A serious leak

Identity Revealed

Nancy Drew Girl Detective: Volume Thirty-Five

Carolyn Keene

Dare to read: Нэнси Дрю и Братья Харди

Dare to read: Нэнси Дрю и Братья Харди

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Copyright, 2009, by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

My online sleuthing has led my friends and me down the Internet rabbit hole. After joining BetterLife, an online community, to try to stop a case of cyberbullying from the inside, the bullies turned on me. And now I'm close to revealing their true identities in real, off-line life.

All the clues I've found have pointed me in one direction, but is it a false trail? Before I can expose the madmen behind the mayhem, I need to be absolutely sure that they're the ones wreaking havoc all over BetterLife. But how can I be sure when nothing on the Internet is as it seems? Catching this crook might be more difficult than even I anticipated!

“This is a potential disaster, Nancy,” my father said gravely, shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

“I’m so sorry, Dad,” I replied honestly. We were sitting in our living room surrounded by my best friends, Bess and George, and my boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. Ned and I had just been on a long-awaited date — we were finally getting a chance to catch up after a case had brought me to New York, and another one had distracted me right here in River Heights. But then a phone call from George had interrupted our romantic moment. It turned out there was a huge development in the case I’d been working on here — a development that could be a huge setback for my father, and that made me feel guiltier than I could even express.

“I had no idea that someone could have the capability to access your files, much less post them on the Internet,” I went on.

My dad sighed, glancing down at the glowing screen of George’s laptop. There, scans of files relating to a huge case Dad was working on winked out at us, seeming to mock our every move. George had interrupted my date with Ned to tell me that I needed to log on to BetterLife, an incredibly popular virtual reality/networking game on the Web that I’d been noodling around in for my latest case. There, I’d found a message waiting for my avatar, VirtualNancy. It had read simply MYOB — OR ELSE — and attached were these scans of my father’s confidential files relating to his case.

I wish I could say that being cyberharassed was new to me, but unfortunately this case had shown me all the dark and creepy aspects of cybercommunication. Until this message, though, I thought we’d finally found the person who’d been using my BetterLife and e-mail accounts to make my real life as difficult as possible. With this message, everything changed. The woman I’d thought was the culprit was behind bars with no access to BetterLife. And somebody was still out there, trying to use their computer to take me down.

“At least the police are looking into it,” Ned volunteered gently. He caught my eye and gave me a tentative little smile, like he was trying to cheer me up. I tried to smile back, but it was hard — the police had just left after discussing the whole situation with us, but they hadn’t exactly inspired a lot of confidence in their computer abilities.

“Too bad they’d never heard of BetterLife,” George muttered, an edge of disbelief still coloring her voice. George is my personal computer guru — anything that has keys and a screen, she understands completely. I think she was personally offended by the policemen’s lack of technosavvy.

“There is one bright spot,” my dad continued with a sigh, settling back in his easy chair. “As I told the police, these files don’t directly relate to our case. They’re all affidavits and interviews relating to a line of defense we decided not to pursue. So they wouldn’t necessarily destroy our case if they were released.” He paused. “Although the very fact that someone accessed them concerns me greatly.”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” I piped in. “Whoever’s doing this has access to my computer, okay. And he or she seems to know everything about me — so it wouldn’t be that hard to figure out that you’re my father, or that I might have something to lose if your files were released. But how did e-mail or BetterLife make it possible for someone to access your private files? The two aren’t related.”

Instinctively, we all turned to George.

“Well,” George began, looking a little overwhelmed. “I don’t know exactly how they’re doing it, but I can give you a basic idea. You guys all send e-mails, right?”

“Right,” we all chorused. George glanced over at my dad, looking like she wasn’t entirely convinced.

“Right,” he insisted, a smile creeping at the edges of his lips. “I’m not from the Stone Age, you know.”

George shrugged. “Okay. So you’ve all seen the headers that come on e-mails — the long number that appears next to the sender and receiver’s address?”

Bess frowned. “I guess,” she replied. “What is that number, anyway? It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the rest of the info.”

George nodded. “That’s the IP address. Every computer that connects to the Internet has one. It’s what web merchants use to track who’s visiting their site, and it’s the reason eBay or Amazon or your bank’s website are able to identify you when you bring up their site. When they see your IP address, they know they’re dealing with, say, Nancy Drew at her home computer.”

I nodded slowly. “Huh,” I muttered.

“In theory,” George went on, looking a little more perplexed, “websites could use that address to get more information from your computer. Most operating systems have firewalls to block that, though — to keep random hackers from using the Internet to get access to your files.” She paused. “It seems like whoever’s behind this has found a way around those firewalls. Which means he or she is a pretty advanced hacker, indeed.”

My father was frowning and tapping his chin, trying to make sense of all this technobabble, I guess. “Wait a minute, George,” he interjected after a moment. “You said they could access computer files that way. But actually, these files weren’t stored on the computer — they were hard copies, kept in a traditional file. You know, with a folder and a cabinet and all that.” He cleared his throat. “A real folder. Manila.”

George furrowed her brows. “A real folder?” she asked. “So you mean these didn’t originate as files — someone took your actual papers and scanned them?”

Dad seemed to be thinking, and suddenly leapt to his feet. We all followed him through the living room, down the hall, and into his home office. There, he purposely strode over to a filing cabinet and pulled it open. After sifting through some files, Dad reached in and pulled out a manila folder. He opened it with a flourish, exposing four or five pieces of paper.

“Correction,” he said, licking his finger and separating the pages. “Someone accessed my files, took my papers, scanned them — and then returned them.”

Hmmmm. I turned this over in my brain, trying to make sense of it. Who would be able to not only grab the files, but give them back? Without being noticed? Was there anyone who worked for Dad…?

“Dad,” I began. “Last week when you were swamped, I helped out in the office. But I know you’ve had a ton of work to get through and I haven’t been here twenty-four–seven. Have you had anyone else come in to help you with your filing?”

Dad was still flipping through his papers, looking as confused by this as I felt. “Actually,” he replied, “I did, once. It was the night you were babysitting. Rosanne, my secretary, recommended two girls from her neighborhood, and they came in to file. These girls were so young, though — barely teenagers! They wouldn’t have known what to do with those —”

“What were their names?” Bess interrupted. I turned to catch her eye, and knew she was thinking exactly what I was.

My father frowned, obviously trying to recall. “Shannon,” he said after a moment. “And something that begins with R. Rosie? Rachel?”

I glanced at Bess and George. They looked as incredulous as I felt. Shannon and Rebecca, the only two pre-teenage girls on the face of the earth that I might think capable of this.

I fished my car keys out of my pocket. “Excuse me,” I said, turning to my dad and Ned. “But I think Bess, George, and I have somebody we need to question.”

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