The Country Club Read Free Page A

What if Bob Woodward didn’t keep digging around about Watergate?”
         “Yeah, this is a far cry from Watergate. It’s more like you chasing bigfoot or UFOs.”
         “Hey, at least I have a cause ,” Crystal said.
         “I have better than a cause, I have a job.”
         “Which you hate.”
         “It pays more than your damn blog does.”
         Crystal didn’t reply to the last jab. After a few blocks, they reached a tiny house that looked like it should have been condemned. The windows were even boarded up.
         “Here we are ,” Crystal said.
         “Great. I think I’d feel safer at this Club place than here.”
         “Be nice,” Crystal said as she got out of the car.
     

Chapter 4
     
         Joel sat at his computer when he heard the car door slam. He stood and looked out the window to see Crystal and Sophie walking up. Holy shit! What were they doing here this late? Especially Sophie. She hated his guts for some reason. Though girls like her usually hated his guts. Girls like her being perfect girls. Sophie had long legs, long blonde hair and full lips that looked like they could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.
         Crystal was short, wore nerdy glasses, had wavy dark hair and probably had a cute body, but she wore baggy shirts all the time. Her glasses were actual prescription too, so they weren’t just hipster glasses, which was common around Austin. He sniffed his armpit and noticed the sweat stain on the front of his shirt and immediately wished he’d showered that day. He was standing by the door when the girls knocked.
         “Hey!” he said opening the door.
         “Hey Joel. Sorry to bother you so late, but I want you to look at something. This has me seriously creeped out ,” Crystal said.
         “Sure, what is it?”
         She stepped inside, with Sophie following behind. Sophie looked Joel up and down and waved her hand in front of her face to let him know she could smell him. He gave her the finger as Crystal was setting up her laptop.
         “It’s this weird email I got through my blog ,” Crystal said.
         “Oh, the urban legends one?” Joel asked.
         “Yeah. You know how everyone tells me that Country Club place doesn’t exist? Well take a look at this.”
         Joel sat down and looked at the email
         “Holy shit, that’s fucked up,” he said wiping a strand of greasy hair out of his face.
         “I told her it’s probably a troll fucking with her,” Sophie said.
         “Is there any way to tell who it is or where it came from?” Crystal asked.
         “Let me take a look ,” Joel said as he wrote down the email address, then moved over to his computer and punched it in. His computer was no simple set up. He had custom built the whole system, which included four monitors as well as the top of the line processor and parts. He often referred to it as his “hot rod.”
         “It’s a Yahoo account, but I’m running a few things to see what I can find.” He sat there for a moment before turning around. “Well whoever it is, was using a Tor browser.”
         “What the fuck is a Tor browser?” Crystal asked.
         “It’s a secure browser that hides your identity online. No one can trace you. All the hacker groups use it since they can’t be tracked through it.”
         “So is it something really high tech? Like some stupid internet troll wouldn’t use that would they?” Crystal asked.
         “Well they could. It’s not hard to set up, so if you’re a hardcore troll I could see using it. But unfortunately, I can’t tell who the account belongs to ,” Joel explained.
         “So how did they know my address?”
         “Through your ISP. If they were able to look it up through your blog, they could find your name, home address and such. It really isn’t that hard.”
         “So it probably is someone