Read PsyCop 4: Secrets for Free Online

you.”
    “Are you serious? You and what’s-his-name don’t talk about your investigations?”
    “Doug. No.”
    Jacob and I talked about our cases all the time. We weren’t supposed to, technically, but come on. We’re both PsyCops. Maybe that’s why Carolyn never discussed business at home. Her husband was a high school teacher or something.
    “Say, Carolyn, Jacob and I don’t have to have a housewarming party, do we?”
    “I guess not. Why?”
    “I never owned a house before. I don’t know how these things are done.”
    “Oh. Well…don’t you want to get all kinds of free stuff?” I sighed. “Never mind.” I wanted to ask her about Camp Hell. How could I do that if I couldn’t even explain to her about a stupid housewarming party?
    “Okay, then. When you see Jacob….” Carolyn was obviously trying to wrap up the conversation, so I just came right out and asked.
    “Do you ever search yourself on the Internet? Because I’m not on there. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
    “No, I don’t search myself.”
    She’d only answered one of my questions. Which must have meant that she didn’t want to answer the other one. She couldn’t lie, so not answering was her only option. I bet she knew something.
    “Jacob knew I couldn’t be looked up, didn’t he? I’ll bet he searched me before we even started dating. He’s thorough like that. He would have tried.”
    “I’m going now, Vic. Goodbye.”
    I was right. Jacob had tried to search me. He knew I didn’t exist electronically. Why hadn’t he ever mentioned it?
    I decided to brave the laptop again, and lo and behold, no more love notes from Crash appeared. Maybe he was busy with a customer. Or maybe he’d taken an afternoon break for Oprah. He claims he turns on the show for Miss Mattie, but he was so religious about tuning in that I assumed he was hooked on it, too. I figured out how to shut the instant message program off. I hoped it would be enough. I hadn’t the faintest idea how to unin-stall it, if things came to that.
    I did some searches on how to search for people, but every time I thought I was getting somewhere, I’d hit a screen that asked for a credit card number to go any farther.
    I wouldn’t mind paying $14.95 if I knew it wasn’t a scam, but we get bulletins all the time at the Fifth about don’t click this, don’t put your information into that. I glared at the laptop. I heard about five-year-olds who surfed the Net. So why couldn’t I figure it out?
    I flipped open my cell phone and hit memory dial eight.
    The phone rang five times. I thought it would go to voice mail, but then my partner answered. My work partner. “Zigler.”
    “Oh, uh…hey, Zig. I was wondering if you could point me to a legitimate people-finding site. I’m trying to look up an old friend.”
    “You know their full name, don’t you? Just have Betty skip-trace ‘em.” It hadn’t occurred to me to use the station’s resources. “I can do that?”
    “Sure. She runs ‘em all the time.”
    “Oh.”
    There was a pause. “Anything else?”
    “You ever try to search the Internet for Heliotrope Station?” Zig didn’t answer me for a long time, but I heard him breathing through his nose. “It’s not there,” he said eventually.
    “You knew? Cripes, was anyone gonna tell me?”
    “Vic….”
    “What’s next? Are people gonna say I made it up? Maybe it’s like Manchurian Candidate , and my memories are all switched. What was really going on was that I lounged around and ate loads of starchy cafeteria food for two years while everyone else had to go to work and pay their taxes to support my luxury lifestyle. And all that scary shit I remember? A figment of my imagination. Never happened.”
    “We’ll talk about it later,” Zig said. He hung up.
    I’d always thought people who suspected the government was monitoring their cell phone conversations were just paranoid. The fact that Camp Hell had been wiped from history was making