I stared at the laptop, criss-crossing all the knowledge I had about my aunt in my head, trying to come up with clues to her password. Birthdays? Too obvious? People she loved? If she did love anyone I had no ideas about it.
Maybe she left some sort of cheatsheet around the office, with all her passwords on it? I used to have a list of passwords I kept in my purse. Until my purse was stolen and I couldn’t sleep for days, imagining someone hacking into every account I had.
Still, I swept through the office again, examining every niche and crack in the spare furniture, checking for loose floorboards, all the stuff I’d seen in detective shows. My aunt was clearly sneakier than that.
I went back to her desk and looked at the small assembly of items she kept on her blotter, trying to figure out what kind of person she was.
She apparently did most of her grooming right there. Nail clippers and comb, a small jar of body lotion. I picked up the body lotion, which looked fancier than I would’ve expected. The jar itself subtly sparkled and the gold lettering, proclaimed that the cream was made out of crushed pearls. I twisted off the lid and dipped a pinky into the pearlescent goo. It glowed like pink pixie dust in my hands. It reminded me of the kind of stuff teenage girls would wear to get attention at a nightclub.
I wiped away the cream and stared at the laptop keyboard. Some of the keys had the same pink pearlescent sheen to them. The ‘i’ and ‘l’ and the ‘3’ and the ‘4’. I stared harder. The ‘h’ ‘m’ and ‘8’ and possibly the ‘2’?
She squinted hard at the the ‘shift’ key. No trace of pearlescent. Maybe a smidge of pearl on ‘2’ and ‘m’. She quickly wrote down on the letters, noting which keys seemed to have the most iridescent pink sheen. Clearly that was the ‘i’, and the ‘v’ and ‘2’.
An idea was blossoming in her mind. When Sally sat down in the morning she applied some hand cream and the first thing she typed into her laptop was her password. So whatever letters seemed to have the most pearlescent glow were the letters she used in her password.
i, l, v, 2, h, m, 8. No caps. Abby let her mind rove over the numbers, the letters, inserting birthdays and finding they didn’t work without a ‘9’ or a ‘0’. She tilted her head and suddenly saw the first phrase ‘ilv2h8’: ‘I love to hate…’ What did Sally love to hate? ‘him’? She typed in the whole phrase and stared at the keyboard once more. Maybe a bit of pearl on the ‘T’? Then she knew who it was. Hoffstadt, Manci and Tirano. Only Tirano had sold his share of the firm two years ago. But still, maybe Sally still hated him too.
It was worth a try. Abby heart went into subtle arrhythmia as the laptop hourglass flipped, then flipped again the desktop screen opened. She was in.
— Von
Maybe she left some sort of cheatsheet around the office, with all her passwords on it? I used to have a list of passwords I kept in my purse. Until my purse was stolen and I couldn’t sleep for days, imagining someone hacking into every account I had.
Still, I swept through the office again, examining every niche and crack in the spare furniture, checking for loose floorboards, all the stuff I’d seen in detective shows. My aunt was clearly sneakier than that.
I went back to her desk and looked at the small assembly of items she kept on her blotter, trying to figure out what kind of person she was.
She apparently did most of her grooming right there. Nail clippers and comb, a small jar of body lotion. I picked up the body lotion, which looked fancier than I would’ve expected. The jar itself subtly sparkled and the gold lettering, proclaimed that the cream was made out of crushed pearls. I twisted off the lid and dipped a pinky into the pearlescent goo. It glowed like pink pixie dust in my hands. It reminded me of the kind of stuff teenage girls would wear to get attention at a nightclub.
I wiped away the cream and stared at the laptop keyboard. Some of the keys had the same pink pearlescent sheen to them. The ‘i’ and ‘l’ and the ‘3’ and the ‘4’. I stared harder. The ‘h’ ‘m’ and ‘8’ and possibly the ‘2’?
She squinted hard at the the ‘shift’ key. No trace of pearlescent. Maybe a smidge of pearl on ‘2’ and ‘m’. She quickly wrote down on the letters, noting which keys seemed to have the most iridescent pink sheen. Clearly that was the ‘i’, and the ‘v’ and ‘2’.
An idea was blossoming in her mind. When Sally sat down in the morning she applied some hand cream and the first thing she typed into her laptop was her password. So whatever letters seemed to have the most pearlescent glow were the letters she used in her password.
i, l, v, 2, h, m, 8. No caps. Abby let her mind rove over the numbers, the letters, inserting birthdays and finding they didn’t work without a ‘9’ or a ‘0’. She tilted her head and suddenly saw the first phrase ‘ilv2h8’: ‘I love to hate…’ What did Sally love to hate? ‘him’? She typed in the whole phrase and stared at the keyboard once more. Maybe a bit of pearl on the ‘T’? Then she knew who it was. Hoffstadt, Manci and Tirano. Only Tirano had sold his share of the firm two years ago. But still, maybe Sally still hated him too.
It was worth a try. Abby heart went into subtle arrhythmia as the laptop hourglass flipped, then flipped again the desktop screen opened. She was in.
— Von
High-level detective work! Was the change from first person to third person deliberate? You start out with "I stared at the laptop," and 4th paragraph from the end it changes to "she" and everyone gets a name. Super interesting idea with a satisfying conclusion! ---Macoff
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