“I want to get all this stuff ready to go.” Dulsie began setting out the squash. “Maybe after lunch we can head over to your folks and see what the river’s doing.”

The back side of Uncle Pax’s farm was bordered by the Osage River. She and Shad had spent many hot afternoons swimming there.

“You want me to snap beans?”

“No.” Dulsie smirked as she glanced at him. “I’ll take it from here.”

Shad saw his opportunity to begin taking action on his discovery about Wally. Before he could do anything else, he’d decided, Shad needed to collect more information on the man. “How long are you gonna take?”

“This won’t take long.” Dulsie’s smirk deepened. “But I have some other things to do, so you have time to go play on the computer.”

Shad couldn’t figure out how it seemed Dulsie would keep reading his mind. “How did you know...?”

“My spider senses are tingling.” Dulsie glanced at him. “You asked how long it would take me, not if there was something else I wanted you to do. That means there’s something else you want to do, and usually that’s work on the computer.”

Shad half wondered how long it would be before Dulsie started finishing sentences for him. “Oh.” He turned away to leave the kitchen but glanced at her again as Shad approached the doorway to the living room. “You didn’t have to make it sound so obvious.”

He heard Dulsie chuckle as Shad entered the living room and immediately turned right to step into a small hallway. The door in front of him led to the bathroom. On his right was their bedroom, and to his left was the spare bedroom they used as an office.

After washing up in the bathroom, Shad went into the bedroom to retrieve his laptop before strolling into the office. He sat at the scraped up but solid wood desk he’d bought at a garage sale nearly ten years ago and pushed back the monitor of their desktop computer to set the laptop in its place and switch it on.

The laptop was newer and more powerful, a gift from Dulsie and both their parents when he completed law school but before he passed the bar. Dulsie had been able to learn from Shad exactly what he would want in a personal computer and saw to it this laptop filled the bill. It was the perfect gift. Before he gave in to the insane idea of becoming a lawyer, Shad had figured on going into computer programming as a career.

Actually he had originally wanted to be a farmer like Pap, but Pap told Shad to “get a day job” because it was increasingly difficult for a family to survive exclusively from the earnings on a family farm, even one as large as theirs. Pap had managed to remain a full-time farmer because Mam held a job at the school. The only reason Pap didn’t feel somewhat emasculated by the fact his wife was the first one in generations to have to hold a job was because Mam actually enjoyed her work as a secretary.

The choice for Shad’s career had seemed pretty obvious. He had no trouble spending long hours completely alone, and Shad preferred to deal with facts rather than more subjective problems. His talent surfaced only months after his parents brought him into their home. Mam got a new computer in the school office where she worked, and the change in programming was giving her fits. One day after classes she asked Shad if he wanted to look at it and see if the contraption made any sense to him.

It made perfect sense. Computers were utterly logical with their specific commands and predetermined responses. By the time Shad entered high school his parents bought a used computer which he managed to hone his skills on despite its obsolescence. And as soon as Shad was able to get on the internet regularly after Mam and Pap bought a new computer, he indulged in a personal challenge that was his worst ever defiance of the law.

He became a hacker. Shad never tampered with the files of another system or used confidential information unethically, but he took satisfaction from being able to break into programs that were designed to keep him out. Shad suspected his enjoyment of this form of rebellion was rooted in the abuse of authority he’d suffered in his earlier childhood. Although his parents were aware of what sites Shad would go into, it wasn’t until he was a junior in high school they figured out how he was getting into them.

“Isn’t this illegal?” Pap asked him that evening when they realized what Shad was doing.

Shad was scared they were going to take the computer away from him, but he was more concerned about the consequences that naturally came from a lie. “Well ... yeah.” He quickly added, “I’m not messing with anything, though. I’m just looking.”

“It’s an invasion of people’s privacy.” Pap frowned. “I know you wouldn’t want your privacy invaded.”

The discussion continued for at least an hour, and Shad became more convinced his parents were going to shut off their internet access. Pap had Shad show him how he managed to get past the security on the sites, then Pap sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity to Shad as the man stared at the monitor and absently stroked his beard.

“Tell me this,” Pap finally said. “When you become a programmer, you’re gonna use your knowledge about this stuff to come up with technology that will stop people like you.”

Shad agreed. His parents allowed him to continue, and Shad sometimes wondered if this was Pap’s way of encouraging him to keep up the Delaney notoriety. When Pap went into the hospital the following year, however, it started the chain of events that turned Shad away from the technology profession to actually consider law.

Ironically his questionable talent was an asset to Shad in his work as an attorney. Although illegally obtained information wasn’t admissible in court, for Shad just having the knowledge was a powerful advantage. Research was one aspect to his job Shad actually liked, so he had a tendency to overindulge in it.

Right now he needed all the information he could get on Walden Palmer.

It was easy enough to start with the website Shad had learned was associated with Wally’s business. From there he began delving into information that wasn’t normally available without paying a fee or hiring a detective. He already knew Wally was still living in the St. Louis area, and before very long Shad had his mailing address and phone number. Then he discovered Wally owned the property with his wife.

Wife? Had Wally merely altered his modus operandi to actually marry a woman instead of simply move in with her to gain access to a young son? Was the marriage a better front for the public persona that would make people believe Wally would never do such a thing to a child? Was it possible the wife belonged to the ranks of those few women who were also molesters? Such females were a minority, but they often got started by pleasing male molesters they became attached to.

Shad did a background check on the wife, Lynette. She had been formerly married and given birth to two sons ... but both were legal adults now. A search on the sons revealed that neither was married, so Wally apparently wasn’t preying on any grandkids. And Lynette’s record was clean in regard to any run-ins with the law.

Could Wally be putting together a personal harem from boys drawn to the business? Shad’s research on the history of the chain revealed Wally opened the original store eight years ago, five years before his marriage to Lynette.

Further focus on Wally gave Shad his political party affiliation, former addresses, when and where he was born, what vehicles he owned and even some banking information. Shad also confirmed this was Wally’s first marriage.

Most frustrating, but unsurprising, was the fact Wally’s record was clean.

Shad leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen of latest information on the laptop. Wally had been a rather young man when he had access to Shad, perhaps barely in his twenties. He’d probably starting molesting boys back in his teens. The best case scenario was that Wally managed to find a woman with a four-year-old son whom he would live with until the son was seven, then Wally would move on to a new hunting ground. That could possibly reduce the number of Wally’s victims to around twelve to fifteen.