Murder Mystery | Herophine story

Chapter Fourteen

Josephine

Saturday, October 6th 10:30

My feet fly over the familiar path as my arms and legs match the rhythm of the music blaring in my ears. My heart accelerates and the fears that have been crowding my brain all week recede, replaced by pure physical effort. When I finish my run I'm drained but pumped full of endorphins, and feel almost cheerful as I head for the library to pick up Kathrine. It's our usual Saturday morning routine, but I can't find her in any of our usual spots and have to text her. 

Fourth floor, she replies, so I head for the children's room. She's sitting on a tiny chair near the window, tapping away at one of the computers. "Revisiting your childhood?" I ask, sinking to the floor beside her.

"No," Kathrine says, her eyes on the screen. She lowers her voice to almost a whisper. "I'm in the admin panel for Dylan's news."

It takes a second for what she said to register, and when it does my heart takes a panicky leap. "Kathrine, what the hell? What are you doing?"

"Looking around. Don't freak out," she adds with a sideways glance at me. "I'm not disturbing anything, but even if I were, nobody would know it's me. I'm at a public computer."

"Using your library card!" I hiss. You can't get online here without the account number.

"No. Using this." Kathrine inclines her head toward a small boy a few tables over with a stack of picture books in front of him. I stare at her incredulously, and she shrugs. "I didn't take it from him. He left it lying out and I wrote the numbers down." 

The little boy's mother joins him then, smiling as she catches Kathrine's eye. She'd never guess my sweet-faced sister just committed identity fraud against her six-year-old. 

I can't think of anything to say except "Why?"

"I wanted to see what the police are seeing." Kathrine says. "If there were any other draft posts, other people who might've wanted to keep Dylan quiet." 

I inch forward in spite of myself. "Were there?" 

"No, but there is something odd. About Sam's post. It's date stamped days after everyone else's, for the night before Dylan died. There's an earlier file with his name on it, but it's encrypted and I can't open it."

"So?" 

"I don't know. But it's different, which makes it interesting. I need to come back with a thumb drive and download it." I blink at her, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when she morphed into a hacker-investigator. "There's something else. Dylan's user name for the site is AnarchiSk. I googled it and came up with a bunch of 4chan threads he posted to constantly. I didn't have time to read them, but we should." 

"Why?" I ask as she loops her backpack over her shoulder and gets to her feet. 

"Because something's weird about all this," Kathrine says matter-of-factly leading me out the door and down the stairs. "Don't you think?"

"Understatement of the year," I mutter. I stop in the empty stairwell, so she does too, half turning with a questioning look. 

"Kathrine, how'd you even get into Dylan's admin panel? How did you know where to look?"

A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. "You're not the only one who grabs confidential information off computers other people are using."

I gape at her. "So you-so Dylan was posting his news at school? And left it open?" 

"Of course not. Dylan was smart. He did it here. Not sure if it was a one-time thing or if he posted from the library all the time, but I saw him one weekend last month when you were running. He didn't see me. I logged in to the computer after him and got the address from the browser history. I didn't do anything with it at first." she says, meeting my look with a clam gaze. "Just put it aside for future reference. I started trying to get in after you came back from the police station. Don't worry," she adds, patting me on the arm. "Not from home. Nobody can trace it."