Sasha

 

Halloween was a particularly treat-filled holiday for Sasha this year. The first sweet little discovery came in the form of a new audio file that appeared by surprise on her computer some time around one o’clock that afternoon. It was the latest downloaded recording of a conversation caught by the tap still attached to Kit’s basement window. Charlie and the crew decided to have yet another critical conversation in that space.

Within the first five minutes of their little chat, Sasha learned something that made her realize the foursome was not as tightly knit a group as she originally thought. Amanda, Kit, and Sean had no idea about what really went on between Charlie and “Chelsea.” They knew that Sarah had tricked Charlie as a girl named Chelsea, but they had no idea that Charlie went along with the entire thing for months and months before he knew the truth. They did not know that Charlie was in love with “Chelsea.” That meant that whatever the group did to Sarah, they did for Charlie, but with only half of the story as their motivation.

Sasha wondered how they would feel about whatever happened if they knew the whole truth, and, more importantly, if they might be willing to turn on Charlie as a result? The fact that the police were talking to Charlie meant they would eventually question the rest of the group. It was too known among the whole Englewood community that they were a set.

That information alone would have given Sasha plenty to work on for the next few days, but something popped up on the master tracking feed that sent her off in yet another direction, and from a very fascinating source.

Sasha had been tracking the computers inside the Englewood school newspaper office since the beginning of her search. It was a choice she made early on in her hacking plan, figuring that places like the newspaper might be as fruitful as the school yearbook. They were spaces where students spent a lot of time and might unknowingly drop clues. Once again, Sasha’s instincts were right. Around four o’clock on Halloween day—one hour after the rest of the school went home—someone made a move that was very helpful to Sasha’s cause.

At first Sasha wasn’t sure who was using the device, but they started by opening and closing a series of folders containing photos—all candid shots from the yearbook committee that the newspaper computer had access to. That didn’t last long before the person switched tasks to painstakingly searching the “downloads” folder, opening and closing dozens of images that had been newly added to the hard drive. Again, they were images of random Englewood students, probably taken for various Chronicle articles. Sasha couldn’t make sense of it at first, but then the searching mysteriously stopped, halfway through the folder. The person was only interested in photos downloaded the week before October 24. That’s when it finally clicked in Sasha’s mind: they were looking for the image of Charlie and Sarah that she had slipped into the homecoming slideshow. At that realization Sasha crossed all her fingers and toes hoping that the person would do something more specific to reveal him or herself. It could have been anyone who had a legitimate reason to be inside that room…or anyone who found their way in for the purpose of searching this computer. Obviously Sasha suspected Charlie or one of his friends, but, from their conversation in Kit’s basement, she knew that they were supposed to be getting ready for Halloween so they could all meet at the diner around five o’clock.

Sasha quickly opened a new window to do a search on the location of Charlie and his friends based on their cellphones’ GPS tracking. Charlie was home. Amanda was at Kit’s house, and Sean appeared to be at some strip mall on Route 9. They all had an alibi. Then Sasha went the opposite route. She reverse-searched the location of Englewood High against all the cellphones she was tracking. About a hundred pings came back, but only one made sense in relation to the bigger picture: a cellphone belonging to Laura Rivers.

It was the first time since the beginning of the school year that Laura had done anything worthy of Sasha’s attention. She emailed back and forth with Charlie a ton, but it was always goofy love notes or random lines from movies. Her lack of online social activity had always struck Sasha as slightly odd, but she chalked it up to the fact that people said Laura was a hippie from California. With that in mind, it made sense that Laura might not be attached to her devices 24/7.

Apparently now she had something worth digging for, and the fact that it was happening at four o’clock inside what was probably an empty office felt telling. Of course nothing came up on the computer in reference to the photo, so Laura moved on to her final search, the one that gave Sasha a pretty clear picture of what was going on. She double-clicked on the folder marked “Becca Private” and started guessing at passwords that might make it open.

It was still technically a guess, but Sasha was pretty sure it was a smart one: Laura Rivers thought that Becca Adams knew something about Charlie’s relationship with Sarah. That made sense. Laura was dating Charlie from all the information Sasha had gathered, so she wanted to know more about all the mystery surrounding him. Sasha seriously considered sending Laura a personal note telling her to steer clear of this guy, but then again, curious Laura was already proving helpful.

Sasha stared at Becca’s name, thinking. It wasn’t a name she’d necessarily expected to see in this search process and it made her incredibly worried. What did Becca know? Sasha realized that she had found one more person to help with her cause. It was time to become more closely acquainted with Laura Rivers.