Benji itches the bridge of his nose, then picks at the black polish on his nails. “68.7% of our confirmed possession cases involved hosts with mood disorders.”
“Don’t forget emotional outbursts,” DJ pipes up. “People who got fired recently.”
“Ghosts usually have a hard time holding down a job,” Griffin tells me.
“What about hospital admissions?” I ask. “If someone was possessed, wouldn’t they fight it? Maybe have a breakdown or something?”
Donny nods, already reaching for another Post-it. “Early possession can manifest as acute psychological distress, yes.”
I feel a twinge of pride.
“Check recent accident reports.” Griffin turns to me. “Car crashes happen when a ghost is behind the wheel.”
“What about a criminal record?” I ask. “I read in the field guide that people are more susceptible to possession if they’re already violent.”
No one says anything. DJ glances over at Nico, so I look at him too, and the way he’s staring at me makes me want to stuff the words back into my mouth.
“It’s possible,” he says. “It should go on the list.”
Donny addsCRIMINAL RECORD?with a question mark.
I stare at the cluster of yellow Post-It notes, all the words swimming together. “How exactly are we supposed to narrow that down?”
“Zoey will create a list of potential matches based on these parameters,” Donny says. “Connection to a taxi narrows it down considerably.”
I glance at Zoey, who’s been typing this entire time, her streaks of teal hair brushing her face.
“How do you get all that information?” I ask, genuinely curious. “Do you just Google ‘white male loners with building access’?”
“Oh sure.” Zoey widens her eyes, not looking up from her laptop. “I’m definitely using Google.”
I can see why DJ called Zoey scary. She sounds so annoyed that I dared to talk to her, but in my experience, the best way to talk to sarcastic people is to be sarcastic back to them.
“You can’t be that good of a hacker if all you can do is use Google,” I say, dropping my chin onto my hand. “I expected more.”
Zoey shoots me a glare. “You have guts for a girl who Googled ‘how to spell bureaucracy’ six times last month.”
I shrug. “Spelling is hard.”
“Actually—” Zoey tilts her head at her screen. “It would take me thirty seconds to pull up security footage of you leaving, what is, I can only assume from context clues in your text messages,Dylan Archer’s apartment at one o’clock in the morning on January second,holding your bra and panties, which you dropped while trying to unlock your car. I can project it on the TV for everyone to see. Want me to do that?”
My immediate reaction is to wonder how the hell she found footage I had no clue existed. My second is why she’s been looking in the first place. Probably a creepy background check.
Did she watch the clip long enough to see me slip on the ice outside my car and hit my head, which made me feel too crappy to drive? I ended up sleeping in my car, still in the parking lot outside Dylan’s building, because I was too much of a coward to ask if Bob and I could sleep inside after he’d already kicked me out. I made sure to leave before Dylan went to the gym the next morning. I wonder if he saw me out his window sometime during the night, and that’s how he figured out I was living in my car.
I feel eyes on me, but there’s a challenge in Zoey’s question. If I back down or get embarrassed, I’ll be playing into her expectations.
“I’m shocked you haven’t sold the footage yet,” I say, trying to match her energy. “I could put you in touch with some reporters willing to pay good money for that.”
“Keep running your mouth, and I might.” Zoey does an exasperated eye roll, but I catch a tiny hint of a smile before she goes back to her computer, and I sit back satisfied. “To answer your actual question, I cross-reference databases. Hospital admissions. Employment records. Vehicle registrations. Criminal records. All that fun stuff that’s supposedly ‘protected’ but I can scrape. Then I run algorithms to identify overlaps.”
Nico crosses his arms. “Zo, how long do you need?”
A twinge of completely illogical jealousy curls hot and uncomfortable in my ribs, but I try to ignore it. I have absolutelyno right to feel jealous of Nico having a friendship with someone he’s probably known for years.
“Depends on how competent the people who designed these systems were.” Zoey shrugs. “I’ll have a list for you idiots in a day or two.”
I really want to be her friend.
