Page 3 of A Dark and Stormy Night

“Shit if I know. It’s top secret. Spy stuff. And she gets paid one helluva a lot for doing it.” Rainbow's tone clearly expressed her opinion of anyone who worked for the U.S. Government.

“What does she ever spend her money on?”

“She doesn’t have to spend it. That’s what her husband’s for.”

Kateri cackled. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about Mason Markum. In fourth grade, I broke my heart over that guy. He was so cute.”

“Order up!” Dax slid a chicken strips and fries and a hummus plate with fresh vegetables and pita wedges across the worktop from the kitchen.

“He still is cute.” Rainbow picked up the plates. “Nice guy. Don’t get me wrong. He married her and hasn’t worked a day since. But he’s good to Cornelia, every summer he teaches kids how to swim, and he helps old ladies across the street.”

“So he’s a boy scout.” Kateri looked at Cornelia again. Cornelia, with her untrimmed brown hair, her hands and feet that looked too big for her body, her nearsighted brown eyes that blinked cluelessly behind her sturdy black glasses. “I’ll never understand how she caught him.”

“I think they caught each other. He was looking for a meal ticket and she fell in love with him.” Rainbow started around the counter.

“She loves him?” Kateri couldn’t believe it.

“Yes. What passes for love for her, anyway.” Rainbow stopped and studied Cornelia. “Sometimes that smile makes me uneasy, like she’s pointing a camera up my skirt to see what I’ve got.”

“Anything exciting up there?” Kateri asked.

“So I’ve been told.” With an exaggerated sway, Rainbow headed for the table of whale-watching tourists.

Kateri grinned. Rainbow had an excellent ego, and many men — and a few women — had lovingly tended it. Rainbow, middle-aged, liberal, independent, and hearty, was the glue that held Virtue Falls together.

***

Cornelia's mother had many times told Cornelia she needed to listen when other people talked.

Cornelia had tried that. She didn’t see the sense in it. People talked about their health, the weather, and the road work in front of their house. They never told the truth about what they thought. They seldom even told the truth about their health. They talked and they talked, and they never said anything. One day when Cornelia was twelve, her mother had lied and said she was coming home that evening. She never did, leaving Cornelia alone with a surly father and two humiliated older sisters. That had finished Cornelia for verbal communication, and for trying to please her mother.

Now Cornelia considered herself an observer of human behavior. She knew most people in Virtue Falls didn’t consider her an observer — most of them treated her like a bug who had crawled into their fresh green salad of life — but that was because they used their eyes and their ears to observe. Cornelia stepped back and used her computer skills to eavesdrop.

It was easy. At first, to amuse herself, she had hacked into e-email accounts. She had quickly discovered that people revealed more of themselves over time, in writing, than they ever did with their verbiage. Unfortunately, most of her neighbors were still consumed with the minutia of life, and wading through the reams of e-mail babble made Cornelia sleepy. She was looking for entertainment, not boredom.

Then she discovered texting.

Texting — short, brief, abbreviated shots of contact between (usually) two humans that included appointment reminders, screaming hatreds, professions of deepest love, breakups, assignations, witty quips, copious complaining, nagging, tears, drunk texting, announcements of marriage, divorce and births. Texting was human contact in its most distilled form. Cornelia could randomly hack into the thousands of texts sent in Virtue Falls every day. Best of all, it was like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates; She never knew what she was going to get, or who was sending it.

She supposed, if she really hacked at it, she could discover who was sending which message. But to her, that was part of the game. Find a really juicy conversation, follow it for awhile and, using her knowledge of her hometown, figure out who it was. Then, if she got the chance, she mentioned something about the conversation to one or both of the participants.

Sometimes it was too easy. Almost everybody in town came into the Oceanview Café occasionally, and some of them came every day to drink coffee, use the free Wi-Fi, gossip about their neighbors, and eat. Pie, usually. Dax made great pies.

Cornelia finished her pie, drank half of her milk, packed up her gear, went to the ladies’ room and used the toilet. She washed her hands with soap for as long as it took to kill germs — the amount of time it took to twice sing, "Happy Birthday to You." She brushed her teeth, flossed, and returned to her table.

As usual, while she was gone Rainbow had cleaned it off, except for the milk.

Cornelia found it disturbing when Rainbow got busy and couldn’t wipe off the table in time. Then she had to stand there and wait until Rainbow got a free moment and could do her job. Only then could Cornelia sit back down for the second part of her work day.

Routine was important to Cornelia.

But she hadn’t used up her self-allotted break time, and that made her happy. She could see what was going on this afternoon in Virtue Falls. She pulled out her tablet — it wouldn’t do to use the government’s laptop for leisure entertainment — and slid (metaphorically) into the local cell phone tower. Once there, she hopped into the system and randomly chose one of the channels.

The first text conversation popped up.

Darling, will you be able to meet me tonight?

You know I will. I wish I had the strength of will to resist you … this isn’t right, but you’re all I think about.

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