Bryce brought the boxes into the pool house over several trips, dividing the gear between property security and cyber security.
“How many cameras are there?” Hayley asked, running her fingers over a box. Bryce’s skin tingled, watching.
“There’ll be one stationed every ten feet around the roofline,” Nash said. “We’ll get everything opened and go over each component with you. Bryce can show you what’s over there.” He gestured at the boxes of computer hardware.
“Will this stuff run itself?” she asked.
“That’s the idea,” Bryce said. “You’ve got some holes in your network. I’m going to set up a private server and a firewall first. But I’ll also need to know what accounts you use, change your passwords with randomized character combinations, etcetera. Since you’re here, we can start with your phone.”
“My phone?” Hayley paled. “What do you need that for?”
“Phones are pretty easy to hack,” Bryce said. “I want to make sure no one can intercept your calls, texts, whereabouts.” He held out his hand.
Haley thought of the photo she’d snapped of Bryce from her window, mortified at the thought of him possibly seeing it in her camera roll or text messages. She should have deleted it. What was she thinking? Her face grew hot.
For an hour before she fell asleep last night, her thoughts dwelled on howhotthe mystery man was. She kept on zooming in and out on his picture.
“I can’t give you my phone yet,” she said, “My manager is on his way. He’s always running late, and he might call..”
“It won’t take long.”
Haley chewed her lip. “Just let me check it first.”
She pulled the phone out of her pocket and nervously punched in her passcode. “He might have texted,” she said, scrolling through the photos she took yesterday to find his and delete it. “Not like there’s anything in my texts to protect anyway. And who in this business doesn’t get the occasional weird text from a fan?” She found the photo in the text log and deleted it, then sighed. “No Michael,” she finally handed her phone over. “And it’s not like I’d let a few creepy texts control my life. This all seems a bit overkill,” she said, waving her hand at the equipment.
“What texts from a fan?” Bryce asked curiously.
Hayley reddened. “Just some random messages. I don’t know who they’re from. Probably a wrong number. No one has this number except my mom, Valerie, Michael, and a few close friends.”
Hayley berated herself internally for coming downstairs. She should have hid in her room and not tried to meet Bryce. She felt a little uncomfortable revealing aspects of her private life to a guy she had just met. And he was paid to be here. He probably didn’t even like pop music, and most definitely had never heard of her before this assignment.
“Can I see them?” Bryce asked.
“Sure,” Hayley said, reluctantly. “I was going to delete them.”
“Unlock your phone, please.” Bryce’s body tensed as he considered the possibility the stalker had been reaching Hayley by means her mother didn’t even know about.
Hayley entered her code and handed it back. “It’s those two,” she said, scrolling down the log.
“Any others?”
Bryce could see he was making her nervous, but she needed to take this seriously. She needed to care more about her own safety.
Hayley shook her head. “No others. It’s not a big deal. I can just change my number.”
“Itisa big deal,” Bryce corrected. “You said not many people have this number. You don’t give it out? Use it as part of your billing address?”
Hayley shook her head. “I have a business line. It’s separate.”
“I’m going to need to borrow your phone today,” he said. “I need to review…”
“No,” Hayley said, surprising herself. She had other things in there she didn’t want strangers to see – snippets of song lyrics ideas, personal notes, photos and lists.
“This is what you hired me for,” Bryce said, holding out his hand.
“My mother hired you. She’s overprotective.”
“She has reason to be,” Bryce said, and immediately realized he had unintentionally brought up Linda’s secret.
