“At first, she wasn’t leaving any openings. But when I started working with her to expose those names on The Grateful Project list, she seemed…”
“Interested?” Zane looks bewildered. “In you?”
I shake my head. “I’d say she was receptive.”
“She wanted to be found,” Dutch muses. His eyes flit to mine. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’d been getting blocked for ages, but suddenly, a few days ago, I was able to triangulate her location using the code in her app.”
“Her app?” Dutch looks impressed.
“Youcode?” Zane’s eyes widen.
“How’d you find her using her app?” Dutch asks again, as if he wants to be answered first.
“Jinx’s encryption runs on triple-layer obfuscation, but I was able to dig behind her syntax to a self-learning proxy loop that…”
My words slowly fade as I look at their faces.
Zane is scratching his head. “Ob-foo-what?”
Dutch is squinting at me in confusion too.
“There was a trail,” I say simply. “And it was simple enough that I followed it.”
“So who is she? Where is she? How is she helping us?” Zane demands.
Dutch studies me. “It’s J, isn’t it?”
Zane whips around, his jaw hitting the floor. “The tiny blonde? The one with the heart condition? No way!”
I nod again.
Zane staggers back. “My mind is blown.”
“I don’t have proof though,” I add. “That’s why I didn’t tell you earlier, but everything points to her. She knows things about us a normal fan wouldn’t, and she has the skills to hack anywhere at any time. Gathering information is something she could do in her sleep.”
Dutch sits in stunned silence.
“But why us?” Zane licks his lips.
“I don’t know.”
“What’d she do with all the money she extorted from us?” Dutch asks next.
I shake my head. I don’t know that either.
“Jinx said, in her last text, that she wanted something from us. Specifically, she said: ‘I have something you want and you have something I need.’ What does she want from us?”
I pull my lips into my mouth.
“Damn. She has us by the throat, and we still don’t know anything about her.” Zane curses.
“Does she know that you know?” Dutch asks.
“My gut says yes, but she hasn’t confirmed it, and I’ve been pretending to be clueless too.”
Zane massages his forehead. “So let me get this straight. The owner of the anonymous gossip blog who knows secret, intimate details about us that we’ve never told anyone… is a heart patient in a hospital. She doesn’t attend Redwood Prep, but she’s around our age, and she just so happens to want to help us find our wives for free?”
