“You already have, haven’t you?” I say carefully.
“Yes.”
And I don’t need to ask what he found.
The call really did come from inside the house.
AfterI end the call with Oscar, I text Rory. Thirty minutes later, he’s at our place, dissecting the videos and the comments for signs of tampering. Rory might be a physics postgrad, but his area of expertise is quantum computing…and he did his share of hacking in his misspent youth.
If Trinity doesn’t match anyone’s idea of a physics doctoral student, Rory is a walking stereotype, effortlessly managing to convey both computer geek and science nerd wound in a double helix. He’s not much taller than me, slight and reedy. His saving grace is his hair, which is an adorable boy-band mop of dark curls. Today he’s wearing a “Super Jew” T-shirt and blue jeans that I’m pretty sure he irons—he might even starch them. That sounds less than complimentary, but to me, guys like Rory reallyaresuperheroes in disguise—sweet, funny, smart as hell, packaged in a way that lets them pass under the radar of girls like Trinity. I do not fail to notice how fast Rory replied to my SOS, even on a Sunday morning, and I won’t pretend I’m not pleased by that.
After an hour of work, Rory leans back in the swivel chair and adjusts his glasses. “I don’t know what to tell you, Hannah.”
“The truth?”
“That I can’t find any sign of outside tampering. I don’t know how those orbs are getting on the video, but it seems to be the same one you’ve uploaded. No one is taking it down, tweaking it and putting it up again. As for the comments, everything indicates that they really did come from this computer.”
I swear under my breath. Then I say, “It’s not me.”
“You’d hardly call me in to investigate if it was. The real culprit must be…” His eyes cut toward the back of the house.
“I don’t think it’s Trin, either. She’s really freaked out by all this.”
“Hmm.” He eyes the closed door again and lowers his voice. “Trin likes attention, and since you guys switched to Webizode, you’re the one getting it. You’re the cool, quirky science geek. Trin is the window dressing. The straight man to your comedian.” He lowers his voice even more. “Does she know you’ve been fielding offers for solo projects?”
“I delete those as soon as they come in. Trin and I were having trouble even before this. She thinks I’m mocking her with my geek-culture references and…” I sigh. “Managing her moods is harder than I expected.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I turn back to the computer. “She’s going to think I’m doing this. How do I convince her I’m not?”
“By ending the show.”
When I stiffen, he says, “It started as a lark. But between Trinity’s bullshit and the weekly hangovers, you’re not having fun anymore. You already have job offers—realjob offers in your field just waiting for you to graduate. You don’t need this show, Hannah.”
“Trinity does. It means a lot to her. Both the exposure and the money.”
“Which is not a good reason foryouto continue, when she’s the reason you’re miserable.”
“We’re fine,” I say, taking the keyboard and busying myself checking comments.
“You said Trinity is really freaked out by those comments,” he says. “Does that seem like an overreaction?” He leans in, his dark eyes twinkling with amusement. “Maybe our Trin is a secret killer, tormented by her guilty conscience.”
I groan.
“You did say she believes in ghosts,” he says. “Maybe she’s convinced her past has literally come back to haunt her.”
He starts making ghost noises, and I laugh, telling him to cut it out. That’s when Trinity walks in. She looks from me to Rory.
“Did I just hear you two talking about ghosts?” she says.
“Uh, no, we—” I begin.
“You were making fun of me, weren’t you, Hannah.”
Rory rolls his chair between us. “No, I was joking about ghosts, and Hannah was telling me to stop.” He gets to his feet. “I have a lab this morning, and I need to run. First, though…” He reaches into his backpack and hands me a wrapped mug. “Almost forgot this.”
I unroll the paper to find a Doctor Who mug with the “timey-wimey stuff” quote I’d paraphrased on the show. As I laugh, I catch Trinity’s expression.
