A chill crept up her spine as she wondered why it was still on her desk. Before she went to bed tonight, she’d take a good look at that computer. Make sure her intruder hadn’t been able to access it.
As Julia lay in bed a couple hours later, she stared at the ceiling, wide awake. She’d found nothing amiss on her computer, other than a general feeling of wrong. She saw no evidence that anyone had been on her computer. Nothing missing or altered. But she knew someone had been in her house while she was at work.
Nothing had been missing. And the only valuable thing in her house, besides her television, was her computer. It held all her business records, all the restaurant’s financial information, all her personal financial information.
She used a password generator along with a fingerprint ID, and every time she logged in, she got a new, completely random password.
She wasn’t computer savvy -- she only knew what she needed to know. But she knew someone who was.
Blowing out a breath, she turned onto her side, already half-asleep. She’d call Zoe in the morning. Ask her friend to take a look at the computer. Figure out if there was actually something wrong with it, or if Julia was merely paranoid.
* * *
The next morning, Julia called Zoe and explained what had happened. Zoe’s response was immediate.
“Turn off the computer, unplug it and put a piece of duct tape over the camera. Then bring it to my office. I’ll take a look at it and make sure nothing’s wrong with it.”
“God, Zo, thank you,” Julia said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. After I stop for a vente of your favorite coffee.”
“Put that tape over the camera now, before you come in,” Zoe said. “I’ll see you soon.”
Forty minutes later, Julia stood in an elevator in a gleaming downtown Seattle skyscraper. Her computer bag was slung crosswise over her chest and she carried a cardboard tray with three coffees. When the elevator stopped and the doors slid open, she hurried to Melbourne Solutions and pushed her way into the office.
“Thanks, Julia,” said Janet, Zoe’s assistant as Julia handed her a coffee. “She’s waiting for you. Go on in. But don’t say anything until she gives you the okay. Not a word.”
Julia nodded and headed around Janet’s desk for Zoe’s office door. She nudged it open, and Zoe looked up from her computer. Smiled and waved her in.
Her friend’s halo of red, curly hair gleamed in the light from the wide window behind her. Julia knew Zoe arranged her desk that way so her visitors would be facing the sun. The bright light would make it harder for them to see Zoe, giving her an advantage.
Zoe gestured to Julia’s computer bag, then pointed at her desk. Nodding, Julia set the coffee on the desk and pushed Zoe’s toward her. Her friend grabbed it, inhaling deeply before taking a gulp. Tilted her head back and mouthed, “Ahhhh.”
As soon as Julia set her computer on Zoe’s desk, her friend got to work. She plugged a cord into a USB port on Julia’s computer, then hooked it up to a massive desktop computer sitting on the desk beside Zoe’s laptop.
Then Zoe opened Julia’s computer. Nodded approval of the taped-over camera, then tapped the keys until she reached a menu. Clicked an icon. Nodded. Clicked another one, then turned to Julia.
“I disabled the microphone and camera,” Zoe said. “The tape is a backup in case someone is able to control your computer remotely. I’m going to run some diagnostics to see if anything has been added to your computer. We’ll talk after I’m done.”
Zoe’s fingers flew across the keyboard and lines of code scrolled over the screen. Unable to understand what they were about, Julia finally pulled out her phone and texted the head chef at her restaurant. Delia should be at the restaurant already, and Julia wanted her to know she’d be late.
Delia texted a couple of questions, and they went back and forth several times. Then, satisfied that Delia had everything under control, Julia sat back and let her head rest on the back of the chair. She hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, and her eyelids felt as if they had weights attached to them.
Zoe’s muttered, “Bastard,” yanked her out of her near-sleep. Julia sat up and watched Zoe’s fingers fly across the keyboard of Julia’s computer. She typed furiously for several minutes, then leaned back in her chair. “Gotcha,” she said, her voice filed with satisfaction.
After another fifteen minutes, Zoe swiveled to face her. “Thank God you came in here this morning,” she said.
“Why? What did you find?” Julia asked.
“You have good instincts,” her friend said. “And they were spot-on. Someone loaded a keystroke logger on your laptop, then took control of your camera and microphone. So basically anything you did on your computer would be directed to the computer of the person who did this.”
“What the hell?” Julia leaned toward Zoe. “Who would do that? And why?”
Zoe shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe they wanted access to your bank account. Or to your business plans. Maybe they just wanted to keep tabs on you and what you’re doing. There are all kinds of reasons why someone would install this crap on your computer. And unless you know who did it, it can be hard to figure out why.” She leaned toward Julia. “If you want to leave it, I can dig around a little more. See what I can figure out.”
“It’s my main computer,” Julia said. “And it has all my business accounts on it. The restaurant’s books. Basically, everything I need to run Madeline.”
“Good reason to leave it, then,” Zoe said. “Because it’ll take a little time to dig into this. Figure out where it came from.”
“Can you really do that?”
Zoe shrugged. “Depends. If the IP address is a single-family house, we have him nailed. If it’s in a high rise, it’s more difficult. More complicated. And if whoever did this has some skills, he’s probably using a VPN to mask his ID. But I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Zo,” Julia said, chilled despite the warm office. “I really appreciate that.”
Zoe finally smiled. “That’s what friends are for, Jules. How about I bring it to Madeline’s tonight. We can talk about what I found over a glass of wine.”
“Sounds perfect,” Julia said, reaching out to hug her friend.
But all the way to her restaurant, the words spooled through her head. Someone bugged my computer.
Why?