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I had an address and a phone number; more than enough to begin a practical snooping exercise. I looked up the address online and found out it was on the other side of the city, but not too far. I ran a search for the phone number to see if it had been posted on any websites for some reason, and found nothing. I thought about heading over there right then just for a look, but decided it would be better to do during the school day when he wouldn't be home. Skulking aroundsomeone's house at night is entirely too suspicious. I remembered that you can get satellite aerial views of any address these days, and looked it up. It looked like a nicer neighborhood, lots of trees between each house; but who can ever be certain with these satellite things?

I turned off the computer monitor and began idly milling about my house, trying to think of some kind of plan. The working assumption was that Nate Comstock, my school administrator, was doing something illegal; something illegal enough to catch theFBI's attention and make me so vital that they'd keep me immune from consequence for killing someone who was trying to kill me. Someone tried to kill me, I kept repeating in my head -- but the words had no weight. I couldn't get myself to react to them, the same way my father's death didn't seem to faze me. I must be one big fat sack of denial, I figured. I get in a fight at school, Comstock gets me off the hook for it. I get blasted with pepper spray, run down, shot at, then kill a guy; FBI gets me off the hook for it. What the hell is so special about me?

If I want answers, I need to ask question -- according to the FBI -- and none of my currently-existing questions seem to be doing the job. I have to find something out about Comstock, and then ask Special Agents Bremer or Rubino about it. It's the only thing I could decipher from that conversation.

So what's so special about Comstock, then? Besides the fact that his principal job accounts for less than half of his income, the only stand-out thing is that he was so shady about not reporting the fight to anybody. It was a tiring circle of questions, before I could make any progress on one mystery it would loop back to a previous one. Something was just universally amiss with Comstock, and I had to find out what it was, while the FBI may or may not already know about it. I sighed, and sat in the first chair I could find. I was in my kitchen now, sitting at the counter in the same seat Special Agent Bremer sat in the morning prior.

I was hungry again, I realized. Chinese food does that, and since it was before 4 when we got to the restaurant we only got the lunch portions anyway. I hoped some food would help clear my head for a bit, so I got up and went around to the refrigerator to see what I could find.

Nothing. I couldn't find anything to eat, not even a frozen pizza or other last-ditch resort. I was tired of going out to eat, so I decided to make a quick trip to the grocery store. Perhaps I could see how the trunk of my new car would handle groceries.

The store was less than a mile from my house, just at the end of the subdivision. I didn't want to be there long, so I just grabbed some bread and sliced turkey and ham for some sandwiches, some juice and sodas, chips, and decided I could try to be civilized and cook an honest meal so I got some chicken breast and backtracked to find some rice. They'd just come out with these plastic bags of rice that you could cook in the microwave, I reflected on how awesome that was for a while, and grabbed a few bags of white and wild rice. I doubted there was such a thing as wild rice. Rice farming was a pretty deliberate activity, I didn't think they would bother if you could stroll through a meadow and find wild rice.

I turned a corner to head toward the checkout when I found myself in the dairy section. I stopped in front of the milk case and tried to get myself to look at it. Rows and rows of clear bottles, filed to the brim with watery-white liquid. My mind made it curdle and seep out, crawl across the floor and chase me. I frowned, looking again at the innocent jugs. I always used to love milk, it would be a shame if I was going to be sickened by it forever, now. Two days ago I ran my car through a person, and it's the milk I can't take now. I don't need a trauma counselor after having my dad die and nearly getting killed myself, I need help getting over my phobia of milk. I amended my mental long-term agenda to include getting back on the milk train, then headed to the checkout and paid for my food.

I rolled my cart outside to the parking lot and toward my car when I glanced at a security camera perched on one of the light poles and aimed at the store's front door. It was an innocent concept, but it gave me the seed of an idea, and later my plan was formed.

The next day came and Amy never called or wrote to see if she needed to do anything; I hoped she'd remember to start watching Mr. Comstock's behavior. I left the house after ten and drove to his house. It was indeed a nicer neighborhood, but nothing amazing. His house wasn't very big but had a cleaner look to it. The house was on a small roundcul-de-sac with three other houses at the end of a road. The middle of the cul-de -sac, rather than being just an empty circle of pavement, had a small round grassy median that had a wooden park bench, two street lamps, and three small pine trees. It was all probably just decoration, I cant imagine someone getting out of their house to go sit on a bench on an island in the middle of the road, but it looked nice either way.Comstock's house was clearly visible from the street, which was good for me. From the "island" in the middle of the road, there were five houses within 500 feet of me; this was also good for me, if I was lucky at least.

I got back in my car and drove around until I found a store that would have computers. The first thing I found was an Office Depot, and right in front by the registers they had a open box laptop computer with a decent spec sheet for $800. It was probably a returned Christmas present, and these stores' liberal return policies mean they have to take back a computer like this for full price and sell it for whatever they can get. I made sure the thing had wireless networking, then stood around waiting for someone to help me.

