“Yeah, sure I did. But he’s also the one who beat up Jacky last year! And half our football team, costing us the season!” Mia protested, earning herself confirming nods all around her co-cheerleaders. Again, including Ava.
Upon hearing this, Bill leaned over to me with a questioning look.
“Remember the video I showed you all from one of my school bullies?” I whispered back to him while pulling out my phone, causing him to sigh and nod. “I think that’s his parents.”
“Maybe it would be better if you drive back to the office ahead of us. We’ll...” he started, but Mr. Miller had a different idea.
“Is that true? That was you?” he asked me angrily.
I had already found what I was looking for on my phone.
“Yes, Sir. Though it was self defense.” I said, as I started the video Craig had sent me of the fight, and held it out to Mr. and Mrs. Miller.
Their expressions were reluctant as they started watching, but as they saw their son and his friend corner Jenny, despite her telling them off repeatedly, their expressions changed significantly. By the time the video showed their son throwing me into the locker and preparing to hit me, after I had done absolutely nothing to even alert him of my presence, much less provoke him in any way apart from just existing in his closer vicinity, their looks had gotten quite disappointed.
“Ouh!” was Mr. Miller’s only grunted comment when he saw my elbow connect with his son’s jaw. I had feared they would get angry upon seeing something like that, and was fully prepared to remove myself from this job, but it seemed, since they knew nothing serious happened to him, the other things they had just learned about their son outweighed parental worry.
“Well, we ... we’ll talk about this.” Mr. Miller started embarrassed. “But right now, I hope this won’t have an influence on this job? I need my family to be safe!”
“That won’t be a problem!” Bill assured him, visibly relieved about not losing a wealthy client. “Then there is another topic we need to discuss. We need to consider the possibility that this man might try to use your daughter to get to you. We only thought about Mrs. Miller’s security until now, because she was the recipient of his letters. But if he reached the point to try and enter your house, that could indicate desperation. I’d like to suggest that we make Mr. Brown here into Mia’s chauffeur for the time being.”
I felt my heart drop as my whole body tensed up. I couldn’t really blame him for wanting to please a well paying client. But throwing me under the bus to please them!? Couldn’t he have asked me beforehand?
“Him? Mr. Carter, he’s younger than my daughter! He seems to be good at technical things, but can he provide actual security for her?” Mr. Miller asked, eyeing me up and down.
I noticed an evil grin spread across Mia’s face, obviously imagining me being some kind of servant to her.
“He wouldn’t work for me if he couldn’t, Mr. Miller. And since he and your daughter visit the same school, he would have a significant advantage over anyone else I could appoint for this position.”
“Oh, yes!” Mrs. Miller called out. “He could keep an eye on her even inside the building!”
Mr. Miller contemplated his options, as he looked between his Wife and Bill.
“Well, Munchkin, what do you say? Would you be Okay with him?”
“Sure, Daddy.” his daughter answered sweetly, her voice suddenly two octaves higher than before, but the glint in her eyes told me she had already planned to use this for her own entertainment.
“Alright. We’ll be here tomorrow morning to start installing the hardware and pick her up.” Bill announced, so I grabbed my laptop and we made our way outside.
“Tim! You’ll drive with me this time.” Bill announced.
“Boss, I’m really sorry!” I told him, fearing for my job, as we finally sat in the car.
“What for?” he sounded genuinely surprised.
“I should’ve come to you and excused myself as soon as I realized they could be Jack’s parents. I knew if their kids came home and told their parents about me, it would mean trouble. I just wasn’t done running the scripts yet, and by the time we finally had the results, they already stood in the living...”
“Kid!” he interrupted me. “Listen, I admit, when I suggested you leave, it was to save the contract. And my reputation. But don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have blamed you for it even if it hadn’t worked out. All of us know that you have nothing to apologize for when it comes to stopping the guys who harassed you in school! None of us would ever buy that crap about you just running around, beating up other students for no damn reason! In fact, when that girl said you beat up half their football team and I leaned into you, I wanted to know if you beat them up all at once or in succession.” He laughed by the end.
“Then making me Mia’s chauffeur isn’t your way of punishing me?” I asked skeptically.
“Kid, I did you a favor there.” he laughed, but realized he had to elaborate. “Look. Her parents are paying us to keep them all safe. That comes with a certain set of privileges, and a certain degree of authority.”
“Fine.” I answered after mulling it over. “But I’m warning you upfront ... she’s bound to complain, no matter how considerate I behave.”
“All the spoiled little shits do when you restrict their freedom. Now we gotta talk about the job. I should’ve thought about you probably being able to help after what you did in Austin. So ... is there anything else you could do to help? He was almost caught once. I don’t think it’ll stop him from trying again, but he’ll probably wear a mask next time, so the cameras might not be enough. They agreed to have one of us in the house for the next few weeks, but after we fortify the building, it’ll take our guy a moment to get outside as well, and the perp could run. Any ideas on how we can gather extra evidence?”
I thought about that for a moment.
“Well, we know he carried his phone when he came here the last time and, since he won’t learn about my access to the mobile tower, he won’t have any reason to leave it at home the next time he tries. I could set up an IMSI-catcher, but that’s just as legally admissible as the phone logs I pulled from the cell tower ... We could just set up a public WiFi Access Point in the house that doesn’t actually allow access to the internet or their network, and reduce the transmission power so it won’t reach the fence. Most phones are set to automatically join any public WiFi in range to save on their data plans by default, so if he enters the property again, we’d have his phone’s MAC-Address documented in the log files of the router, and our Hotspot’s SSID in his phone’s network history.”
“Do we have everything you’d need for that?”
“Yeah. In my basement.” I referred to my office, since I was the only one working down there. “I could even set it up so it would send me a notification as soon as a new device connects. It would give us a short warning period before he reaches the door.”
“Prepare what you can today, and set it up in their house tomorrow morning before taking the girl to school. If I understood that right, you’d have the family’s and our own phones already connected while we make the installations, so they won’t cause false alarms in the evening.”
For someone who claimed not to understand anything about computers just two years ago, he grasped the concept surprisingly quickly! The rest of the drive was silent, until we reached the company parking lot. After we all got out of the cars, Bill handed me the keys.
“This is now officially your company car. Use it when she needs you to drive her around. Since that could be any time, just leave your Jeep here and drive home with this one. Also, drop by accounting to get a gas charge card before you leave. And now that you have that car...” he leaned in closer to me, so the others wouldn’t be able to hear him. “Buy a safe for your apartment and get that mountain of cash out of the office. While you watch the girl, we’ll use that opportunity to redo ‘Your basement’, as you keep calling it.”