Page 162 of Return To You

“Oh—that’s good,” she moans. “It’s our social media. Noah and his club started it a few years ago. It’s just for us in Emerald Creek. You should install it! Stay in the loop when you’re—oh wow!”

“What?”

She frowns. “The high school—” she begins, then moans as I increase the pressure on the ball of her foot.

“What happened at the high school?” If I let her moans guide my instincts, I’m bringing her to bed right this minute. But I want to hear her talk first, want her to tell me all about her day, all about those little things that’ll be so hard to hang onto once I’m gone.

“They got hacked! Noah seems beside himself.”

My blood freezes. “Hacked how?”

“Admin can’t access the system, all the grades are gone, and the students are getting weird messages. You know, through their portals? It’s awful.”

“Did they call the FBI?”

Her frown deepens as she reads through the post. “I dunno… apparently, they don’t have the resources to figure out the hack. Like—for real? The state needs to help out, and from what Noah is posting, it’s not looking good.” She raises her eyes to me. “He didn’t call you, did he?”

I check my phone, just in case. My C.O.’s message is still there, unopened. Nothing else. “No.”

“He won’t want to bother you. D’you think you could, like, take a look?”

You don’t take a look at a hack like you would under the hood of car that’s stalling. Also, you don’t exactly walk into a high school that’s been hacked and say, Move aside, lemme fix this.

I certainly can’t fix it. The only thing I’d be qualified to do, is probably assess the threat, and then recruit and organize the team who would be able to fix it.

“I’m sure they’re working on it.”

“Yeah but—not like you could.”

“Of course they are!”

Grace tilts her head like she’s talking to a stubborn child. “Honey. There’re less than six hundred and fifty thousand people in the whole state. Do you think they have the kind of cyber-thingy wiz like you on the school payroll? They don’t.”

“They’ll find people.”

“And why not you?”

I smile at her perseverance. “No one’s asked me.”

She pulls her feet from my hands. “So—I’m no one?” she says, looking downright offended.

“I mean, no one at the high school.”

“Babe, I didn’t ask anyone to give my brochures to Richardson’s mom. I didn’t ask anyone to look for another location for me. I didn’t ask anyone to bring croissants and coffee this morning. And I didn’t ask anyone to design a cup for the spa.”

Yep. I get her point. I rub the sore spot between my eyebrows. “Lemme call Noah.”

“He’ll be at the school.” She looks up at me hopefully. “He might be too busy to answer his phone.”

I pull my phone back out. “I’m gonna text him I’m on my way.”

My thumb hovers over my C.O.’s message again. If he wanted an immediate response, or this was an emergency, he’d be blowing up my phone. Plus, everybody knows coverage sucks in Vermont, right? I leave his message unread for now and text Noah.

Grace walks me to the door and grabs my arm. “You know I’d rather spend the evening with you, right, especially since…”

Since I’m going to leave. We both know it; we just don’t want to talk about it.

“I know.” I cup her face in my hands. “Thanks for telling me about the hack. They probably need me right now, you’re right.”

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