Going Home Page 7

  Now Zach was alone again with his brother and, in order to get a little more in the atmosphere of a baseball training, was playing baseball on the driveway. It was not comparable with the training he normally had with his teammates, the homeruns he beat, the quick rushes and the cheers of the cheerleaders. Oh, he missed those admiring and encouraging looks of those beautiful girls. What a poverty to pretend to practice here on your own driveway! Ethan meanwhile watched the children’s television. It was boring to be engaged in baseball with nothing, he missed his companions. He just rumbled through and when he was fed up, he walked inside to see how things were going. But the room was empty, where was that kid? He looked hastily in every nook and cranny: nothing, is he in the toilet? Also not. Yearning he ran through the whole house, the attic and even the cellar, but no trace of little Ethan.

  Everywhere he called his name, but no reaction whatsoever. Zach ran out and looked into the front and back yard and finally ran into the street desperately. Would he sometimes be to his boyfriend John? He called to his mother, but no he was not with her. She was kind enough to go directly to help, she also scanned the whole neighborhood, but she also had no results.

  Zach almost got a heart attack of fear of what could have happened to Ethan, and he was about to call the police when he realized he could not, because he would have to give up their secret, and that was the last thing what could. Then they would find out that three minors were alone at home and would be placed directly in an orphanage or in a foster family. In any case, they would no longer be together.

  In a flash he got a vision from his brother Ethan in an orphanage in a monastery near fathers who beat and humiliated the little boy. Who sexually abused him and made a wreck of him that would bother him all his life. Or in a foster family with a witty foster mother where he did not have a good life. Where he had to help with everything and could never play with friends and …… No, no police !!

  Suddenly he realized that he had not yet looked in the garage and he ran there and jerked open the door. Ethan looked at him sweetly and said, “Look, I’ll help you clean up!” Zach took him in his arms and pressed him. “Good thing you do, but you have to say where you’re going from now on!”

  Then he realized that he should pay more attention. Watching a small child also turned out to be a profession! He thanked John’s mother, and both went back to their own home.

  After Merry came home from her work, she went to take a shower and then walked into her mother’s bedroom, hesitating because this was where her mother had so often taken care of her. In that bed they had celebrated birthdays and surprised her with Mother’s Day. Without actually noticing it, she lay down on that bed and slowly all the memories came back to her and she smelled her mother’s perfume that had so characterized her. What had she done to them a region to leave without saying a word without thinking of a solution? In the past she often went shopping with her friend Anna or sometimes making a city trip, even she had let them down. She felt anger coming in, leaving them so behind with the risk that they would have to go to an orphanage or be placed in a foster family!

  Suddenly she remembered that a classmate had given her a lecture about an internship she had run at Jeugdzorg. About the stories about abuse in foster families that mainly affected girls. They were treated as if they were for general use. Foster fathers who are misunderstood, sometimes even friends of them. And all those nights when another big brother came to lie down on them. Those girls then thought at a certain point that it was normal for men to sit with them. And then those foster mothers who sometimes pulled the girls through the house, mistreated them and gave them bruises. Her classmate had been grumbling about it and had strongly advised the teacher not to send pupils to that internship address in the future; it was too gruesome! Zach was already big, he would save, but the little Ethan …

  But slowly she thought back to the past when she had done nice things with her mother. Had shopped, with each other to the beautician, to the cinema and you name it, it was just too much! How her mother had informed her when she first had her period, how they had talked about the boys, about what was and what was not allowed, about the pill and ….. Tears welled up, they were beautiful memories, and now? How was it to continue? What would come of them?

  And then those terrible stories that tells about her were in The Mint Leaf! As a fortune teller !! Difficult to understand!

  Or would she unexpectedly be at the door again and take her in bed and talk about women’s things? Or was she a different woman than she had always thought? She was crying softly …

  “Merry, I poured coffee for you” she heard the voice of her brother Zach, of her dearest brother! Quickly she dried her tears and walked towards him and hid in his mighty big arms and pressed against his broad chest. “Ask me nothing,” she begged him.

  Digital Footprint

  The weekend had arrived and Merry could look back on a nice first week she had worked at the Sport World gym, it felt good, it was as if she had been working there for much longer. As an employee she was free to exercise herself and she liked that very well. It was very different equipment than in her own gym. If it stayed that way, she would cancel her membership at Planet Fitness, she saved in spending!

  Meanwhile, Zach was busy watching out for his brother and saying that he liked it really was said too much. He remained sharp now and now he only understood why mothers always have eyes from the front and behind. Ethan enjoyed playing baseball with him. For Zach this was back to the end, but yes better than nothing!

  Between the companies he received people who had shown interest in the stuff he had put on Facebook Marketplace and he did pretty good business with them. The family wallet was now pretty stuffed, they could now afford something. That was necessary because in the meantime bills also came in and they had no idea whether they still had to be paid or not. Time to check this once, if they could at least find the bank statements.

