Dead Man's Switch by Sigmund Brouwer Read Free Book Online Page B

I don’t see her in time, I would explain that how? We don’t have to lock doors on the island.”
    Maybe now, King thought. “Trust no authorities. They will hunt you too.” He didn’t say it though. “Your mother. Your problem.”
    â€œOne thing,” Johnson said. “I won’t lie. Just so you understand. If we get busted, I won’t lie. I’ll tell them about the iPhone. I mean, it’s killing me to hide it. We should have never bought it for Blake. We should have never—”
    â€œThe door,” King said. “Listen. Did someone try to open it?”
    Johnson snapped his mouth shut and strained to hear.
    â€œThat’s better,” King said. “Silence.”
    â€œHa, ha. Come on. Get going.”
    King unlocked the phone again with 2855.
    â€œHere’s what I’m thinking,” King said. “Blake—if this really was Blake who set up the emails—was paranoid that somebody could track emails sent to me via my server. So he just sent the one original email and told me to trash it. Even if someone found that first email, they wouldn’t get the rest of the trail. That’s why he’s now using this iPhone to get us the rest of his emails. Anyone trying to trace his original stuff won’t know this new email account or that we have access to it.”
    â€œWith you so far. But he only sent us one email. Blank.”
    â€œI want to forward that email to a computer that’s not mine or yours.” King thumbed on the keypad, putting in Johnson’s mom’s email address. “Then we read it and trash it. I can’t believe we need to be this paranoid, but I guess it won’t hurt.”
    â€œUnless my mom walks in and asks why we’re at her computer instead of mine.”
    â€œLocked door.”
    â€œWhich, as I thought I made clear, is going to be awkward to explain if—”
    â€œListen,” King said, holding up a hand. There it was—the woosh of an email sent by iPhone.
    Almost instantly, the computer in front of them pinged. One new message.
    â€œOpen it,” King told Johnson.
    â€œI shouldn’t be in her emails,” Johnson said. “I hate this.”
    â€œNot as much as you’d hate the world learning something about this island that makes our dads look like criminals.”
    King wasn’t feeling so bad about this lie to Johnson. Is that what happened to people? You just got used to doing wrong things? Is that how Mack was led to whatever crime Blake had found?
    â€œDoing this means we half believe it’s true,” Johnson said. “I hate that too. It’s like we’re betraying our dads.”
    Johnson had read King’s thoughts. “Yeah. I’m with you on that. So don’t think about it. Open the email.”
    King tried not to think about how he was lying to Johnson about this. Johnson’s dad wasn’t involved. Only King’s dad. So King was betraying his dad and his best friend. But what choice did he have?
    Johnson clicked on the email King had forwarded from the iPhone. As expected, the content of the email was blank. Just as it had been on the iPhone.
    â€œClick on the contents,” King said. “Command-A.”
    â€œSelect all?”
    â€œThat’s a rhetorical question, right?” King said.
    â€œLike yours,” Johnson said. He clicked on the keyboard.
    â€œNow bring up font styles,” King said.
    Johnson did.
    King pointed at the monitor. “Ha!”
    â€œHa?”
    â€œThe font is white,” King said. “Sometimes you use a white font against a colored background. But against a white background...”
    Johnson whistled. “Like invisible ink.”
    Without waiting for King to say anything, Johnson selected black for font color. Words popped up on the screen.
    â€œBingo,” King said.
    â€œNo, trouble,” Johnson said. He glanced over King’s shoulder