Page 21 of Hide and Seek

“Keep sassing me and see what happens.” I look around, checking the angles to find the best vantage point for the camera to capture the entire room.

“Ooohhh, I’m shaking in my boots. Or at least I would be if I were wearing boots. And saying that I’m shaking in my socks doesn’t have the sameoomph, so I’m sticking with it even if it’s not accurate.”

“That was a lot of words to say you’re underestimating my level of annoyance with you right now.”

He snort-laughs. “Or was it a lot of words to say bring it on, bro?”

“Potato, poh-tah-to,” I tell him and walk over to the tallboy dresser next to the closet.

It’s tucked into the corner and positioned high enough to cover the whole room. Satisfied that it’s the best place, I pull the camera Jace intercepted from the Kings out of my jacket pocket and flip open the box.

It’s about the same size as a 1x1 Lego plate piece with a thin, flexible antenna protruding from the back. It’s big enough that I can’t just plant it on the dresser, but I should be able to mount it inside the exposed gears of the model clock.

“I’m planting the first camera now,” I tell my brother as I pull a pair of long-handled tweezers out of the little fold in my jacket I slipped them into earlier. “How much time do you need?”

“A few minutes,” he says, all traces of his earlier jokes gone. “No more than five.”

Using the tweezers, I slip the camera between some of the gears and carefully wedge it against the frame. Once it’s secure, I tuck in the wire tail.

When I’m sure it’s not going anywhere, I step back and scan the clock to ensure it’s hidden, then adjust it so there’s no glarecoming off the lens and pull out my phone to test that the camera is synced and working.

“Camera one is down,” I tell Jace.

“Awesomesauce,” he mutters. He’s distracted, which tells me he’s concentrating.

Instead of being a dick and bugging him while he’s working, I pull a small EMF meter out of my pocket and flip it on.

“Huh,” Jace mutters.

“What?” I ask as I use the reader to check the area around the dresser for any electronic signatures that shouldn’t be there. It’s possible that whoever is after him planted cameras or mics in here before I got involved.

“Looks like our boy is coming back from break early.”

“Yeah?” I ask, continuing my sweep of the room.

“Yup. His family got him special permission to be here the week before classes start up again. Doesn’t say why, but I’m sure I can find out when I have a chance to dig deeper.”

“That’s an interesting development,” I say.

“I’m picking up what you’re putting down. Don’t you worry about that,” he says distractedly. “There. I just did the same for us. Now we’ll be on campus at the same time as our boy.”

“Awesomesauce,” I say, keeping my eyes on the meter as I check around his bed and night tables.

“This is insane,” Jace mutters after a stretch of silence.

“What is?” I skip his desk and go to check his dresser.

“Nothing. I just thought I was paranoid. The levels of encryption in here are beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Every time I think I’ve gotten through one, there’s another one right there and waiting for me.”

“Is that his whole system, or just parts of it?”

If it’s just a small part that’s different, that could be a sign that there’s something worth finding there.

“The whole system.” He blows a bubble and pops it. “Like I said, bro is more paranoid than me.”

When I’m sure the dresser and the small sitting area next to it, including around the couch, are clear, I head back over to his desk. With all the equipment Myles has, trying to suss out an electronic signature that shouldn’t be there won’t be easy.

“This is going to take days, if not weeks, to go through,” Jace says, breaking the silence that fell over us. “Good thing I’ll have all the time in the world to work on this while we’re here during the break.”