Page 78 of Paranoid

Maybe.

The secretary waved him into Mrs. Walsh’s office. “She’ll be right back. She told me to let you go on in.”

He stepped into the small room and wondered how long she’d be gone. If he had time to—

With a quick look over his shoulder he saw the receptionist was busy at the counter. Before he could talk himself out of it, he shoved the door so that it was barely open, just a crack, then moved around the desk. Not bothering to sit, he pushed back the chair, leaned over the keyboard, and checked Walsh’s computer terminal.

Of course it wouldn’t open. He needed a password.

The screen saver, a picture of the front of the high school, stayed in place, mocking him. Softly, hardly daring to breathe, he pulled open her drawer, searching for a card or something where she might have jotted a note. On first sweep, nothing. He swept his gaze across the flat surface of the desk, even picked up a picture and checked the back, anywhere she might keep her password. No hint in the drawers. Nothing on her neat desk.

He was really sweating now.

He didn’t have much time.

If he could figure it out . . .

Come on, come on.

The picture of her daughter . . . God, what was that girl’s name? Beth? Bethany? Brittany? She was a few years older than Harper, had graduated the year before he’d become a freshman. So she was like nineteen, maybe? He tried a combination of each of the names, backward and forward, with each of the two years when the daughter might have been born.

Nothing.

He bit his lip.

Thought hard.

Felt the sweat bead on his forehead.

Come on, Ryder, think. You can do this.

Glancing up, he saw the girl at the counter gathering her things. Crap. The receptionis

t was about to return to her desk, and might peek inside and catch him.

His heart was racing.

Calm down!

Only a few more seconds.

If he knew more about Marlene Walsh, like her husband’s name or if they had a pet, or the year Walsh herself had been born or graduated from high school or college . . . He needed more information to get in.

Not that it was that big a deal. He knew he could hack into the school’s system; it wasn’t that tough, but it would be so great to be able to log on as if he were the friggin’ vice principal. That would give him a sense of satisfaction, kind of a behind-her-back-but-also-in-her-face move. Major bragging rights and . . .

Footsteps clicked outside the door.

His heart nearly stopped.

Crap!

He looked up.

The receptionist was turning back to her desk.

He scrambled back to the chair behind the door just as it swept open, yanked his phone from his back pocket, and pretended to be texting.

“Dylan.” Marlene Walsh smiled that same plastic grin she used when addressing the student body in one of her stupid “Rah-rah Edgewater Eagles” speeches that made him groan. So phony. “Sorry I’m late.”