  Today’s mail also included a credit card statement from Carolyn and Zach did not know what he saw. As soon as Merry returned home from a message, he showed it to her and together they were amazed.

  Carolyn had clearly not taken into account that this settlement would ever face her children, because when they saw this they were surprised about the digital traces that they had left behind. Luckily she had been restrained this last month because her children had to watch this, but what was she supposed to do with all those purchases from Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, Apple, Google and much more? Fortunately, the total amount was to be dealt with, but if you went further back in her sales history of many years, then your mind stood still.

  It seemed that she had done her best to make purchases in all the countries of the world in the most diverse department stores, lingerie shops, music stores, rent of houses or apartments, costs of golf courses, car hire, plane tickets and so on. You found it in Carolyn’s purchases. She was in Paris one time, a few days later she was in Berlin and just as well you could find her in Moscow or in Dublin, Ireland. Amsterdam was apparently also a favorite of her, the purchases in department store De Bijenkorf were not counted. Also Riga in Latvia was not skipped and the Crimea was apparently also very popular with her. But just as easily she had visited Barcelona in Spain and Cairo in Egypt she had not skipped!

  The dizzy Merry and Zach and they looked at each other in dismay! “What inspired her!” Zach finally muttered to himself. “Incomprehensible that she did this,” Merry agreed. “For her work at the estate agency she often had to travel, but that this is the result I can not comprehend.”

  “But Zach,” she continued, “if you see this this way, we need to have this credit card blocked as soon as possible, because with every weird issue of her we are the bobbin! We have to pay this and we can not do that! ”” You tell me something, you are absolutely right. Will immediately see if we can block this via her account on the computer. “

  And Zach immediately added the deed to the word. Fortunately, Carolyn’s usernam
e for the credit card was in memory, but of course they did not have a password. But Zach, also not retarded, was so handy to have the password reset via the username so that he could create a new password. Fortunately, their mother used a separate e-mail address for this type of business - fortunately not via Gmail - who came into the computer. That way he could enter into his account and cancel the credit card with the institutions as stolen. “If that has happened, she can not do any harm to us anymore!” He said with satisfaction.

  “You did that handy, a nice trick was that” said Merry admiringly. “Could you also get her bank account in that way to see if these bills are already paid?” “Yes, good idea, it will try. But Merry, do you want to pay attention to Ethan, before you know it he is nowhere to be found. I have to confess to you this week before. I was just startled. Suddenly that was gone, searching everywhere and eventually he was in the garage! I do not see him now, by the way, I would not be surprised if he is there again, he finds it mighty interesting! I would soon go and see! “

  Merry went to the garage and Zach went into the bank account and indeed the username was in this case also in memory, so he got the same dexterity and arranged a new password. He looked into the memory and found even more user names of other services, which he would soon have a look at. Who knows, maybe he found traces of Carolyn, their mother who had abandoned them!

  But before he could continue, Merry walked in with Ethan agitated. “Zach, Zach, do you have to see what that little one has found among the old newspapers?” And she held up a book entitled “How to Disappear”! He took it from her and read the subtitle “Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, and Vanish Without a Trace” the book was written by Frank Ahearn and Eileen Horan.

  The scales fell from their eyes, they looked at each other: this was the answer. “So she left a trace,” she said to her brother, who leafed through the book with big eyes. “Do you have to look, say! It is a complete manual on how you can disappear without a trace with all the steps you have to take. Well, we have to read that carefully, maybe we’ll find out where she is! It is not just this! Where in the world does she hide herself? “

  “Indeed Zach, very mysterious. An idea, if I just read that book to see how we can search further - then I’ll also look at Ethan- and if you first set up the bank in order and possibly pay bills through your own account and get some research is going to do those prepaid phones and that old-fashioned telex, then we divide the tasks a bit and then this weekend maybe a little further. “Zach nodded in agreement and looked at his sister who suddenly turned out to be very decisive.

  Ethan was put in front of the TV to watch a Disney movie and they went to work unanimously. Zach went on with where he left off and logged in at Carolyn’s bank, so far his trick worked! It turned out that there was very little money and since the disappearance of her no transactions had taken place. He took the pile of bills and checked if they had already been paid. They were lucky, except for the bill for the water everything was paid. But of course they had to pay the following bills. Zach also glanced at the specifications of the bank account, but at first he could not discover anything special, everything was there. He tore the bills, except those from before the water, and threw them away. So now it was only good to pay attention to the mail. He then paid the water and the balance of the credit card through his own bank account.

  The other usage names were for Amazon and the like, he systematically went through everything and asked for new passwords, so it was no longer possible for Carolyn to use them or to place orders.

