EYE CANDY

Chapter II

Lydia was fairly knowledgeable in computer science. She had taken programming courses in college. That was how she designed her editing app. All by herself, thank you very much.

However an image-editing algorithm is very different from a short messaging one, and Lydia was not sure she was doing this hacking thing correctly. Something in theory could turn out completely different in real life. Fortunately, she was good at dealing with theory.

Numbers and tabs spilled across the black screen in front of her. An ID scanner app was running on her phone. She traced contacts and hunted down network connections, but always seemed to reach a dead end. Last night's sender – Allison's kidnapper – hadn't just masked their messaging ID. They had rerouted and obscured all their tracks.

Allison. Lydia felt the fear rising up and out of her chest and swallowed it back down. If she wanted to help her friend, she needed to focus on the task, not worry and panic.

She checked the scanner app for any new possible identification and found an element of the messaging system's programming highlighted. She located it within the code on her laptop and start keying in her manipulation, fingers automatically flying over the keyboard. New paragraphs of code popped onto the screen, promptly attacked and analyzed.

She was pondering over a segment of code that seemed to be listing two different connections when she noticed a splotch of colour in the corner of her vision. The scanner on her phone had picked up an incoming ID, and a complete one at that. Funnily, it seemed to be embedded within a section of code that she had just opened up after keying some new directions. The situation was slightly odd, but it was the biggest lead Lydia had gotten all morning, and she pounced on it. Within five minutes she was generating an IP address. Her heart pounded.

Then the software crashed.

The white numbers and black window just blinked out, leaving a non-plussed Lydia staring at her desktop wallpaper.

She shut the laptop in frustration. She had been so close.

What had happened? Was it a system failure? Did she key in the wrong code? Did something interfere with the connection?

She couldn't find Allison.

Lydia collapsed on the guest bed. She was alone. In a large empty house. Allison's empty house.

She had not seen the girl's father since she arrived the day before. He had not returned home the previous night. She couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing. She needed to tell someone – Allison's missing! She was kidnapped! I want to scream! But she didn't know how she could find the words, let along in front of Allison's father.

The ringing doorbell startled her. Oh no, Lydia though. This was it. Allison's father was coming home and would ask where his daughter was. Or maybe it was a neighbor, or one of Allison's friends, looking for the brunette girl. And Lydia would be forced to either lie or tell the truth.

She carefully tread her way downstairs, the bell ringing again as she descended the last step. She crossed the room with an unexplainable caution before she finally had one hand on the doorknob, pausing only to squint through the peep hole.

Two figures, dressed in green and beige.

The police. Lydia hadn't considered the police. Don't tell anyone, the text had read. Certainly 'anyone' included the authorities? But technically speaking, she was not telling them anything if they came to her.

Maybe this had nothing to do with Allison. Maybe Beacon Hills was just having another episode of Plain Weird (as a simple online search would reveal) and they were just questioning everyone in town.