“Trisha, wake up. The police are here to see you,” yelled Dad from outside.
Great. Now the whole neighborhood knows.
I stumbled out of bed, walked onto the deck and saw Dad talkin” with Detective Hamilton, the officer who’d questioned me before. Their conversation grew more animated; I heard Dad say, “not safe.” If he was talking about me, I had to agree with him. I was not safe. Not anymore.
“Be right there.” I waved at my father and the officer. They barely noticed me. I threw on a pair of black tights, a wrinkled Giants tee shirt, slipped into some flip-flops and went downstairs.
“Ms. Carson, there seems to be a mix-up,” said Det. Hamilton. “The address you gave me for this man named Burk isn’t valid. He doesn’t live there. In fact, when I stopped by, I found a woman and a little boy, a toddler. She mentioned that she and her husband had been there for almost two years.”
“That can’t be. I was in that house two days ago. There was no family there. At all. The place was bare except for a few folding chairs and a flat-screen TV.” The detective looked at me skeptically. “I’ll show you. I have proof.”
Detective Hamilton and Dad followed me up the stairs, into my bedroom and waited patiently as I connected Uly’s video watch to my computer. I clicked on the icon and the interior of Burk’s house, the almost empty interior, appeared on the screen.
“See. No family. No kids. No toys.”
“And you shot this?”
“Yes,” I responded.
“When?”
“Right before I was drugged.”
“You want to tell me why you were filming this guy’s house?”
When I just stared back at him in silence, he sighed and shook his head.
“Ok, tell me the address again. Maybe I wrote it down wrong.” The officer took out a small notebook and pen and waited expectantly.
“I have a better idea,” I said.
I sat in the backseat of the patrol car as we drove over the winding hill to the large house behind the sliding gate. The officer pulled up and pressed the button by the speaker and a female voice answered, “May I help you?”
“This is Officer Mark Hamilton from the Central Marin Police Department. I’d like to speak with—” he paused for a moment, checked his small notebook and continued, “Mrs. Norcastle.”
“Mrs. Norcastle is out for the rest of the day. I’ll tell her that you were here.”
“Ma’am, please open the gate.” It clicked open and the officer walked briskly up to the front door, me following behind like his shadow. A tiny round woman, not more than five feet tall, her dark hair pulled straight back in a severe ponytail, opened the door.
“Can I help you? I’m the housekeeper.”
He handed her a card. “Please ask Mrs. Norcastle to call me when she gets back.”
The little woman nodded. “I will.” She peered down at the card but made no move to go back inside the house.
Det. Hamilton turned back toward the gate and started walking, leaving me standing there. I stretched to one side, trying to peek over the housekeeper’s head into the house. The officer glanced back and gestured at his patrol car. Reluctantly, I followed him. We stopped next to the passenger side door.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Did you see her and the little boy?”
“Yes, I did. In fact, she invited me in. The house was furnished, toys everywhere. What I would expect in a house with a small child.”
“I don’t believe it. You saw the video. Can we, maybe, go inside?”
“Ms. Carson, we have no reason to bother this family. Maybe it’s a different house, further up or down the road. You made a mistake. Easy enough to do.”
I checked across the street and saw the pull-off where I had parked. The entrance to the path I’d walked down when I first saw Earl’s drone. Same gate. Same keypad. Same house. There was no possible way I was wrong.
“This is the house. No mistake. You need to go in. Check the basement. They’ve got to be hiding something.”
“I’ll give you a ride home,” he said instead. He opened my door, and I climbed in reluctantly. For a fleeting moment, he glanced at me through the car window with a puzzled expression on his face. “Ms. Carson, it’s easy to mix up houses, addresses. With everything you’ve been through in the past few days, it would be understandable.”
I wanted to scream “don’t patronize me” but I managed to keep my mouth shut. “This is the house. I’m sure of it.”
Then he walked to the driver’s side, slid in and started up the car. We turned around and headed back over the hill to Earl’s. The trip took no longer than fifteen minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I sat in silence the whole way, my arms crossed, lips pursed, listening to the chatter on the police radio and trying to figure out how Burk had managed it.
When we pulled up at Earl’s, the cop leaned over and said, “We’re not giving up, Ms. Carson. We’ll just have to approach this another way.”
“This is insane. I was there. In that house. With him,” I said, through clenched teeth. I started to shake. I didn’t know how to make him believe me.
I climbed out of the cop car and headed for the front steps. I turned one last time toward the policeman. “He lives or works there. I know it,” I almost yelled.
“You were drugged, Ms. Carson.”
“Not before. After.”
“We will find him,” the cop said as he drove off.
I clomped up the steps.
“I know what I saw,” I muttered to myself. The drug might have messed with my memory, but the video … that didn’t lie.”
Dad sat on the deck, enjoying a cup of coffee.
“You really think that Earl and Tyler are spying on that house?” he asked.
“I was sure of it. But based on what I just saw … I don’t know, Dad. The cop didn’t even ask to go in. I know he thinks I’m looney tunes.”
“To be fair, Trisha, if I heard this story from anyone else, I wouldn’t believe it, either. You said before that Earl was in some kind of danger. Did you mention that to the detective? Tell him what you know?”
“No. I didn’t. Didn’t want Tyler or Earl getting in trouble before I can figure out what’s happening. And anyway, can you imagine what he would have thought if I started to spout off about bottle caps, corporate espionage and ransomware? That Earl was in danger? I have no proof. I don’t even know who these people are!”
“You have a point,” Dad acknowledged. “Just to make it clear, Earl hasn’t said anything to me about Tyler.”
I flopped down in a chair next to him and it slid back about a foot.