  On the prepaid telephones he looked up the telephone numbers and also looked at the Telex device if there was a number on it and indeed he found it on the bottom. He started up Google and entered the songs with the hope that he could find something about that, but that was vain hope. Then he searched the sites of the major telephone companies and tried to find out more about these numbers, unfortunately nothing. Maybe with the sellers of prepaid phones? Through their sites he followed the same path, but unfortunately there was nothing to discover.

  In the meantime Merry was immersed in the found book about how you could disappear without a trace in this society. Ethan suddenly got to her knee and asked for attention. “What are we going to do?” Merry looked at him “We will go to the playground”. “Nice, Zach too?” And so they could do nothing but go to the playground a bit further in the neighborhood. It took them a lot of effort to break away from their digital search, but after a while they got lusted into it and played with Ethan enthusiastically and in all playgrounds. At one point he was no longer able to save from the go-karts with which he could tear through the traffic garden. There was also a “real” petrol pump and that closed the door: he kept refueling while calling pingping and paying he did through an imaginary pin device which in reality was a tree branch. In short, he enjoyed it to the fullest and Merry and Zach enjoyed it again; they were so happy together! And Ethan? He hardly asked his mother anymore, a child seems to have a very great adaptability and he was happy with how the situation was now.

  At the end of the afternoon Ethan was really tired of playing and they sat down on the terrace and ordered Cola and chose to eat french fries with mayonnaise and a hamburger. The party was complete when they all took a children’s ice cream that was lavishly decorated.

  The little one had fallen asleep tired after showering, and Merry and Zach could continue where they left off. “Say Merry, did you find out something in that book?” “Well you can say that, you just have to read the introductory text!” Zach read with great interest:

  “How to Disappear is the authoritative and comprehensive guide for people who seek to protect their privacy as well as for anyone who’s ever entertained the fantasy of disappearing—whether actually dropping out of sight or by eliminating the traceable evidence of their existence.

  Written by the world’s leading experts on finding people and helping people avoid being found, How to Disappear covers everything from tools for disappearing to discovering and eliminating the nearly invisible tracks and clues we tend to leave wherever we go. Learn the three keys to disappearing, all about your electronic footprints, the dangers and opportunities of social networking sites, and how to disappear from a stalker.

  Frank Ahearn and Eileen Horan provide field-tested methods for maintaining privacy, as well as tactics and strategies for protecting personal information and preventing identity theft. They explain and illustrate key tactics such as misinformation (destroying all the data known about you); disinformation (creating fake trails); and, finally, reformation—the act of getting you from point A to point B without leaving clues.

  Ahearn illustrates every step with real-life stories of his fascinating career, from undercover work to nab thieving department store employees to a stint as a private investigator; and, later, as a career “skip tracer” who finds people who don’t want to be found. In 1997, when news broke of President Bill Clinton’s dalliance with a White House intern, Ahearn was hired to find her. When Oscar statuettes were stolen in Beverly Hills, Ahearn pinpointed a principal in the caper to help solve the case. When Russell Crowe threw a telephone at a hotel clerk in 2005, Ahearn located the victim and hid him from the media.

  An indispensable resource not just for those determined to become utterly anonymous, but also for just about anyone in the brave new world of on-line information, How to Disappear sums up Ahearn’s dual philosophy: Don’t break the law, but know how to protect yourself.”

  Zach looked at her. “That’s quite something! And how does he do that? “With a torrent of words, Merry began to talk about the ways he did it. Before you wanted to disappear, you first had to change all your existing tracks, such as accounts, so that they could no longer be found. How you with a series of prepaid phones that were constantly connected to each other you could completely shield and that the actual place where you were also no longer to be found. The same could be done by using, linking and forwarding all kinds of e
-mail addresses. With mailboxes you could also build up a huge fog that no one could come out. The chance that you could still be found then, became practically nil, although of course it was never a hundred percent guarantee. Even on a beach you could happen to meet an old classmate, or a former colleague. But the ways that are described, the tricks are endless. “You must definitely read it yourself!” Merry said urgently.

  Mail

  It was later that night that brother and sister went on with their search. “But Zach in everything I’ve read shows that disappearance always costs money, if you want to do it well. If that is the case then something must be paid. In the book, the writers recommend that you always pay in cash or with a prepaid credit card, but maybe mom was not so careful or maybe she dropped a stitch. Have you seen something that was not normal at the bank of ma? ”” No, but I did not pay special attention to that. Will look at it right now, “he replied, and he restarted the computer and logged into Carolyn’s bank. With frowned brow, he scanned through all payments. “The only thing I see is a payment to Protonmail and Silentcircle. No idea what that is, he said to himself and searched the Google site again. What would we do without a computer and especially Google, he asked and many more people, wondered.

  Protonmail appears to be a Swiss e-mail service with which you can anonymously send e-mails and also use End-to-End Encryption so mail can not be intercepted, and the files are stored deep under the Swiss mountains so that they are completely inaccessible. You can also forward the mail from your current mail addresses.