“I won’t tell him if you don’t.” I smile and wink.
Once I leave the doctor’s office, my facade falls apart, and I bend over. The sharp chest pain that I’ve been experiencing lately is back, and it’s not going away as fast as it usually does. I could tell Dr. Kenji about it, but then I’ll also have to tell him when the pain started.
And that will mean I’ll have to tell him about the pills.
Martina offers her elbow for me to hold. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m normally like this after a test,” I murmur, rubbing my chest.
“Is that all that’s bothering you?”
I give her a questioning look.
“Perhaps you’re upset that Finn left without telling you?”
My jaw drops. “What?”
“He’s been calling all day to check on your progress. You’re on his mind, even when he’s far away.”
This has nothing to do with Finn.
I lick my lips, debating whether or not I should share what I’ve found. “Martina, can you look at these two pictures and tell me what you think?”
Stopping at one of the benches in the crowded hospital, I show her my cell phone.
“Do these ladies look like the same person?” I swipe between two images of Kelly that I found online.
“I-I think so.” Martina pushes her face close to the screen. “One looks a bit more thin, and the nose is a bit different. But the hair and eyes are the same color. I would believe they are the same person.”
“So would I,” I murmur.
Martina takes me back to my room, and I sit at the computer, staring blankly at the wall.
The first picture I showed Martina was Kelly in high school ten years ago. She had the same brown hair as the Kelly from today, and she also had the same eyes. The Kelly from today even has the same birthmark along her left nostril, tucked almost imperceptibly out of sight.
Everything on the surface checks out.
But in between my MRI and echo scan, I noodled around Kelly’s virtual history, and that made things very confusing.
High school Kelly was insanely predictable. All her passwords were a variation of the word “strawberry”—strawberry235, strawberry443, strawberry45.
Then five years ago, Kelly’s password habit changed. She used a new password every time she created an account, and even more strangely, none of those passwords were variations of the word “strawberry.”
Normal people never change their passwords or their password habits (especially the “smart” people who think changing all their e’s to 3’s is enough). And hackers love that. It makes it super easy to break into different accounts with the same stolen code.
Martina hustles into the room, her eyes wide. “Should you be working right now, J? Shouldn’t you rest?”
“I’ll just do a few more things, and then I’ll turn in,” I lie.
Martina nods. “Make sure to do that. I’ll be going home now, but you can call me at any time. Here’s my number.”
“Thanks.” I wave goodbye.
Although everything in me wants to crawl into bed, I take out a new packet of pills since I can’t find the old packet I was using before I slept over at Finn’s. Then I sit behind my computer and do a deep dive into Kelly’s emails, chat accounts, playlists, and cloud drives.
The content itself isn’t suspicious at all. Kelly is as sweet and considerate in her private chats as she is in real life.
I exit Kelly’s social media accounts and check the accounts of her high school classmates. To my surprise, Kelly isn’t following anyone from her high school or her college alma matter.