“Trish—”
“I was just there … what? A day or two ago? I know what I saw then and I know what I saw when I walked behind that house.”
“You walked where?”
“It was nothing.”
“Trisha.”
“One night last week, while walking The Babe, we climbed up a trail from the canyon. We happened to go right by the house. A whole lot of activity going on, men walking in and out, and I saw one of Earl’s quadcopters hovering around. I’m sure of it.”
Dad took a long sip of his coffee, glanced out at La Cruz Canyon and shook his head.
“You just happened to find yourself behind this house while walking the dog.”
I bit my lip and nodded.
“I can always tell when you’re lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You hide your hands. Sometimes in pockets, sometimes when you cross your arms and sometimes, like now, you hide them behind your back.”
I unclasped my hands from behind my back and rested them on my hips.
“I do not.”
Dad shook his head. “Girl, I don’t want you to get hurt. That’s all I’m saying. I’ve been around you enough to know you’ll go back there and check the house out again by yourself. Right?”
I wanted to say no. But I couldn’t.
“I guess,” I said.
“Trisha, do you know what the word ‘dangerous’ means? It means harmful. Risky. Not a good idea.”
“I understand. I do. But this man, Burk, stalked me, tried to seduce me, and when that didn’t work, he drugged me. I need to know why, Dad. I need to figure it out. Because something bad is going to happen if I don’t.”
My phone pinged when I walked through the doorway of my room. I picked it up.
“I don’t believe it.” A text message from Burk.
R u ok? Tried to follow but u and car disappeared.
I wanted to respond with the first thought that came to mind, but I stopped myself. Even the Devil didn’t use that much profanity in his texts. So, what to say? It had been two days since I’d seen him. I wondered why he’d waited to contact me.
Took you long enough to check.
You drove off.
Was sick.
Tried to help. Water, food, remember?
I didn’t respond.
Try again?
Was this guy for real?
NO.
Second chance? 
I turned off the ringer and stuck the phone beneath a pillow on the bed. I pulled it out again and clicked on my emails. The ‘unknown user’ message was back. So much for the hard restart. I noticed that my co-phone mate had a name. When he or she signed on, the name ‘Null’ appeared at the top of the page. I signed Null out and called into the customer service line for my cell phone carrier. Someone had either hacked into my email or my internet account. I waited … and waited … and waited some more, listening to tinny background music. Twenty minutes passed and the line went dead. I resisted the urge to toss the phone against the wall.
I walked over to my PC and glowered at it. Even with Null watching over my shoulder. I decided to do another search on Burk. A week ago, my probe left me with nothing to read, no photos to inspect. On the login page, I typed in my password, clicked enter, but an error message popped up, telling me it was incorrect. Had I hit the wrong keys? I typed in my password a second time. Same message again. I tried a third time, watching my fingers. A fourth time. It didn’t work. A fifth. The error message again. I was locked out. My computer and my phone were not my own.
“Dad,” I yelled down the steps. “What’s going on with the internet? Can you get into your account? Email? Websites?”
“Haven’t tried, Trishy,” he called back. “I mostly use my phone. It’s not on the same network that you and Earl use. But he’s been having trouble with the house phone. His calls are disappearing.”
My mouth went dry. I gaped at the screen, then followed the prompts in slow motion to change my password. I checked that it worked. It did. For the second time in a week, I changed a few other passwords while I was at it: my bank, healthcare, car insurance, a few online stores. Better safe than sorry. The curtain of unease began to subside, and I continued my search for Burk. I could find no digital footprint. No Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat accounts, no websites under his name. A digital ghost. Super rare, these days. Maybe Burk wasn’t his real name. I didn’t want to think about that and pushed the idea out of my mind. I typed in the address from the house over the hill, but nothing came up besides an appraisal.
I signed out of my computer and walked over to the deck. The tall redwoods climbed straight up to a crisp blue sky, but I barely saw their quiet beauty. My mind swirled, searching for the bits and pieces that would put this whole thing together. Getting an idea, I went back to the computer and attempted to sign on. But in that short bit of time, my password had been changed again. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I clicked on the ‘forgot my password’ button, responded to the email and then created a new password so I could log on again. My stomach tied itself in knots. Who controlled my computer? Not me, that’s for sure. Ten minutes later, the screen blinked and went black for a nano-second. When the sign-in page popped back up, I put in the new-new password. It didn’t work. Then I signed off and shut the computer down. Unplugged everything from the wall, including the modem, which I reset. Then I waited, pacing around the bedroom for five minutes. I stopped in front of the refrigerator.
“You’re not behind this are you, Frida?”
“There is nothing behind me,” answered Frida.
“Technology sucks. Hey, Earl,” I yelled out from my room.
“What’s up?” he called back from downstairs.
“I’m pretty sure I have a hacker on my computer. He keeps changing my password. What do I do?”
“Run a malware scan. Should get rid of any interlopers. I’ll send you a link for a free one.”
“I’m having trouble with my phone, too. Someone named “Null” keeps signing off my emails and then using it for his messages. Do you think it’s someone from the cable company? My email both on the cell and my computer, plus the internet goes through them.”
“Couldn’t tell you for sure, but they’re probably connected, Trish. Will send a link to get rid of them on your mobile. Change your password.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing for the last hour.”
Back at the computer, I began attaching and plugging everything back in. I turned it on, held my breath, and tried to sign into my account. It worked! I threw my head back and let out a yelp. Trisha-one. Null-zero, if it was Null.
“Goodbye, Null,” I chuckled as I clicked on the link Earl had sent me. The malware scans would now destroy any gremlins my hacker had placed in the underpinnings of my phone and computer.