Samantha Sanderson Off the Record Read online

  “Maybe.” Probably not. Sam sighed. “It’s really irresponsible of Aubrey to have not gotten verification, either, which I doubt she even bothered to try and get. I mean, even though she didn’t use Felicia’s name, it’s fairly obvious.”

  Dad and Makayla set down their spoons and stared at her.

  “What?”

  “Sam . . .” Dad threw her his bulldog look.

  “What?” She glanced from her father to Makayla, annoyed.

  His tone was softer, which was a little scary since it usually meant a reprimand was on the way. “Pumpkin, if you had been in Aubrey’s shoes and gotten that information, and you weren’t friends with Felicia, you probably would have written an article very similar to Aubrey’s and posted it up.”

  Heat spread across the back of her neck and into her cheeks. “But I only use reliable sources.” But her gut tightened in a sickening grip.

  Makayla set her napkin in her empty bowl. “But Aubrey apparently did use a reliable source as well. The information is correct. You only know Felicia’s side of it because Felicia told you.”

  Suddenly, Sam didn’t feel very well. Dad and Makayla were right. She would’ve done the same thing as Aubrey. She was only upset right now because it hurt a friend of hers.

  Had any of her stories ever hurt someone who was innocent?

  Sam didn’t want that. Maybe she wasn’t cut out to be a reporter after all if it meant hurting others. Hurting innocent people sure wasn’t loving neighbors. Maybe she should totally rethink her whole career plan.

  Dad polished off the last bite of his sandwich. “On a more positive note, Mom’s made it to DFW airport and thinks she can get on a standby flight. Here’s hoping she can make it here tonight,” he said, smiling.

  “What if she can’t? She’ll just have to sleep at an airport terminal?” Sam shivered. That would just be nasty. Every airport she’d been to, even the really nice ones, weren’t places she’d like to be stranded.

  Dad chuckled. “If she can’t make the last flight out, she’ll just stay at one of the Hyatt hotels on airport property. Don’t worry, she won’t sleep on one of those germy couches.”

  “Good, cuz those things are gross.” Sam smiled, then got serious. “Dad, has the cyber unit done anything on the case? Off the record.”

  He smiled. “Off the record, not that I know of. Like I told you, they’re still trying to sort through all the problems with the stolen credit and debit card information over the holidays.”

  Sam glanced at Makayla, then back at her dad. Makayla elbowed her and gave a little shake of her head.

  “What’s going on, girls?” Dad asked.

  Makayla frowned and shot Sam a look that clearly said to let the matter drop.

  But Sam couldn’t let it go. “Well, there’s a way we might be able to get you some information that might help you identify who’s behind the virus.”

  “Really?” Dad’s eyes widened as his brows shot up. “Please share.”

  Sam briefly filled him in on the basics of hers and Makayla’s conversation yesterday.

  “So virus creators usually have a specific method in the way they write their virus code?” he asked, looking straight at Makayla.

  She nodded. “More or less, yes. There are certain little strands that really don’t affect the virus or program, but are just a specific preference by the code writer. Like, specific colors for the lines of code or something like that. It’s usually identifiable because it’s usually used more than once. Once that snippet of code is identified, it can be run against a database of known virus creators or whatever the police’s cyber unit has.”

  Dad nodded, clearly impressed. “You sure know a lot about this, Makayla.”

  She grinned. “I’m not interested in creating havoc viruses, Mr. Sanderson, but I’m learning a lot from the computer research demographic group I’m in. We have a lot of people who do create viruses, but only to learn how to disable them. Just like how I’m in the hackers group, where we deliberately try to hack into a system just to see if we can. It’s all pretty cool.” She nodded toward Sam. “It’s not too late to submit an application to join the group.”

  “Uh, no thanks. Told you, it’s not where my interests are.” Sam grabbed hers, Dad’s, and Makayla’s plates and took them into the kitchen. “Dad, Mac can go in and poke around and see if she can find one of those identifier codes. If she does, you could turn that over to the cyber unit and help them get a head start.”

  “I can’t promise I’ll be able to find anything,” Makayla protested.

