Conspiracy Girl by Sarah Alderson Read Free Book Online Page A

lying horizontal across the bottom
of the mattress as though she didn’t want to take up space or get under the covers.
    Her hair is fanned out on the sheets, half covering her face. I fight the urge to brush the strands off her cheek and out of her eyes and instead grab a blanket and lay it over her. She
doesn’t wake but she mumbles something in her sleep and shifts slightly. Her cheeks are flushed and it looks like she’s frowning, her jaw clenched tight and her hands fisted beneath her
chin. I want to rest my hand on her shoulder, reassure her that she’s safe, but Goz is still glaring at me with one eye open, looking like a Cyclops. And it has to be said that Nic emanates
pure hostility, even in her sleep. If she was an animal she’d be a porcupine, spines permanently bristling. I edge away from her, shaking my head.
    How the hell did Nic Preston end up in my bed?
    And what the hell have I got myself into?
    Inside the cube I empty out Nic’s bag, checking for any electronics she might have in there – anything that might be giving off a signal that would allow someone to
pinpoint her whereabouts. I’m assuming Maggie already checked but it’s good to be thorough.
    She packed in a hurry. There’s an assortment of clothes and underwear which I feel uncomfortable looking through, so I pile them neatly to one side. I find a Taser, which I put on top of
the clothes. There’s no phone. Maggie said her bag was stolen, along with her iPad. I’m assuming her phone was taken too.
    I run a program to find a way through the firewalls of the security company’s server and simultaneously hack into the phone company’s server so I can check Nic’s messages. The
majority of violent crimes are committed by people known to the victim. The chances are that whoever broke into Nic’s apartment knew her, or had been at least tracking her for a while. That
person might also be the same person who killed her mom and stepsister. But then again, it might not.
Keep exploring all the options until you have a conviction –
that’s one of
the first things they teach you at the FBI.
    There are just a few messages on her phone, including some from a guy called Marcus Turner. I run a vehicle registration search on him. It turns out Marcus is a twenty-four-year-old postgraduate
student of orthodontics. I wonder how they met. A quick flick through the notes Maggie left me tells me that Nic is studying at NYU, majoring in Psychology. Must have been there. I pause. An
orthodontist? I mean, that’s got to be some kind of cover. No one our age actually chooses to become an orthodontist, do they?
    It takes me a few more minutes to hack into Nic’s emails. I run another program to make sure that no one else has hacked her account and while that’s processing I glance through her
emails, feeling as uncomfortable as if I was going through her underwear drawer. There’s an email from a girl called Liva Harvey inviting her for dinner with her and her boyfriend Jay. Nic
didn’t reply. There’s also a recent email from this guy Marcus asking her to go see a movie on Thursday night. Even though I know it’s wrong, I check her replies. She said
yes.
    I frown at his driver’s licence photo as it pops up on to my screen. He has a shiny forehead, is already starting to lose his hair and has a nose you could slalom ski off. She’s
dating
this
guy? He looks like the kind of dude who’d spray down the sheets with antiseptic before making love and bleach them straight afterwards. The kind of guy who wouldn’t
know what to do with a woman if she lay down naked and offered herself to him with an instruction manual. I don’t know much about Nic but it surprises me that he’s her type. She’s
beautiful. I’d bet half the guys at NYU are trying to get with her.
    I run some basic checks on Marcus, because now I’m plain suspicious. He has a subscription to the
American Journal of Orthodontics
(looks like a real thrilling read, that