Page 61 of Clean Slade
I narrowed my eyes, hoping they said,I don’t buy it. “Why don’t you go rest then?”
He shrugged.
“It’s okay. I’ll live.”
“I’m sure you will, but a nap never killed anyone.”
He pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling, humming. “I’m sure that’s not true. Surely someone must have been caught unawares while napping.”
“I guess you might be right, but trust me, no one will hurt you while you’re sleeping.”
Maybe he didn’t think he could trust me with his problem, but if anything, he could at least believe me when I said I wouldn’t let any harm come to him or Mac.
I may have dropped the ball at Chatham, but that wouldn’t happen again. That was why I’d wired the whole house with cameras and alarms and even set up remote surveillance across the street and at his workplace.
“Uh-oh,” Mac said as the TV froze again.
King groaned and got up to smack the Wi-Fi modem. “This stupid thing. I swear to God, paying for internet on this island is a waste of money.”
“It’s okay. I got it.” I reached for my laptop and logged onto the IP address.
It was true that internet connections and cell reception were sometimes bad from what I’d seen and been told, but that wasn’t the island’s fault. Most internet companies had slow speeds as a preset with their services to minimize their costs, but that didn’t mean those speeds couldn’t be bypassed.
Which was exactly what I did, and a few minutes later, the movie resumed playing in crisp high quality.
I’d been doing that for pretty much everyone I’d met since I’d arrived on the island, starting with the Outpost and working my way around all my teammate’s houses.
“Nothing the Hacker can’t do, right?” Donovan Wozniak had said after I fixed the connection at Luna’s Lodge.
“That’s got nothing to do with hacking,” I’d answered him yesterday when I’d swung by while Mac was at school.
He had arrived on the island while King, Mac, and I were away. Another lost soul that had answered Wyatt’s call for help. Lost or not, he was already causing quite a stir with the female population of this island.
Nothing surprising considering what a player he’d been, even back in the day when going out to the local bar with him meant I had to fend off the admirers.
“Sure thing, Hacker,” he’d told me, and I gave him the usual finger. The middle one.
My nickname may have been the Hacker once upon a time, but that didn’t mean I was. Sure, I was good with technology and could figure out things most people didn’t, but that was hardly hacking.
I was supposed to become one, and even got the authorization for the training from Wyatt back in the day, when he was my commander, but it never materialized. The injury happened not too long after, and I retired immediately.
I tried not to linger on the life that could have been and focused on the life that was. That was all I could do, right?
Just because your first dream doesn’t work out doesn’t mean you stop dreaming.
“You’re gonna have to tell me how you did that,” King told me when I fixed the movie.
I opened my mouth to answer, but a chime echoed across the house, making him jump.
“Are you expecting anyone?” I asked.
He shook his head, and I nodded, following him to the front door and standing beside it as he opened it, baseball bat at hand.
The doorbell rang again just as I gave him the go-ahead, and he swung the door open.
“Kingston Harrison Moore, where the fuck have you been?” a miniature storm waltzed in in the shape of King’s best friend, Santiago, and punched him across the chest. “You disappear without a fucking word. You come back, and still no word. What is wrong with you? I’ve been worried sick.”
Joey walked in after him and glanced at me with pursed lips and hands in his pockets with a face that saidI’m not getting involved in this.
