Death in Daytime by Eileen Davidson Page A

his crush on me kind of icky, I'd never really been very friendly to him.
    "Will, Alex is here to see you."
    "Hello, Mrs. Peterson," he said respectfully. I have to say I always suspected Will of being an Eddie Haskell type--polite in front of adults but something else again around his peers. Or me.
    "Hello, Will," I said. "I need help with something I know you can handle--computer stuff."
    I looked around the room and saw three computer screens in view. The computers themselves were out of sight, probably under a table or behind a stack of books.
    "I have some things to do downstairs," Jean said.
    "I'll leave you to it."
    As Jean walked out, she left the door open. I watched her, then turned to look at Will, who was staring at me, kind of glassy-eyed. I wondered if his mother and I had walked in on something weird. Behind him a computer screen had gone blank. I was sure there had been something on it.
    "Um, what can I do for you, Mrs. Peterson?"
    "Will, I need to find out information about . . . well, some people."
    "Personal information?"
    "Yes, can you do that?"
    "I can run a Google search," he said, "or Yahoo, or any number of search engines. What do you want to know?"
    "Can I have something to write on?" I asked. He turned around to pick up a pad and pencil from his desk. In doing so he nudged the computer mouse, and the screen came on. I had enough time to see an impressive pair of naked boobs before he hurriedly touched something that made the screen go blank again. When he turned to me, his face was very red and he was sweating. I acted like I hadn't seen a thing.
    "H-here."
    I took the pad and wrote down Marcy's full name.
    "I need to find out about this woman's family," I said. "I mean, if she has any, where they are, stuff like that."
    "Sure," he said. "I might have to cut a few corners."
    "Would that get you into trouble?" I asked. "I don't want to get you into any trouble."
    "Oh, don't worry about me, Mrs. Peterson," he said.
    "I can protect myself--online, I mean."
    "I'll bet you can." Will was turning out to be less creepy--despite the Girls Gone Wild pictures. He was actually cute, trying to impress me.
    "I can pay you--"
    "Oh, no," he said. "I don't want any money. I like having jobs to do on the Web. I'll do it for you for nothing."
    "Well," I said, "maybe you'd like to come to the set sometime?"
    His eyes lit up.
    "That'd be awesome!"
    "Okay, then," I said. "That'll be your payment. Um, how soon can you get this for me?"
    "Do you have a computer?"
    "I do," I admitted, "but I'm not all that computer literate."
    "That's okay," he said. "I can just send you the information in an e-mail."
    He wrote his private number down and handed it to me.
    "Thank you, Will."
    "Sure, Mrs. Peterson."
    "And why don't you just call me Alex from now on, huh?"
    "Wow," he said. "Thanks, Mrs. Peterson."
    "No," I said, "thank you, Will."
    Impulsively, I leaned over and kissed his cheek. He turned beet red, and I got out of there before I embarrassed him some more. When I went back downstairs Jean came out of the kitchen.
    "Everything okay?"
    "Fine," I said. "Will's just going to do some work for me."
    "Well," she said, "you couldn't ask for anybody better." She was so proud.
    "I know that, Jean," I said. "That's why I came to see him."
    She walked me to the door and stammered, "Um, we'll have to--you know, get together, um, sometime. You know, after all this murder stuff blows over."
    I almost asked her if she had heard from Randy. But I stopped myself. This wasn't the right time or place. Instead I said, "That'd be nice, Jean," and then to take the onus off her I added, "I'll call you."

Chapter 13
    I couldn't do any more work on my plan that evening. When I got home, Sarah was running a slight fever. I had her sleep in my bed so I could check on her all night. Of course, I got about two hours' sleep in the process.
    Sleep deprivation and I are old friends. I hauled myself out of bed in the morning, gave my little and still-hot