You'll Thank Me for This by Nina Siegal (top novels txt) 📗

taken these pictures? And why hadn’t Grace known about them? Grace remembered that once or twice Pieter had mentioned that he was probably being spied on, and at least once AIVD, the Dutch national security agency, had contacted his newspaper editor about images he’d published possibly compromising state security. But he’d never told Grace that there was an actual file on him.

Beyond all that, what was Martijn doing with this file? Had someone given it to him? And if so, why? What would he have wanted with it?

Her head was spinning—not metaphorically but physically. She had to lie down, and did so in spite of the knowledge that insects of the netherworld definitely dwelled in the coarse threads of this rug. She lay still and kept her eyes closed for a moment to try to stop the rotation, and then opened them when it didn’t stop. She looked up and tried to anchor her vision to the ceiling beams. That worked better. She’d come up here looking for answers but had found only reasons to ask more questions.

Okay, she thought, there must be a perfectly logical explanation for what she had found. Maybe Pieter had somehow gotten his hands on his own AIVD or FBI file—people could request those these days, couldn’t they?—and he’d just given it to Martijn, his accountant, for safekeeping. After all, he trusted his accountant with his money—and also his history, like a kind of human safe-deposit box. Wasn’t that what had attracted Grace to Martijn too? His sense of solidity and safety, a rock in a constantly fluctuating sea? Both of them had latched on to him for that reason.

Her eyes stayed fixed on two particularly large ceiling beams that looked like something taken from a seventeenth-century seafaring vessel. They probably had been stripped from a seventeenth-century seafaring vessel. All these houses, probably all the buildings in the city, were built with repurposed materials from old ships.

Grace took a deep breath. It wasn’t such a big deal, any of this, right? Anyway, how did it relate to what was going on with Martijn and her now? Did these pieces even belong to the puzzle she was trying to put together, about what was going on in their own marriage? They seemed like they were puzzle pieces thrown together from two totally different boxes. Both strange. But probably wholly unrelated.

None of this mattered for the moment. This couldn’t be what he was hiding. Maybe his secrets could be found on his computer. That was where people lived these days, wasn’t it? Anything he was hiding would be there.

She stood up, closed the filing cabinet, and moved to the desk. The keyboard was, of course, filthy. She looked around and saw a box of Kleenex on the windowsill and pulled out some tissues to wipe the keyboard down. To her surprise, the motion of her hand across the keys sparked the computer to life. The screen turned on, brightening the now darkened room.

Huh, thought Grace, who had naturally assumed he would’ve shut it down before he left. There it was, the computer already booted up and the home screen lit, and there was Martijn’s user name, already filled in, in one box, and a flashing box that was just asking her to fill in his password.

Password, thought Grace. Password.

Grace was privy to some of Martijn’s passwords. His kids’ names, his uncle’s name, his birthdate. She typed in several variations of those. None of them worked, but if he was trying to conceal something from her, that was no surprise. He’d obviously use a password that she didn’t know. She secretly hoped that wasn’t the case—then it would be clear that he had nothing to hide. From her, at least.

The computer rejected her attempts, repeatedly. She tried again and it shut her out, locking down so she had to wait for some minutes to try again.

What on earth could his password be? How could she ever figure it out? She rifled around the desk for clues; there must be a Post-it note somewhere around here where he’d scribbled it down to remind himself. Martijn didn’t have such an amazing memory. But no, she didn’t find anything right in front of her, nothing in any of the usual places someone might keep a password. Anyway, since he used this computer all the time, he would remember it.

She sat back and thought for a moment—how could she unlock Martijn’s mind. She thought about what he thought about. She’d already covered Frank and Jasper, Lila, all with numbers and icons. He often used 44 and ** as additions where characters and numbers were required, so it was logical he’d use those here too. She’d hopefully tried Grace and Karin, thinking maybe he occasionally thought of them when he was holed up in here. No. Those hadn’t worked either. She remembered Martijn’s long-deceased mother’s name, Hylke, and wrote that down, and his last name, Van Roosendaal, and then decided to try words about things he liked: “accounting,” “coffee,” “AFC Ajax,” “Westworld.”

When the computer allowed her to try again she attempted all of those. No, no, no, no. And then it shut her out again for a full minute. Grace stood, tapping the eraser side of the pencil on her forehead to try to get her brain working. How ridiculous it was to attempt to figure out someone’s password when it could be literally anything.

She moved in circles, thinking about what made Martijn tick, what words stuck close to his memory, what kinds of ideas were part of his personal lexicon. It came to her, a sardonic and strange thought, which she almost didn’t allow herself to think.

The moment the computer allowed her to try once more, she leaned over and typed it in, thinking it was just a stupid fantasy. As soon as the cursor started blinking, she typed it:

“Pieter,” adding a “44” for good measure.

Bingo! She was in.

Chapter 11Inland Beach

Karin was trying to “locate” herself, as her father had taught