Cottage on Gooseberry Bay: Charmed Summer by Kathi Daley (big screen ebook reader txt) 📗

“No. It never occurred to me to do so. Zane would have a fit if he knew.”

“Under the circumstances, I think that a peek at his personal space is a good idea. Do you know if Deputy Todd has been by to take a look?”

She slowly moved her head from right to left and then back again. “I don’t know. I spoke to Deputy Todd a bunch of times, but I haven’t seen him since I’ve been home. Do you think we should look now?”

I hesitated. “Do you think your parents will mind?”

She shook her head. “Dad is working and said he’d be late tonight, and Mom went to my aunt’s house since she didn’t want to be home alone. I don’t expect either of them until after dinner. If you want to come with me now, we can be in and out before either of them get back.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go and take a look. I’m not sure we’ll find anything, but at this point, we need any sort of clue we can manage to dig up.”

As I expected it would be, the Maddox home was a large home on a large lot with a view of the water. As Cora had indicated, no one was home when we arrived, so she invited me in, and we headed directly to Zane’s room. I half expected to find a mess since the few teenage males I’d known growing up tended to have messy rooms, but Zane’s room was actually pretty neat. The bed was made, the desk arranged neatly, and the television and video game system was tucked neatly into shelving built into the wall.

“So what are we looking for?” Cora asked.

“I’m not really sure. If Zane was a girl, I’d say to look for a diary or journal. I don’t suppose Zane kept anything like that.”

“Not that I know of. If he did, it would be on his computer rather than in a book.”

I glanced at the desk, which held a laptop, printer, and external drive I assumed was for backup. “I don’t suppose you can get into Zane’s laptop?”

She shrugged. “Zane probably has it password protected, but we can take a look.” She opened the unit and turned the power on. As predicted, the first screen to pop up asked for a six-letter passcode.

“Any ideas?” I asked.

She tried five or six different things, but none worked. She paused to think things over as I continued to look around. Deciding to turn on the video game system, I hit the power button. Unlike the computer, which featured a gate with a code before one could proceed, the video game console went directly to the home page when the power was turned on.

I paused to look more closely at the home page. There were icons for a bunch of games and a folder that contained links to games I suspected were older and no longer used much. There were links to various online groups, along with a folder with notes and what appeared to be usernames and codes of some sort.

I noticed a headset on a nearby table. I supposed that was how the gamer communicated with his or her team as well as their opponents.

“Do you play?” I asked Cora.

“No. You?”

“Not really.” I picked up the controller and began to poke around a bit. “I think these games have message boards and chat rooms so the gamers can communicate with each other. The thing is, I’m not sure how to find what I’m looking for.”

Cora just stood staring at me.

“I’m going to call my friend, Jemma. She’ll know. She can probably even walk me through it on the phone.”

As it turned out, Jemma knew exactly what to do. She told me what to click on and what to look for. When I got to the message center, I noticed that Zane had used the message feature to send and receive messages. I was really only interested in messages sent or received Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before Zane leaving the house, never to be seen again.

“There’s a message Friday morning to Zane from someone with the username Hadron, who I know is actually Trevor. They seemed to be making arrangements to go on a quest. There is also a message from someone with the username Raith, who I know is Kalen, confirming a meet-up Saturday evening.” I looked up at Cora. “I don’t suppose you know what Zane did Saturday?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea. It’s been a couple weeks since we spoke.”

I continued to look through the log. “There are three messages Sunday that seem to relate to a meeting of some sort between Trident, who the guy at the comic book and video game store told me is really Zane, and three individuals: Raith, Hadron, and Reaper.” I looked at Cora. “I know that Raith is Kalen and Hadron is Trevor, but I have no idea who Reaper is. I wonder if it would be okay to take the video game console so my friend, Jemma, can have a look at it. She’s a computer genius, and if there are clues on this unit, she’d be much more likely to find them than I am.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’m sure no one will miss it. Just tell your friend to be careful not to mess up any of Zane’s stuff. When he gets home, he’s going to be pissed if he finds we erased his high scores or all the imaginary stuff he’s collected.”

“I’ll tell her to be careful.” I began unplugging the unit. I glanced at the desk. “Maybe I should take the computer as well.”

She looked less sure but eventually agreed. I promised to call her tomorrow and let her know what, if anything, we’d found. If we did find something that seemed