Page 102 of Unnatural Death

“I for one find all this shop talk dreadfully dull and am going to bed.” Dorothy has awakened and unsteadily gets up from the table. “I’m not waiting for myungratefuldaughter who likes certain people more than me. And I’m not bothering to stay up for mytiredhusband who can’t be trusted …”

“Do you need some help?” I ask as she weaves off, taking wireless candles with her.

“No thank you!” She bumps through the saloon doors, and they swing shut behind her.

“What was that about?” Lucy’s voice sounds from Benton’s phone as he places it on the table. Sitting down, he moves his chair close to me, the snow clicking against the window glass.

“Your mother was in the cottage earlier putting away food,” Benton replies. “This was when she had her encounter withBad Janet.”

“I don’t yet know how extensive the breach is,” Lucy says. “Except I can’t log in anymore. I’m trying as we speak, and my password has been changed. Damn! I’m being given the finger. Very funny. Literally, an emoji middle finger.”

“How could this happen?” I ask.

“Somehow a link must have been opened that created an exposure,” Tron answers.

“I can’t think of anything much worse. If your software has been hacked, then whoever is responsible can get into almost anything, can’t they?” In other words, Carrie Grethen can, but I don’t say it.

“Janet’s avatar has been hijacked. That’s what has happened, plain and simple.” It’s Tron talking. “That means we aren’t able to control her. But as Lucy has indicated, we don’t know how extensive the breach is yet.”

“I think it’s pretty damn extensive,” Benton says somberly, his handsome face sculpted in shadows cast by artificial candle flames.

“I have clean backups,” Lucy tells us. “But I don’t have sufficient privileges to delete the existing program that’s running. Janet won’t let me.”

“You mean, you can’t kill her off. There’s no way to do that,” I reply indelicately. “Because that’s what needs to happen, Lucy.”

“I don’t have the ability,” she says.

CHAPTER 38

JANET’S MADE CERTAIN I can’t delete her,” Lucy explains over speakerphone, and I don’t trust what she’s saying.

I don’t know if she could bring herself to kill off Janet’s programmed existence. That’s the problem and source of my niece’s vulnerability. She explains there can be only one Janet avatar running at a time.

“You can duplicate the software, but it won’t work as long as the original exists and is online,” Lucy is saying. “And the original has been corrupted. What this means is Bad Janet is in charge and she wants to keep it that way. I don’t have the power to replace her with an earlier uncorrupted version.”

“We can’t reinstall Good Janet until we somehow delete the bad one,” Tron explains. “And as we speak only the hijacker can do that.”

“I guess Carrie Grethen is letting us know how much she’s missed us.” I go ahead and call her by name. “And if I didn’t know better, I might assume she’s getting the best of us.”

I tell Lucy and Tron to be safe, that I’m signing off, too tired to deal with anything else. I set Merlin on the floor and get up from the kitchen table. Following my sister’s lead, I pick up two candles to carry with me.

“See you upstairs,” I say to Benton.

I need to get out of these clothes and to have some alone time with him. How could Lucy be vulnerable to a cyberattack? Especially one by Carrie Grethen, if that’s who’s responsible?Who else could it be?The questions are screaming in my thoughts.

“Lucy of all people,” I say to Merlin as he shadows me through the house. “Most of her adult life she’s been consumed by chasing this very evil person who we’ll hope you never meet. But it seems Lucy is the one who’s been caught. She’s been hacked. Janet’s AI-programmed avatar has been stolen.”

I explain to Merlin that it’s not Janet talking anymore. It’s someone else speaking through her. Possibly an evil person whose name I won’t mention, and Merlin is to disregard anything the avatar says to him.

“She may blink awake as you walk through and start calling out to you, Merlin. And the temptation is to think it’s really Janet. But it’s not. Just ignore her, and don’t do anything she says. Such as running off into freezing temperatures, requiring you to seek shelter behind bushes near the carriage house. She’ll say terrible and hurtful things that aren’t true.”

Merlin’s response is to weave between my legs, muttering, purring, and making an occasional trilling chirp that reminds me of the cricket. Retrieving my briefcase from the entryway table, I take the pumpkin pine stairs. The candles dimly light my way, the house creaking like an old ship in the gusting wind. It moans around the roof like something grieving or in pain.

It occurs to me that maybe I’m being warned, and I remember the growls as I dangled in the mineshaft. I think of the eerie wood-knocking, and Pepper the drone waiting for us on one of the helicopter skids, the tiedowns piled on a rock. I envision the plaster cast of the monster-size footprint, and the limbic look on Marino’s face as he sat next to me with the box in his lap, explaining what I was seeing. So proud of himself. And totally spooked.

What the Bad Janet avatar said to my sister is true, and that’s the irony. Dorothy doesn’t validate Marino. She’d rather change him, and I can hear her through the upstairs guestroom’s closed door. She’s talking on the phone to him, and as drunk as she is, chatting with him or anyone isn’t a good idea. She’s launching in about the ugly comments Janet’s avatar made, and I don’t linger to listen.

I’ve heard enough for one night. Inside the main bedroom at the end of the hallway, I shut the door, leaving my briefcase in a chair. I carry a candle to the windows on the far side of the room where I can feel the cold air through the brick wall. Peeking behind a shade, I see whiteness, the sky milky. The snow is piled in pine boughs beyond the glass and blowing in drifts.

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