Dead Ringer Read Free

Miller
asked, his mouth half-full with the first of two meatball subs he’d grabbed
from the cafeteria line. As usual, his timing was terrible.
    Amanda glanced at Kit, who acknowledged the look, but
quickly turned away. So much for Charlie seeing things that weren’t really
there.
    “Yeah. We have English together first period. I actually
invited her to sit with us today,” Charlie said. He knew the Band-Aid approach
was best with this group. Better to just rip it off so there was more time to
deal with Amanda’s freak-out.
    “You did what? ” Amanda barked.
    “What’s the problem?” Charlie was bluffing, and he knew that
she knew it.
    “Fine. Since no one else is going to say it…” she lowered
her voice and leaned in, “she kinda looks like you-know-who.”
     “I think she does, too, Charlie,” Kit chimed in. “But
maybe that’s just because we’re paranoid…”
    “You girls are crazy,” Miller said. “I don’t see it.”
    “You don’t see anything, Sean,” Kit said.
    Charlie had no interest in dwelling on the issue. “Her name
is Laura and we all need to get over it,” Charlie said, mostly to himself.
    The next second, she was standing inches from the
table. Charlie looked over at Miller as he registered Laura’s features. Within
a second, Charlie could tell that he saw it, too.
    Charlie watched Laura nervously touch a chunk of her gold
curls and felt his entire body clench. In that moment, any thought about moving
on seemed ridiculous. Laura looked like her , yes, but the bigger problem
was that Charlie found her totally captivating.

 
     
    Sasha
     
    It was ten o’clock at night before
Sasha finally settled down to her computer and read the words she’d talked
herself into believing she would never see—the ones that made her whole
body shiver.
    The first day back had been typically busy, plus she’d
stayed after school to help Mrs. Egenoff finish organizing the computer lab for
extra credit. Sasha didn’t need the extra credit. She could probably teach all
of the computer classes her school offered, but new Design Suite software had
just arrived for the AP engineering class, and Mrs. Egenoff said she could
spend an hour playing with it as thanks for the help. It didn’t hurt that
hiding out in the lab meant she could avoid walking through the first-day
activities fair. The thought of table after table of screaming upperclassmen
hawking a dozen different paths to high school glory was the opposite of
appealing. Sasha made it her goal to talk to as few people as humanly possible
in a given day.
    By the time Sasha got home, it was already six o’clock, and
then there was dinner to make and a surprising amount of homework to do. She
didn’t hold out hope that they might eat as a family in honor of the first day
of school. They had never been that kind of unit. Mom would probably labor away
at some ridiculous metal sculpture thing in her studio and Dad would hide out
at the office until at least eight. Sasha was pretty sure that neither of them
even knew school was back in session, but she didn’t mind. The less they paid
attention to her, the more time she could spend online.
    Sasha very clearly remembered the day she’d first learned
what hacking meant. It was the spring of her eighth-grade year, and she was
sitting in computer class. Some terrified-looking substitute teacher had been
directed to keep the kids quiet by showing a “20/20” special on people who got
caught cracking the New York Stock Exchange security systems and wound up
serving eight years in a federal prison. It was intended to scare the class
away from any curiosity about the hacking world, but it had the opposite effect
on Sasha. From that point on, she was hooked. It was exactly what she needed to
help with the investigation.
    It takes the average baby hacker about a year to develop the
skills to crack a basic office security system. After that, things progress
quickly to the point of figuring out how to