Duran shrugged. “I could take a look.” He leaned over her shoulder.
“I’ve been through everything I could think of: calendar, address book, e-mail, accounting programs. I’ve called up every file I can find, and there’s nothing.”
“You look at the temporary Internet files?”
She rolled her eyes. “No.”
Duran sat down beside her. “Go to Start,” he said. “Then Settings. Then Control Panel.” She moved the pointer as he directed. “Now hit the Internet icon and… you see where it says, ‘Temporary Internet Files’… click on the Settings button, and—”
“‘View Files’?”
He nodded. She clicked, and a window appeared with scores of Internet addresses, listed by Name, Address, and Last Access.
The two of them scanned the addresses together, scrolling down the page. Besides the usual assortment of cookies, banner and GIF files, there were lots of URLs, though most of them had been accessed only once or twice:
cookie:jacko@jcrew.com
cookie:jacko@washingtonpost.com
http://www.travelocity.com
http://www.mothernature.com
http://www.theprogram.org
http://www.jcrew.com
http://www.victoriassecret.com
http://www.theprogram.org
“What’s that one?” Duran asked, stabbing his finger at an entry that came up, time and again: cookie:jacko@theprogram.org
Adrienne shook her head. “It’s like she went there every day.”
Duran nodded. “And who’s Jacko?” he asked.
“Her dog,” Adrienne explained. “I guess she named her computer after her dog.” She continued scrolling.
cookie:jacko@theprogram.org
cookie: jacko@ceoexpress.com
http://www.theprogram.org
http://www.theprogram.org
http://www.theprogram.org
http://www.mothernature.com
http://www.jcrew.com
http://www.theprogram.org
“It’s every day,” Adrienne said. “Sometimes, a couple of times a day.” She looked at Duran. “Shall we?”
He nodded.
She closed the Control Panel windows, clicked on the AOL icon, and waited as it went through its routine. Finally, there was a rush of white noise, some honks and beeps—and she was on.
“You want a beer?” Duran asked, getting to his feet.
“Sure,” she replied. Moving the cursor to the window at the top of the screen, she typed theprogram.org, and hit Return. A moment later, Duran was back with a couple of bottles of Hop Pocket Ale, which he set on the table beside her as he took a seat. Her foot was tapping impatiently on the floor. “I hate how long this takes,” she muttered.
Transferring document: 1% 5% 33%
And then:
Unknown Host
Description:
Could not resolve the host:
“www.theprogram.org” in the URL
“http://www.theprogram.org/”.
Traffic Server 1.1.7
With a groan, she cleared the screen and tried again, typing the address exactly as it was in the Temporary Internet file. Hit Search. Once again, the site started loading. Sipping her beer, she watched the little blue bar filling up at the bottom of the screen: 24% 25% 32%. Finally, the screen flipped, and the same message popped into view:
Unknown Host
Description:
Could not resolve the host…
She swore to herself, and sighed. Took a long sip of beer. “Why don’t you try?” she asked. “I’ll be right back.” Then she got to her feet, stretched, yawned, and wandered off.
Returning to the dining room, Adrienne sat down beside Duran, and asked, “Did I leave out a hyphen, or…”
He was tapping away at the keyboard, and didn’t answer. Annoyed, she peered over his shoulder at the laptop’s screen—and what she saw made her feel as if she’d been given an injection of ice water at the base of her spine. There was a cascade of images and text, scrolling and flipping so fast that she could not focus. No one could. It was moving at warp speed to a strange, electronic beat—a kind of nonmusic.
“What the… what is that?” she asked, but Duran still didn’t answer.
Then the screen shimmied, steadied, stopped. Against an emerald green background, a message began to blink:
Hello, Jeffrey.
Duran typed something, and hit Return.
Where are you?
Once again, Duran typed a brief message, and tapped the Return key. “What is this?” Adrienne asked. “What are you doing?”
Thank you, Jeffrey.
“‘Thank you, Jeffrey’? Who are you talking to?” Adrienne demanded. Duran maneuvered the cursor to the AOL logo and double-clicked. The computer emitted its usual Good-bye.
“Is this the Web site?”
But Duran still didn’t answer. Instead he shut the computer off, and picked up something from the counter—something she hadn’t noticed before. This was a transparent plastic sheet imprinted with little squares.
“What’s that?” she asked, reaching for the sheet, which Duran held on to in the dogged and determined way of a toddler. Silent and unsmiling, he tried to pull it away from her.
“What is it? Give it to me!” she insisted, tugging at the sheet to no avail. After a few seconds of wordless struggle, Duran put an end to the contest by closing his free hand around her wrist with such force that she gasped.
“Hey!”
He ignored her complaint, squeezing harder and harder until her knees began to buckle. As she sank toward the floor, he pried open her fingers one by one. Then extracted the piece of plastic from her grasp, and placed it carefully inside the instruction book for Nikki’s computer, making sure that its edges did not protrude. This done, he replaced the instruction book in one of the side compartments of the computer’s carrying case, and zipped the case shut.
Setting it down on the floor he looked at her with a smile that made her take a step back. It was a jack-o’-lantern smile with nothing behind it, a smile as big and empty as the desert.
Jesus, she thought. What’s the matter with him? His grip had been ferocious. What if he’d wanted more than a piece of plastic? What if… For the first time, she was afraid of him, and the fear arrived like a sucker punch, unexpected and sickening. She felt a weakness in her legs, as if she were melting from the ankles up. One minute, he’s so caring and kind… She thought of the arm he had put around her shoulders on the beach. And the next… It’s so easy to forget: he’s insane. A psychopath.
A sharp little sound fell from her mouth and, hearing it, Duran turned to her on his way to the living room. “You okay?” he asked.
He still had a lights-out look in his eyes, and there was something funny about the way that he moved, as if he were gliding on well-oiled tracks. And his voice—his voice was perfectly normal, which was chilling, because his smile was so airless and cold, his eyes so distant and unfocused that it seemed to her that he was gazing toward the horizon.
Adrienne nodded. “Yeah, fine,” she managed, leaning back against the dining room table.
With a shrug, Duran continued into the living room. Sat down on the couch. Turned on the TV.