those glittering emerald eyes, “then maybe he or she can only do one thing at a time. Some people let their jobs become their lives. They don’t leave time for family or hobbies…or volunteering…or ministry. I strive for a full, balanced life. And my enthusiasm for it spills over into my job.”
He stared back at her. “Some people don’t have a job that demands constant vigilance—twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and no weekends or summers free to flit around having a full, balanced life.”
“Yeah, well, some people have children, and they ought to—”
“They ought to stop listening to people who don’t.” He reached over her shoulder and touched the computer screen. “Who are all these messages from?”
As she swung around, her curls fluffed out, grazing the hair on his arm. A jolt of adrenaline raced up his skin, shocking him in its intensity. Irked at this as much as at her words, Cole straightened and jammed his hands into his pockets. Miss Jill Pruitt was a stuck-up little do-gooder who thought she knew how to parent Matt better than his own father did.
“I think it’s them,” she said. “Look at this stuff they’ve written to him. This is appalling. Poor kid!”
Drawing a deep breath, Cole bent over again and read the message Jill had pulled up on the screen. Whoever wrote it had every intention of intimidating and threatening Matt. The writer informed him that he was in violation of privacy laws and that he had better stay out of the company’s business if he knew what was good for him.
Jill closed that message and opened another. More of the same. As she clicked chronologically backward through the long list, Cole saw that the tone of the e-mails had gone from fairly polite to downright hostile. Now she opened another window and found the messages Matt had sent.
“Bingo!” she called out. “It’s Agrimax, all right. This is who he’s been writing to, see? In this message he’s trying to get information. And in this one he’s broaching his concept—that Agrimax participate in a global plan to end hunger. I wish we could find that plan.”
“It’s probably in his term paper.”
“No, Billy and I found a rough draft. It mostly addresses the problem of famine. But his solution—that’s what Matt was really immersed in. That’s what got him into trouble with Agrimax.”
“Maybe it wasn’t his solution that troubled them. Maybe what burned them was the fact that he’d gotten into their system at all. Obviously, they didn’t want him in there.”
She gave him a grudging nod. “Could be. He clearly wasn’t e-mailing their PR department. This person who’s been writing to him has influence. An executive, I think. Matt had gotten further inside the company somehow.”
“Can you tell me why you taught him that?” Cole demanded. “What purpose does it serve? He didn’t need to learn how to break into a huge company’s computer system.”
“First of all, I don’t teach hacking. Whatever code Matt used to penetrate this level of the company is something he learned from Jim Banyon. Or maybe he taught himself how to get inside their communication network. He’s quite intelligent, in case you didn’t know.”
“Too smart for his own good, it sounds like.”
“And second, he hasn’t actually accessed the company’s mainframe. I doubt Matt would do something like that. He’s a very ethical young man.”
“Oh, really? I wonder where he got that?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “All right, I guess you haven’t totally blown it, Mr. Strong. Matt is a great kid.”
Cole wished he could feel better about her compliment. True, he had taken the boy to church every Sunday of his life. They prayed before meals. And Cole had tried to model morality, patriotism and the ideal of the hardworking American male. But how much had he influenced his son in ways that really mattered?
“Okay,” Jill said. “I’m going to take a stab at this. I think what happened is that Agrimax felt threatened by Matt, and they sent two men out here to question him.”
“Matt—threatening? No way.” Cole hooked a thumb in his pocket. “You don’t know my son as well as you claim.”
“I know he was pushing the company to consider his ideas. That’s obvious from the text of his messages.”
“Pushing is not threatening. Does Matt write anything that could be called the least bit threatening to the company?”
“I didn’t read everything.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“Okay, but—”
“Hey, Miss Pruitt, did Matt write you back?” Billy stepped into the room. He had a bowl of thick, red-chile carne adovada in one hand and a spoon in the other. “Did you check?”
“Just a sec. I’ll have to access my account.” Jill leaned forward and ran through a series of motions Cole couldn’t track. In a moment, a message popped onto the screen. “He answered!”
Hope spiraled up through Cole’s chest as he bent to read his son’s words.
hi miss pruitt im ok dont write again tell my dad dont follow me i will be home when its safe matt
“He’s in trouble, man,” Billy said. “He’s scared. He thinks those Agrimax guys are after him.”
“Does the fact that he wrote us mean he’s somewhere with a phone line?” Cole asked.
“Matt’s laptop has a wireless modem,” Billy said. “You paid for it, Mr. Strong, don’t you remember?”
“I don’t know what half the stuff he orders is all about.”
“A wireless modem works like a regular phone connection,” Jill explained. “Matt can use the Internet or access his e-mail account without needing a phone line.”
Cole considered this. “Still, maybe he stopped at a motel for the night. Or maybe he’s at a friend’s house.”
“A friend? He doesn’t have any friends but me, Mr. Strong. You know that.”
“Billy,” Cole said, “is there any place Matt would go other than his grandmother’s house? Somewhere he’d feel safe?”
“There’s places around here where he likes to hang out, you know? Like he spends a lot of time at the cemetery—”
“The cemetery?”
“He goes over there before school and visits his mom’s grave. I think he talks to her, but he won’t admit it. And he comes over to my place once in a while, but my parents are like—whew. It’s bad over there, so we usually come out here to chill. He likes the library, and he likes talking to Miss Pruitt, but he wouldn’t go anyplace around this town to hide, Mr. Strong. Not if he’s afraid.”
“He does sound scared in that message.”
“You know what I think? I think those
