Pete had sent a few more messages, where he expressed great pride in his work through the medium of gifs, and then a final comment, which read, And for my masterpiece …
I clicked the last video. It was a shot of the bedroom again, the curtains open this time, Lacey had made the bed. I watched the screen as the door opened, then closed, then opened again. Pete was showing off what he could do. He had control of the house. And I had control of Janine’s life.
I replied to Pete in the most grateful way that I could. I sent him a gif of a sexy cheerleader throwing her pom poms into the air. He was online immediately, and told me that he hadn’t slept.
It’s mad, Eve, I can literally do anything I want in this house. The system has no end to end encryption. I did some digging into the company and knew I was onto a winner. It’s run by some old dude in Germany who only sells it to crazy rich people but he doesn’t bother to run any updates on the tech or secure the data. These fools are paying 100 grand for something with less security than a fucking Fitbit.
I asked him if it was possible to speak to Janine through the system and he mocked me for my terrible grasp of it all. Lol at ‘through the system’， you sound like my mom. But yeah, you can shit her up a little when she’s locked in the shower room – did you see that mural by the way. Sum sexy nymphs for sure. Will your stepmom be naked in our plan?
I ignored this, and we messaged some more about how I’d be able to access the system from my phone too. He sent me a link to a file, and told me to download it. The little icon turned green and I clicked it and it opened up a webpage showing me a live image of the hallway in Janine’s house. Pete walked me through what I could see, and how I could access the cameras in different rooms.
I’ll control the other stuff from here and you can speak through the phone and I’ll link it up with the house whenever you like.
Is she in the house now? I asked, clicking around the apartment in wonder.
Nah she left about ten minutes ago. You didn’t tell me just how fucking rich your dad was. This place is insane.
It’s her money, I wrote back, keen to disabuse him of the idea that I was some kind of heiress.
Well lucky Dad then. Wanna see some cool tricks while the house is empty?
I watched as the blinds started zooming up and down in the lounge, while loud house music blared out from an unseen speaker. He really could do this, it wasn’t some teenage brag. I told him to stop, not wanting neighbours to notice and alert Janine when she got home. I suspected Janine rarely played house music at full blast in the mornings. Really nobody should play house music full stop.
I told Pete to keep exploring and to message me the moment Janine came back to the flat. I showered and dressed in under five minutes, and grabbed my phone, a charging pack and some headphones and went down to the beach, where I chose the nicest looking café and sat outside under an umbrella, watching the waves lap the shore. I turned my attention back to the footage of Janine’s flat, and looked through the rooms to see if there was any sign of her again. Still nothing. Pete hadn’t messaged either, so I ordered a coffee and a croissant and sat gazing out at the beach, forcing myself not to check my phone every ten seconds. I didn’t have to hold this discipline for too long. My phone pinged just as I finished the last few flakes of the croissant, and I hurriedly wiped my buttery hands on a napkin before opening the message.
She’s baaackkk, Pete wrote.
*
I click back to the camera view, and see Janine walking into her bedroom. She puts her large orange Hermès bag down on the bed, alongside a small paper shopping bag, and takes out a gold-rimmed candle which she places on the table next to her bed. She walks around the room for a few minutes, plumping up a throw pillow with gold tassels, inspecting her finger for dust after running it along the windowsill. She’s bored, I think. Not the boredom of a rare free day when you feel like you’re wasting time. This is years of built-up ennui, a life filled with lunches and organising staff and too much time spent on physical maintenance. Buy a candle, have a blow-dry, take a yoga class, fly to your other house and repeat the routine again and again. She filled her hours with activities, but none of them really amounted to anything. It was just a carousel of banality. So here she is on a day with no staff and no friends around, wandering through her apartment and trying to find things to complain about to Lacey later on. If she’d had any insight into the depressing reality of her life, she might have jumped off her yoga balcony.
Pete pings me a message, Incoming: woman holding bag – can see on door camera.