Lisa Gardner - The Neighbor

I stared at my red-headed partner for a bit. “You mean to tell me, even if the cache is cleared, those particular Internet files are still on the computer somewhere?”

I got a second smile for that one. “Great job!”

I couldn’t help it. I smiled back. This made Ethan blush, and reminded me I had to be careful. Just because I was using Ethan Hastings didn’t mean I wanted to hurt him.

“So, if the card catalogue has been cleared,” I asked, “how do I find the data?”

“If you really want to know what’s in the computer’s browser history, I recommend Pasco.”

“Pasco?”

“It’s a computer forensic software you can download from online. Here’s the deal When someone ‘clears the cache,’ the computer rarely clears all the cache. At least a few index.dat files get left behind. So you open the history files, run Pasco, and it’ll spit out a CSV-”

“CSV?”

“Comma Separated Values, which opens an Excel spreadsheet that will show every URL that was visited by the computer with a date-time stamp. You can cut and paste one of the URLs straight into the computer’s search engine and it’ll take you to that website for inspection. Voila, you’ll know everyplace the computer has visited.”

“How do you know so much?” I had to ask.

Ethan blushed furiously. “My um… family.”

“Your family?”

“My mother runs Pasco on my computer each week. Not that she doesn’t trust me!” He flushed brighter. “It’s just, um, ‘due diligence,’ she calls it. She knows I’m smarter than her, so she’s gotta have something on her side.”

“Your mother’s right, Ethan. You are a genius, and I can’t thank you enough for assisting me with this teaching module.”

Ethan smiled, but he appeared more thoughtful this time.

At home that night, I got serious. Two stories, one song, and half a Broadway show later, Ree was down, Jason was out, and I was all alone with my newfound computer skills and a whole host of suspicions. First order of business: downloading and installing the Pasco forensic tool from Foundstone.

Next up, I started working the menu system, identifying possible history files and running Pasco on the contents. Shoulders hunched, head down, I pecked away at the computer with eyes glued to microscopic type on the screen and ears perked for the first sound of Jason’s car in the driveway.

I didn’t know what I was doing, and everything took longer than I thought. Next thing I knew, it was after midnight and Jason was due home any minute. I was still running reports and hadn’t figured out yet how to uninstall Pasco, whose mere presence on the desktop would alert Jason that I knew something was going on.

I was hopped up and jumpy when I finally got the dialogue box asking if I wanted to open or save the CSV. I didn’t know what I should do, but I was running out of time, so I hit Open and watched an Excel spreadsheet fill the screen before me.

I figured I would discover dozens of URLs. Porn sites? Chat rooms? More terrible photos of terrified little boys? Evidence that the man I’d chosen to raise my child was a hard-core pedophile, or one of those sick men who trolled MySpace, preying on twelve-year-olds? I wasn’t sure yet what I hoped, or what I feared. My eyes were screwed shut I could barely bring myself to look.

What, oh what, was my husband doing all those long nights ?

Three values filled the screen. I already knew what they were before I ever entered the URLs into the web browser: Drudge Report, USA Today, and the New York Times.

My husband held his secrets well.

The next day during free period, Ethan was already waiting for me in the computer lab

“Did it work?” he asked me.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Well?” he said impatiently. “Did you find out what your husband is doing online or not?”

I stared at my star pupil

He remained matter-of-fact. “Sixth-graders aren’t that Internet savvy,” he said. “I mean, I was, but you don’t have a single me in your class, meaning you have nothing to worry about. That leaves your job, but I hack into the school’s computer all the time, and there’s nothing interesting going on here-”

“Ethan!”

He shrugged. “So the last possibility is that you’re worried about something at home. Ree is only four, so it can’t be her That leaves your husband.”

I sat down. It seemed better than standing.

“Is it porn?” Ethan asked with his guileless blue eyes. “Or is he gambling away your life savings?”

“I don’t know,” I said at last.

“You didn’t run Pasco?”

“I did. It returned only three URLs, the same three I’ve seen before.”

Ethan sat upright. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Wow, gotta be a shredder I’ve only ever heard about them. That’s cool!”

“A shredder is a good thing?”

“It is if you’re trying to cover your tracks. A shredder, or scrubber software, is like a rake, clearing all the cache file footprints left behind you.”

“It’s deleting things the lazy computer wouldn’t otherwise delete?”

“Nope. Shredders are lazy, too. They’re automatically clearing the cache file so you don’t have to remember to do it manually. So a user can go all sorts of places, then ‘shred’ the evidence. But since a lack of browser history is also a red flag, your husband is attempting to be clever by rebuilding a fake Internet trail. Fortunately for us, he’s not that good at faking it.”

I didn’t say a word.

“Here’s the cool part, though-shredders aren’t foolproof.”

“Okay,” I managed.

“Every time you click on an Internet page, a computer is creating so many temp files there’s no way the shredder can get them all. Plus, the shredder is still only messing with the directory. So the files are still there, we just have to find them.”

“How?”

“Better tool. Pasco is over-the-counter. Now you want prescription-strength meds.”

“I don’t know any pharmacists,” I said blankly.

Ethan Hastings grinned at me. “I do.”

D.D. was dreaming about roast beef again. She was at her favorite buffet, trying to decide between the eggplant Parmesan and a blood-red carving roast. She opted for both, sinking her right hand straight into the tray of eggplant Parm while plucking up thin, juicy slivers of beef with her left. She had strings of melted cheese trailing down one arm and dribbles of au jus on her chin.

No bother. She climbed straight onto the white-covered table, planting her ass between the green Jell-O fruit ring and the collection of cherry-topped puddings. She scooped up handfuls of squishy Jell-O, while licking creamy tapioca straight from the chilled parfait glass.

She was hungry. Starving even. Then the food was gone, and she was on top of a giant, satin-covered mattress. She was on her belly, face down, nude body stretched out in a cat-like purr while unknown hands worked magic down the curve of her spine, over her writhing hips, finding the inside of her thighs. She knew where she wanted those hands. Knew where she needed to be touched, needed to be taken. She raised her hips accommodatingly, and suddenly she was flipped over, legs spreading wide to receive urgent thrusts while she stared into Brian Miller’s heavily mustached face.