lost_boy | (no subject)

It hadn't been difficult, just like I said.

Only a week after first meeting Lisbeth, I was heading out of the Home to see her again, Tim's cell phone nestled safely in my jacket pocket. Lifting it had been easy, mostly because I had spent a few days watching his habits and discovered his tendency to leave his phone on whatever flat surface was handy, especially when one of the girls had drawn his attention. Sometimes hours later I would see him patting down his pockets and rushing around the Home looking for where he'd left it and this worked well in my favour.

I had the phone now. I didn't really understand what Lisbeth was going to do with it, but since I knew she was going to be helping me, I also didn't really find myself worried about understanding the details. My mother had once told me it took a self-aware person to recognize the strength in others and to let them help you. It was one of the few memories I had of my mother and I wanted to make her proud.

We were meeting at a coffee shop a few blocks from the Home. I still didn't drink coffee and thought it rather vile, but I knew a lot of kids went to this particular shop and it wouldn't look out of the ordinary for me to be there. So I picked a seat not too close to the windows, but not hidden away in the back either.

If I saw anyone from school and they asked what I was doing, I already had a story prepared. In history class, we had been tasked with the assignment of doing a biography on someone we found interesting. I was going to tell them I was interviewing Lisbeth and only part of that would be a lie. I did find her very interesting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lisbeth had waited in the back of the shop, timing her visit to the counter for a refill to the time Jamie had been scheduled to arrive, and instead of returning to her seat, she sits down across from him. She takes a sip of her coffee, the extra buzz of caffeine a welcome feeling when doing work like this.

"You've made it," she says by way of greeting, and she sounds vaguely pleased.

Another sip, and she begins to pull out what she's brought, all of it small enough to fit in her jacket pockets. "Do you want to know what it all does?" she asks, mostly because he's a kid and it seems fair to educate him on the finer points. "And what do you want me to do if I find something actionable?"

I nodded at her question as I laid Tim's phone on the table between us, as casually as if it were my own. The things she was taking out were interesting, like nothing I'd seen before, and I knew my knowledge was limited because I was from a different time and then had spent years on Peter's Island, but I wanted to learn. Every day, I got better and better with my phone. Maybe I could learn from Lisbeth, too.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Do you think we could take it to the police somehow? Anonymously?"

Because I knew what we were doing wasn't legal. I had stolen Tim's phone and she was breaking into it. Those were crimes, too, Billy had basically told me as much when he warned me to be careful with what I was doing. I didn't want to get Lisbeth in trouble with the police, not when she was being so nice to me and was helping, even though she didn't know any of the girls at the Home.

Cords, of course, and she's decided it was easier to take the time to deconstruct one of the smart phones to do what she wants. She's going to have to fucking learn how to make apps and it rankles, except that she thinks it could be useful.

Pulling up what she's got done on the burner (a rather expensive burner), she connects it with Tim's phone, watching as the password is cracked within seconds. She turns that phone over as it begins to flick through apps and passwords and pictures, and glances back up at Jamie.

"There are ways. It wouldn't be difficult at all to set up an untraceable email account, send them the information. Depends on how they feel about the hacking." She gives a little shrug. "Could give them a taste and call it into a tip line. It wouldn't be terrible to have a contact there, or know someone who's going to just get the job done."

"I know someone who's a consultant," I said, watching as Lisbeth worked. "I'm not sure what that means, but that's what his card said."

I didn't want to suggest Billy was nice and would help, because I hadn't found him particularly nice at all. But he would help, I knew that for certain. He had offered to kill Tim that very evening, without having anything other than my word, so I knew he felt a personal attachment to the situation.

"What if we don't find anything?" I asked. "That doesn't make him innocent." It just made him sneakier than I expected. It meant he knew he was doing something wrong and was making sure to keep it off his phone.

"That might work," Lisbeth says, eyes back on her task, taking out a tiny keyboard that would have been far more impractical but for the fact that she's so small herself. Her fingers fly as she responds to the need for adjustments. "If you think he wouldn't mind information obtained this way."

She's still listening, though, even as she cracks into the email account.

"I'm installing a backdoor into his accounts. I can continue to monitor them while you decide on your next step. But a man like this is not always very smart. Maybe not pictures, or videos, but websites he visits, that might lead to other things. Using his email to find accounts he might have."

I nodded as Lisbeth spoke, watching her still, marveling at the tiny keyboard. A lot of what she said was still very foreign to me, but I was still fascinated and wanted to learn whatever she would teach me. Technology was a very new thing for me, but I thought I was learning how to use it fairly rapidly. Even if I did sometimes forget about my phone.

"So you watch him in your way and I watch him in mine," I said. I liked that plan. It felt more secure, like I had more options and like there was less of a chance he might slip through my fingers somehow.

As she's suspected, it's not like the suspected pervert has much in the way of sense or security. She doesn't care to look through things in public, and if any of the worst is on the phone, she sure as shit doesn't want Jamie seeing it.

There's a part of her that doesn't think she ought to see it, either, but she made it through the tape she made at Bjurman's. She can do this.

"Yes, exactly. Other options may become available as you go."

There's a gentle buzz, the vibration of the burner phone, and Lisbeth begins to take it all apart again. "Do you suspect any of the girls to be in immediate danger?"

"No," I answered, feeling sure of this. Between the girls who actually lived at the Home, girls like Regan and Eponine, who would be just as likely as I was to punch him, and the fact that Tim knew I didn't like him, I thought they were safe. At least for now. I didn't know everything else Tim did outside of his volunteer hours, but I had followed him enough to be fairly certain the Home was his only contact with teenagers.

"I'm watching him when he's there," I said. "And I think one of the other volunteers is, too. His name is Marcus. He says he used to be a priest. I think one of the girls said something to him." Maybe Regan, because I had seen them communicating in sign language a few times.

"Good. Then we have some time. It's better not to have to do this in too great a hurry."

She fully disassembles her set-up and then puts on a pair of leather gloves, taking the opportunity to methodically wipe down the materials in question, with special attention paid to Tim's phone. That one, she wraps in the same cloth and hands back to Jamie. "Make certain your prints do not get back on this," she warns.

"I'm aware of a Marcus that used to be a priest," Lisbeth agrees. "Same has nothing but good things to say. You can trust him."

I nodded when Lisbeth warned about my fingerprints, knowing I could just drop it casually out of the cloth and onto one of the soft couches or chairs where he or someone else would find it later.

Her comments about Marcus made me feel better, too. I liked him, although we didn't spend a lot of time together, and I knew Eponine trusted him a great deal, but if Lisbeth did, too, I thought that meant only good things.

"Who's Sam?" I asked curiously as I tucked the cloth wrapped phone into my pocket again.