SUNDAY EVENING, Lianne came through my bathroom door unannounced. “Hey!” she said breathlessly. “I have news.”
“It’s dangerous to barge in here, you know,” I said, tossing a book off my lap. “Might have been an orgy in progress.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, dismissing my ’tude with a flip of her hand. “This is worth interrupting an orgy, anyway.”
That got my attention. “What is?”
“Come here.” She beckoned, then turned on her heel and headed back through the bathroom toward her own room.
Curious, I followed her into her tiny single, which was illuminated only by the blue light emitted by three computer monitors. “Jesus. What’s all this? You could run NASA from here.”
“I got into their site,” Lianne announced without a preamble. “But I need to know how you want to play this.”
“Whose site?” I asked. I found my answer on Lianne’s monitors. Brodacious.com was displayed on one screen beside another filled with long scripts in computereze. “What do you mean, you got into it?”
“I cracked it open. Which means we can pull down that photo if you want to.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Seriously? Just like that?”
“Yes and no,” Lianne warned, her face serious. “If I take the picture down, they’ll notice. It’s right at the top of the page.”
“Still?” I gasped. I hadn’t looked at Brodacious since that first awful day. I’d been imagining my picture had already been buried under whatever other stupid things Beta Rho had to say.
“Yeah,” she sighed.
“So…” I tried to do the math. “If you take it down, they might just put it up again.”
“Or worse,” Lianne said grimly. Her flawless face was tinted blue by the light from the computer screen. “If they think you were responsible for tampering with their website, I have no clue what they’d do to get even.”
I shivered. “I didn’t think of that. Men can be assholes.”
“Most men are certified assholes,” she agreed quietly.
I sat down on Lianne’s bed. “Shit. Do I have to decide right this second?”
“Probably not. There’s only a small chance that their web host will notice my invasion.” She crossed her tiny arms. “I was pretty sneaky, though.”
Wow. I let that sink in for a second. I’d been so bowled over by this reversal of fortune that I hadn’t given enough thought to the fact that Lianne was capable of such a thing. Lianne. The neighborhood movie star and… hacker? Really? “Buddy?” I asked. “Could you get in trouble for doing this?”
“I committed a federal crime just by breaking in.” She gave me the same evil smile her sorceress princess character made on the big screen. “But I break the law every day, Bella. And nobody would prosecute this. Ever. No state’s attorney wants to slap the cuffs on an eighteen year-old college student for taking down a humiliating photo of a friend. Or neighbor,” she added quickly.
“What about school rules?” I worried. “Aren’t you on their network right now?”
“Nope.” Lianne smiled. “I’m using my cell phone hotspot and a VPN.”
“A what?”
She waved a hand. “It’s like wearing an invisibility cloak.”
“Cool. I had no idea you were a computer genius.”
Lianne shrugged. “I didn’t go to a regular high school. I don’t have friends. That leaves a lot of hours for playing with my computer.”
Yikes. “I see.”
“Do me a favor, though? Don’t tell anyone. The tabloids would be all over this.”
“All over what?” came a voice from the bathroom doorway.
We both looked up to see Rafe standing there. For the second time in ten minutes, my heart gave a little jump. He was just so fucking handsome. And I didn’t really expect to see him tonight. I was pretty sure that after the family freak show I’d treated him to yesterday, he’d steer clear of me.
“Is this, like, girl talk?” Rafe grinned. “Should I go back in the other room?”
“No, it’s okay,” Lianne said. “You wouldn’t tell anyone if I asked you not to.”
His eyes widened. “Of course I won’t. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” I beckoned to him. “You have to see this. Lianne has been totally holding out on us.”
“Oh my God.” Rafe chuckled. “Are you going to tell me that she’s actually a sorceress?”
“That would explain a lot, I’m sure,” Lianne muttered.
“It’s so much cooler than that.” I moved out of the way so Rafe could see the screen. “Lianne is a hacker.”
“Huh,” Rafe said, peering at the long script on the screen. “I’m not sure you and I have the same definition of cool. What’s the punchline?”
“She hacked Brodacious.”
“Oh.” I saw the understanding bloom on his face. “You’re right. That is cool. But where does that leave you?”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? “I have no idea.”
