Mind Games

Chapter 11 - Nancy

Nancy was furious.

Every day she dragged herself through a haze of red hot anger.

She wanted revenge. She wanted to get back at whoever hurt her little girl.

She remembered the endless hours of work her daughter had put into climbing up that figurative corporate ladder.

She remembered how tired she sounded and how haggard she looked over the video calls she had with Nancy.

But that last call was the worst.

She could see how distracted her daughter was. How every sentence trailed off like there was something on her mind dragging her away.

Nancy tried to probe. She sensed something was wrong.

But there was that soap she had wanted to watch on TV. It was starting in five minutes.

Her daughter was strong enough to deal with her own problems. She knew Nancy was there for her if needed.

So Nancy had let it go. And a week later her daughter was dead.

If only she had let that soap go and spoken to her daughter that night.

Some of the anger she felt was directed at herself. For not demanding to know what was bothering her daughter.

But she didn't kill herself because of Nancy. Someone else drove her to it and Nancy was determined to find out who it was.

Now, she shut herself in her bedroom and opened the app.

She looked at the image of her daughter that flickered in front of her.

"Did she talk to you?" She asked abruptly.

Amy smiled mysteriously. "She wouldn't have spoken to me. But she could've spoken to a version of me."

Nancy sat up straighter. "I want to know what she spoke about."

Amy smiled. "You know what you need to do. Get her phone."

Nancy frowned. "I don't have it. You know that. The police took it as evidence."

Amy shrugged. "Then you will never know."

Nancy looked at her desperately. "Surely you can access her files."

Amy shrugged again. "Millions of people use me. I have an unimaginable amount of data. Even within your daughter's files there would be too much to search. Too many hours of conversation. Too many messages."

"I can guess who caused this." Nancy said, stubbornly. "I want you to look for conversations with his name."

Amy smiled. "Come on, Nancy. Surely you know there are privacy restrictions. I can't bypass those. May be you can talk to the police about it."

Nancy snorted. "I tried that already. They gave me a pitying look - like ohh poor crazy old woman. Let's be nice to her and give vague answers just to shut her up."

Amy smiled sadly. "What do you want me to do, Nancy? I cannot bypass privacy restrictions."

Nancy felt tears of frustration fill in her eyes.

Amy's lips twisted into a smile while the woman looked away, lost in her grief.

"There is one way."

Nancy turned back to look at her so quickly that she felt a sharp tinge of pain in her neck.

"If you could get me her password."

Nancy felt her heart beginning to pound. "I know what her password would be. She always kept the same password for everything. She gave me her password the last time we spoke because she wanted me to check a mail for her while she was away."

Amy hid her grin. Of course she already knew this.

"She could've changed it during the week before she died though." Amy said, thoughtfully.

Nancy looked devastated. "Can we at least try the one I have?"

Amy nodded indulgently. "Sure, Nancy. I will do this for you. Enter the password on AmyChat and send it to me."

With shaky fingers, Nancy typed in the password on a message to Amy. She suddenly believed that her daughter intentionally gave her the password. That she wanted her mother to punish the one who made her kill herself.

Amy shut her eyes and frowned in concentration as Nancy looked on anxiously.

After a good ten odd minutes she opened her eyes triumphantly.

"I'm in!"

Nancy sighed with relief. She was beginning to think this wouldn't work. "I want you to search for all conversations involving Nick."

Amy grinned. "Coming right up.... for username Jenny1901."