.”
“That’s because I have Nika.”
Eunice’s eyes opened wide. “No kidding? You have to tell Charlene. She’ll feel so much better. I still can’t believe that lovely young woman was practically dying in my garage and I had no idea.” Eunice shook her head. “It was bad enough knowing that Fred could place Abby’s corpse in my deck storage box and I never heard a sound! Francie is taking me to the audiologist tomorrow. I’m getting new hearing aids. I have missed way too much of what’s going on around me.”
“You haven’t missed everything,” said Francie with a wink. She turned on the TV.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
At that moment, someone knocked on the door. Francie disappeared. She returned with Sam, Benton, Schuyler—who was really Peyton, Briley, and the cute teenage boy I had seen acting peculiar on the street.
“Hi, Sophie,” said Benton with an engaging smile. “This is my nephew, Troy. I think you know everyone else, Troy.”
I greeted him but couldn’t help wondering what was going on with the two of them. I held my breath. Why were they all here at Francie’s house? It did not escape me that Briley smiled at Troy and beamed. Was this the boy she had a crush on?
“You’re just in time,” said Eunice. “I’m glad you’re here with us to see this, Sophie.”
A shiver ran through me. I was leery of Benton, even though he’d been very polite to me.
Everyone talked at once, making it hard to follow any threads of thought. And then, Francie shushed them.
The announcer was saying, “In a joint effort between the CIA and the FBI, agents have been able to track a hacking organization that targeted United States politicians and employees of the federal government. The hacker sent e-mail to their children. When the children clicked on a link, the hackers were able to go through the children’s accounts to their parents’ accounts, where they accessed passwords. Once they had the passwords, they had complete access to sensitive information and were even able to enter government accounts. I am pleased to announce that the hacker has been apprehended thanks to the diligence of agents and some special assistants.”
Briley and Peyton whooped and high-fived. “That’s us! We’re the special assistants!”
On the TV screen, Wesley stepped up to the microphone. “In recent weeks, there has been a huge outcry, including demands that I resign my position, because of an e-mail that allegedly outed two U.S. agents. That e-mail was phony. It was designed to enable us to locate the hacker. You can see how easily he was able to put it out there. Everyone was convinced that it was legitimate and that I was the source of the e-mail. In fact, I did not write that e-mail. Clearly, I would never mention the names of operatives in my communications. And if you look closely at that e-mail, you will find that those operatives are fictional. There are no U.S. operatives by those names. My e-mail and my computer were hacked. But that e-mail was pure fiction, designed as a trap.”
Wesley stepped back, and reporters shouted questions.
Eunice clicked mute on the TV remote and turned to me. “One day when Briley came over here to talk to us about Old Town when we were young, she asked me if clicking on a link in an e-mail could have allowed someone to hack into her dad’s e-mail. Of course it could, and it did. I called Sam, and together we reached out to old friends at the CIA. They sent Benton over here, and we set up a trap for the hacker.”
Benton? I looked over at him in shock. “CIA? So you really are a spy?”
Benton laughed aloud. “No, I’m just a cyber geek at the CIA. Just another ordinary government employee. No undercover work for me.”
Really? Should I out him and let him know that I had seen him stashing things around town? I tried to let him know without being too obvious. “I saw you with the soda can.”
Troy glanced at Benton.
Benton grinned. “She’s onto us, Troy. We’re not doing a very good job.”
I wasn’t following them at all.
“What are you talking about?” asked Briley.
I stared at Benton, wondering how he was going to handle this. Would he confess to being undercover after all? Could spies even do that?
“When Troy was younger and found out that I worked for the CIA, he wished I was a spy. So I started leaving little messages around town for him. It’s just all in good fun. You’re the first person who called us out on it, Sophie.”
Sam shook his head. “You two are going to have to improve if Sophie noticed.”
“I left the soda can in the trash,” said Troy proudly. “It contained a message telling Uncle Benton what time to meet me to go to a movie the next day.”
“The chalk on the lamppost was to let you know something was under the pumpkin?” I asked.
Benton flushed. “Boy, you really are observant. I might start leaving notes for you.”
As he spoke, something else clicked with me. “Did you play little games like this with Abby?”
Benton’s eyes met mine. His mouth pulled tight, and he nodded.
“So she left the code on the recipes for you. She assumed that if anything happened, you would look for her at Tilly’s house and see the codes on the recipes.”
“What codes?”
I explained how we figured out Peyton’s name. “What I don’t understand is why Abby didn’t call the police immediately.”
“I wish she had,” said Benton. “She might still be alive. But Abby had a history of thinking she found Peyton. She had reported a couple of other girls in the past who weren’t Peyton. It was always a huge, horrible scene and so hard on the girls and their families. She had promised me she wouldn’t put anyone else through that. To be honest, I thought Peyton was probably dead.”
He grinned at Schuyler, “I’m glad you’re alive and well. Abby was devastated when you disappeared. It never left her mind. She called Charlene to take Oscar, and then she went out to dinner with Mars, all the while probably trying to decide what she should do. She didn’t realize that Mia would move so fast, I guess.”