  Sam rolled her eyes at her father as she went back to the table to collect the glasses. “If it’s there, she’ll find it. And she can look around and see if there’s a selfdestruct installed.”

  “Maybe. I might not be able to identify it even if I see it.”

  “Stop being all modest, Mac. Dad knows you’re a ninja computer genius.”

  Makayla blushed.

  Dad put up his hand to stop her. “Before you get too carried away, let me think about it. I want to make a couple of calls to one of our cyber unit guys first.”

  “Sure, Mr. Sanderson, we understand.” Mac cut her eyes to Sam and narrowed them to little slits. No mistaking the warning to Sam.

  Sam ran over and hugged her dad. “Thanks for even considering it!” She grabbed Makayla’s hand. “Come on, let’s go make some snow angels.” She led her down the hall to her room, Chewy following.

  “I can’t believe you just asked your dad like that.” Makayla stepped out of Sam’s bathroom a few minutes later and began wrapping her head with a scarf.

  “What else was I supposed to do? You won’t go poking without permission, and now, with Aubrey’s article up, I’m backed against a wall.”

  “You got game, girl.” Makayla pulled her ski cap over the scarf.

  Sam finished braiding her hair and slipped on her hat. “I’ve got to do something, Mac. It’s not fair for Aubrey to write such an article about Felicia.”

  “At least she didn’t use Felicia’s name.”

  “Yeah, but that didn’t help much.” She shook her head. “Felicia’s mom was already wary of it all, and now this.” Sam wrapped her scarf around her neck and tucked the ends into her sweatshirt. “Aubrey Damas is just plain mean.”

  “Sam, that’s not fair. She was just reporting, just like you would’ve done and you know it.”

  Sam frowned. “I would not have done such a thing to Felicia.”

  “Not to someone you know, of course not, but Aubrey doesn’t really know Felicia at all, does she?” Makayla held up her hands. “Don’t get mad at me. I’m not saying you do anything mean or wrong, but sometimes telling the truth doesn’t tell the whole story. That’s the case here.”

  “Hmmm,” Sam said, but her mind raced. Maybe she should be a little more sensitive when she wrote her own articles. She’d never be able to not tell the truth, but maybe she could work a little harder to dig deeper into the truth.

  Makayla put on her gloves and coat. “Come on, let’s go out and play for a while and forget all about viruses, grade tampering, and Aubrey Damas.”

  Chewy, hearing the words out and play, started wagging and jumping. Sam laughed and rubbed between the dog’s ears. “Come on, you can come with us this time.”

  An hour later, they stumbled back into the house, feet frozen, dripping wet, but laughing. Dad met them at the door. “Get out of those wet clothes and come have some hot cocoa.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Sam said. In less than fifteen minutes, they were curled up on the sofa with steaming cups of hot chocolate with whipped cream. Dad had even sprinkled mini chocolate chips on top of the whipped cream.

  Totally yummy.

  The fire Dad had built roared, popping and hissing as he added another log. Chewy lay on the rug in front of the fire. Sam felt warm and toasty, inside and out. If only Mom were home, then it would be perfect.

  And if she could fix things for Felicia.

&n
bsp; “Sam, I’m going to need a favor.” Dad didn’t smile. His hands rested on his knees.

  She couldn’t think of a single time he’d come to her asking for a favor. She set her mug on the coffee table. “Sure, Dad.” Unless, of course, he asked her to give up reporting. That would never happen, but she doubted he’d ever ask her to do that. “If I can.”

  “I need you to call Aubrey and see if you can find out where she got her information.”

  The hot chocolate and whipped cream felt like it curdled on Sam’s stomach. “Why?” How could he ask her to do this? She’d told him how much of a jerk Aubrey was.

  “Off the record?” Dad looked from Sam to Makayla.

  Both of them nodded.

  Dad ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair, though it was more salt than pepper these days. “My captain called me asking if you had anything to do with what Aubrey printed. It seems his son also transferred in from Pulaski Academy. He’s concerned that some people might think the person Aubrey’s referring to in her article is his son.”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “Doug was expelled from PA?”

  “No, he wasn’t expelled.” Dad leaned forward, on the edge of the chair. “This is totally off the record, right?”

