It's all in the password

It’s all in the password.

Things hadn't gone as planned. James stood on the front of the porch and watched as the thick snow came down.

James opened the black book. It had twelve letters in it. The code to get into the old man’s bitcoin wallet account.

James sighed. He had not meant to kill the old man. Lisa had told him about the $20,000 in bitcoin that he had. At first Lisa had thought it was the ramblings of an old man sinking more into his dementia. Then she realised that the black book that the old man clutched half the time to his chest in secret contained a code to his online bitcoin wallet. When he had his moments of clarity he would check online on his secret finances. Lisa had revealed all of this to James after three torrid night and days of lovemaking.

It took James around an hour to convince Lisa that they could rob the old man of his savings. James smirked to himself. He’d always had a knack with women.

Lisa came out on the porch to join him. Tears were running down her face. "He's dead" she said. No shit, Sherlock, James thought to himself.

She’d been a good lay but she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He’d only known her for three days and he was planning on taking off on her as soon as he had the money, but now he knew he had to kill her. No loose ends. He wasn’t going back to jail.

James had been ransacking the library, trying to find the notebook which Lisa told him was hidden there. The old man had walked in on him and then the grappling ensued. When he had scratched James’s cheek is when the ex-con had lost control. When James finally got a grip on himself it was too late. He had choked the old man to death.

The more James thought about it the more he fumed. Lisa had one fucking job to do. She was the old man's care giver and was supposed to be distracting him. Now he had killed the old man because she simply couldn’t follow one basic instruction.

James tried to keep it together. He was angry at Lisa. But he knew he needed her for now. She had the password to get into the old man's computer. The password in the little back book would be worthless without it.

"It was an accident", James said to her.

"You choked him! That's not an accident" she retorted. Tears stinging her eyes.

James felt like punching her in her pretty face, but he knew he had to play this cool. He couldn't afford to fuck this up any further.

"Why didn't you stop him from coming in the library. You were supposed to give me the heads up. You could have shouted a warning? Made a noise? Something?" and had to admit he could not argue with the forthcoming answer she replied with.

"He wanted a coffee. He never gets up when I make a coffee for him. I thought he'd stay put like usual." Lisa paused. "I've got an idea. I'll call the cops and tell them he was out on the porch. I went to make him a coffee and by the time I came back he was gone. He's got a record of wandering off on his own. They won't suspect foul play to start off with. We throw the body into the river and then we come back and get the money."

James is taken aback by Lisa’s calculated cold blooded plan which makes perfect sense to him. In fact he loves it. It makes him feel a kind of kinship with her lack of empathy. Regardless, he’s still going to kill her once he has the money.

"First we transfer the money and then we dump the body" James replies.

"Okay", Lisa says. James is unsure but he thinks he hears suspicion in her voice. No matter.

""TablesTurned" is the password for his laptop”, she says. " Capital T’s, with no space between both words"

It's too easy. Too good to be true, he thinks. He could just kill her now. He has all he needs. An easy day's work. Twenty thousand large is about to be his. But best to wait till it's all transferred into his account. If he encounters any trouble with the laptop or password he’d kick himself for jumping the gun. A few more moments won't matter. Better safe than sorry.



And boy, is she going to be sorry. Sorry she picked him up three days ago when he had been hitchhiking in the winter landscape after he'd been released from prison.

James follows her back into the house. Lisa walks into the old man's study. she points at the beautiful study table adorned with ornaments from far away places and family photographs.

James sits down into the comfortable leather chair as he opens the dead man's laptop. "TablesTurned" right? With no space, correct" he says to Lisa, who watches as he types it into the laptop keyboard.

"Yes" she says.

All at once something dawns on James. He stops typing. He scans the pictures on the table. The photos are family photos. The old man and his wife, that has passed away. Others of what look to be his two sons and two daughters when they were younger. In their teens. He scans the table for other photos to confirm his sinking feeling. His eyes come to rest on a photo of the old man and just his two daughters. There is no doubt. James inhales as the realization hits him. Unmistakably Lisa stares back at him from the photograph. She is not the caregiver, but the old man's daughter.

James is about to turn around to confront her when he hears the unmistakable click of a revolver behind him.

"He was sinking more and more into dementia' Lisa says" but when he had his moments of clarity, he said it was like he had emerged from a fog. Every time he had his lucid moments is when he begged me to kill him.” Lisa shakes her head. “I couldn't do it. He's my Dad."

Lisa is close to sobbing but she regains her strength and focus.

"That's when I found out you were being released from jail. the man who killed a harmless old woman when he robbed her of her life savings. Perfect for what I had in mind. You didn't suspect a thing. You thought I just picked you up randomly hitchhiking?" she snorts. "I just had to sell you the story about the bitcoin and you were hooked"

"You weren’t distracting him. You wanted him to find me looking for his book” James whispers.

"My book! He never had a book. There was never any bitcoin stash”

"How about you let me go? I mean if you hand me in to the cops I'll tell them the whole story and you don't want that. I might be an ex con but when they start investigating..."

Lisa laughs hysterically. "You haven't figured it out yet? I might not have had the courage to kill my Dad, but an ex con who just broke into my father's house and killed him? That's another story".

Realization hits James. He needs to move fast. He swivels fast to try and smash the gun out of her hands. He's too slow, much too slow.

Outside in the snow two deer that have come close to the house are spooked as three deadly shots ring out. Panicked they sprint into the safety of the forest.