While I waited, I tried to give the cost some attention in my head. Since Saturday I'd bought a gun, a knife, and a car. If I kept this up, I'd be broke by June. I had to keep my spending in check, I decided, though I had to give myself points for being this frugal. The gun I'd sort of haggled down, the car I bought used and definitely haggled. I could have gotten a platinum-finished gun with my name engraved in diamonds, and I could have bought a Lamborghini with upholstery made from bald eagle scalps. I could be buying a five-ounce Sony laptop that could render the surface area of the entire planet in real time and burn a CD at the same time, but I wasn't. I had to guess that was something. I wasn't being foolhardy. Besides, it's not like I'm going to need another car or computer for a while.

I started to think that maybe my dad got that insane life insurance policy as some kind of apology. He didn't spend enough time with me when he was alive, so when he dies he'll leave me a small fortune. It seemed morbid, and a store associate had come over before I could give it any more thought. I bought the used computer and a power inverter so I could power the computer from inside my car, then drove back to thecul-de-sac.

If my plan didn't work, I wouldn't really need the computer. But, unlike a gun, I actually could use a new computer. My desktop at home was a few years old and on its downward slope. Plus, it wasn't a laptop. I pulled over on the side of the street and powered up the computer and spent a few minutes getting a feel for it. It had a fifteen inch screen and felt light enough. The store hadn't bothered to re-install Windows, so it was already set up for "Wendy", previous owner. Wendy seemed to like puppies, as the only change she made to the computer was installing a puppy desktop image.

home over the The idea was to find an open wireless network in the area and have the laptop connected to it and broadcasting a webcam feed of Comstock'sinternet, plug the computer in somehow, and then hide it so I could then view the camera feed from home or any other computer without having to sit there in my car. The key to surveillance is to watch someone long enough so you can learn their routines: when they leave the house and when they come back, who comes to visit and when, whether they use the front door or the side, etc. Wireless networks were just becoming popular at this time, but most people weren't smart enough to enable any kind of security on them so they were left wide open. I was hoping that one of the five houses within range would be broadcasting an open network signal.

I had to walk around with the laptop awkwardly balanced on my arm and clicking the "refresh" button with the other, but I found a network called "default" that was obviously unsecured. I could connect to it and get on theinternet without a problem, and could even get a decent signal from the island where the bench was. That was a load off my mind, I hadn't just wasted my money on a final-sale computer. The light poles in the median had outdoor power outlets at the base, perhaps for Christmas lights or something. I figured I could wrap the computer in plastic or something and hide it under one of the pine trees and keep a webcam running and pointed at the house. I packed the computer up and got back in my car and returned to the store to get a webcam then find a hardware store to find some plastic sheeting to waterproof the computer.

Back at the Office Depot, I was looking at the webcams and found something that would work even better. There was a camera that would connect to a wireless network by itself, that you could then log into remotely to view or record the video. It even had mounts on the back so you could attach it to a wall with screws. This would mean I could just set the camera up and have the laptop for myself. Three cheers for technological innovation.

I bought the camera, then found a nearby hardware store and got a hammer and an assortment of nail sizes, then returned yet again to the cul-de-sac. In my car, I set up the camera with my new computer, telling it what network to connect to and at what quality to capture video. There was even an option in the settings for the camera to email me every time its IP address changed so I'd always know how to connect to it. Then I went back to the median, sat on the bench and plugged the camera's power cable into the outlet at the base of the nearer lamp post and waited for the status lights to cycle. The green light eventually came on to indicate that the camera had connected to the open wireless network, so I started looking for where to mount it. If I mounted the camera on the back of the bench, it'd have a clear view of Comstock's house, but it would be pretty obvious. I decided instead to affix it to the trunk of one of the pine trees and move some branches so there'd be a decent view. The tree would hide the camera from casual observation, and if anybody did actually spot the thing they wouldn't be too concerned because it was a consumer-model camera and didn't look too threatening. I thought about putting a sign on it saying it was for bird-watching it, but decided that would be silly.

Back in my car, I connected to the camera's interface and looked at its video feed. Some pine needles and branches were invading the frame, but there was still a fine view of the street, the garage, and the front door.

I'm too smart for my own good, I thought.

Content with my improvised digital surveillance, I got started on some analogue surveillance. I walked around Comstock's house, casually looking through the windows to see if I could spot anything. Most of the blinds were closed, and the windows I could see through didn't show anything interesting. There were no mountains of heroin or bomb-making equipment as far as I could tell. No child slaves handcuffed to radiators or stockpiles of smuggled Russian assault weapons. Whatever he was doing, it was probably white-collar and somehow peripherally involved hitmen. If that guy was a hitman. Still could have just been trying to kidnap me to extort my money from me.

All the doors were locked. I didn't doubt that I could get in anyway, but saw no need to get myself in that deep just yet. There was no mail in his mailbox yet; so, out of ideas, I returned home.

My cellphone beeped in my jacket pocket as I was on the freeway. I tried not to kill myself digging it out, and looked at the screen. New text message. It wasn't time for Amy to be out of school yet, unless she was skipping more classes than usual now. I pressed the button to read the message, it said "big thing. im comingover". She was usually pretty meticulous with her spelling, even in text messages. I dropped the phone on the passenger seat and got to, at last, find out what this car could do.