  She nodded. Beside her, Makayla nodded as well.

  “Doug didn’t get expelled, but he was about to flunk out. Captain transferred him out to save the embarrassment.”

  “Flunk out?” Sam twisted to look at her best friend. “Didn’t you say Doug was even better than you in computer science?”

  Makayla nodded. “Mr. Sanderson, Doug’s probably the smartest person I’ve seen in programming and such. There’s no way he’d flunk out. He probably knows more than most high school kids.”

  “That’s just in one class, girls. He might have been flunking in other subjects.”

  Sam shrugged. “I guess so. But we all know Aubrey was referring to Felicia in the article, so why does your boss need to know Aubrey’s source? The article’s already published, so what good is it to him to know who told Aubrey?” Sure, she wanted to know, but she didn’t like the captain’s assumption that he should have the right to know who a source was.

  Wanting to be a hard-core journalist, Sam was very sensitive about protecting sources. There were measures in place to protect all journalists, even those in middle school, against pressure to force them to reveal their sources. That Captain York seemed to want to work around them left a real sour taste in Sam’s mouth.

  “He could, but he’s asking me if you were involved, Sam. He knows you and Doug aren’t exactly chummy, but he did imply that you might have something to do with Aubrey’s evasive article.”

  “Are you kidding me? Seriously?” Sam jumped to her feet, startling Chewy, who darted away. “As if I would give Aubrey any type of credit for something I uncovered!” Sam paced the span of the living room.

  “I know that. I’m just asking if you’ll call Aubrey. If you get a name, I can assure Captain York that you passed along no such information about his son.”

  “I didn’t even know until you told me.”

  “I understand.”

  She made another lap around the living room. Love my neighbor. Yeah, that’s real helpful right now. What about protecting her sources? What about the shield law?

  “Dad, I know what you’re saying, but your boss is basically using me to get around the shield law where Aubrey’s concerned.” Sam couldn’t believe that she was defending Aubrey. She wasn’t, really. She was defending the rights of journalists to protect their sources.

  “Um, what’s the shield law?” Makayla asked.

  Sam pulled it up on her cell phone and read aloud, “Any editor, reporter, or other writer for any newspaper, periodical, or radio station is protected from revealing his or her sources unless the party seeking disclosure can show that the article was written in bad faith, with malice, and not in the interest of the public welfare.”

  “So,” Makayla said as she wrinkled her nose, “Aubrey, acting as the school editor, doesn’t have to reveal who told her about Felicia because the article she wrote wasn’t written in bad faith or with malice?”

  “Well, I think Aubrey wrote with malice because she hates Felicia, but that can’t be proven.” Sam looked at her father.

  “Don’t you want to know who told Aubrey?” Makayla asked.

  “I do, but I don’t want to get the name and then turn it over to Captain York. That would be wrong, like I was supporting forcing someone to reveal their sources. I just feel wrong about it.”

  “What’s your gut telling you?” Dad asked.

  That was the problem. She was conflicted. On one hand, she wanted to help Felicia. On the other, she wanted to support reporters’ rights to protect their sources. Man, she wished Mom was home. What to do?

  Love your neighbor as yourself. Didn’t that mean treating your neighbor as you want to be treated?

  If she was Felicia, she’d want to know who told about her past. The only way Sam could find out who told was to ask Aubrey. Not that she expected Aubrey to tell her. But Dad wasn’t asking her to dig, he was simply asking her to ask Aubrey. If Aubrey told her, well, then she’d have to make a decision of whether or not they should tell Captain York.

  “Okay. Fine.” She pulled out her iPhone and scrolled to her contacts. All the newspaper staff had each other’s contact information. Mrs. Pape had insisted. “Here goes nothing.” She tapped the phone and it connected.

  Brrring!

  Sam went back to her pacing. Maybe Aubrey was outside and couldn’t hear her phone.

  Brrring!

  Maybe Aubrey forgot to turn up the ringer on her phone.

  Brrring!

  More likely, Aubrey was torturing someone so she had the phone on silent.

  Brr — “What do you want, Samantha Sanderson?” Even on a day off, Aubrey sounded as grumpy and illtempered as usual.

  “Hi, Aubrey. Enjoying your snow day?”

  “I was until you called. What do you want?”

  Sam put her finger to her lips for her dad and Makayla to see, then set her phone on the coffee table and turned on the speaker. “I read your article up on the blog.”

  Aubrey laughed, but it wasn’t in a funny sort of way. “So that’s why you’re calling. Jealous because I found out something you didn’t?”

  “I already knew, Aubrey. I actually know the whole story, and I know the person you were referring to didn’t set a virus loose in our school’s system.”

  “Sure you knew. That’s why you wrote the article instead of me, right?” Aubrey laughed in that humorless way of hers again. “Look, Samantha, just accept it. I’m a better reporter than you, and I have better sources.”

  Sam gritted her teeth and fisted then unfisted her hands. “Yeah, who is your source? Who told you about Felicia, Aubrey?”

  “Oh, so you know who it is. I’m impressed. I thought you wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “I told you I knew. Felicia told me.” Sam concentrated on not letting anger seep into her voice. “Who told you?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know? And if Felicia told you, why didn’t you use it for an article, huh?” Aubrey cackled. “You’re lying, Samantha Sanderson, because now everybody knows that I’m a better reporter than you are.”

  “Aubrey, how did you find out?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know? I’m not telling you. Maybe you should use the reporter instincts your mommy taught you to figure it out. I’m done wasting my time on you.”

  The call disconnected.

  Sam was so mad, she trembled.

  “Well, I guess I was wrong when I thought you might be exaggerating how Aubrey treats you.” Dad even looked upset.

  “See? I told you she was horrid. Lana calls her the she-beast.”

  “She’s really like that all the time, Mr. Sanderson,” Makayla said.

  Dad shook his head. “I guess I’d forgotten how vicious girls can be.”

  “Yeah.” Sam pocke
ted her phone. “Sorry she wouldn’t give me a name, but I didn’t figure she would. She’s mean like that.”

  “Thanks for trying.” Dad stood, but didn’t walk away. His tone told her he was in pure dad-mode now. “About what you asked permission for . . .”

  Sam’s heart pounded hard against her ribs. “Yeah?” Please say yes. Please say yes.

  His cell rang. He checked the caller-ID, held up a finger to the girls, and answered the call. “Hi, honey.”

  “Mom,” Sam mouthed to Makayla.

  “No kidding. I kinda figured that out by the honey,” Makayla whispered.

  “That’s great. Okay. Text me when you land. I’ll head to the airport then to get you. Love you.” Dad slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Mom’s gotten on one of the standby flights. They should start boarding within thirty minutes.”

  “That’s great.” Sam was glad Mom would be home tonight, but right now . . . “So, you were saying . . .?”

  “Yes, Miss One-track Mind.” He grinned at Sam. “I talked with a friend of mine in the cyber unit.” Sam’s dad looked at Makayla. “He said he sure would appreciate it if you would look into the system to see if you can find out anything on the virus.”

  Score! “Yes!” Sam all but danced around the living room. Chewy, who had returned to the rug in from the fireplace, watched her with wary eyes.

  “If you’re willing, of course,” Dad said, addressing Makayla. “If you aren’t comfortable with doing it, that’s okay. I know how pushy she can be sometimes.” He nodded at Sam and threw Mac an apologetic look.

  “Hey.” Sam put her hands on her hips. “I just called the she-beast because you asked, so let’s not talk about being pushy.”

  Dad laughed, reaching out to pull Sam in for a hug. “Touché, pumpkin.” He turned back to Makayla. “It’s totally up to you.”

  “I-I think I’d like to help, if I can.”

  Sam grinned. “Awesome. I’ll bring my MacBook in here.”

  Dad pointed at the computer on the desk in the corner of the living room. “Why can’t you use that one?”

  Sam and Makayla both laughed.

  “Dad, that thing’s so out of date. Besides, she needs to use a Mac so that there’s no chance that the virus could infect our computer. I’ll grab my MacBook real quick.” She darted to her room, snatched up her laptop, and returned to the living room.