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  The last call logged to her cell phone came from Laurel that morning. No other incoming calls, or outgoing calls—not even her 911 call was listed.

  “This isn’t possible,” Mandy said. She turned to Dale, who stood by the desk. “When I tried to call the police, he was on the line.”

  “You gave him your cell phone number?” Dale asked. “I thought you said you guys never talked on the phone?”

  “We didn’t. I never gave him the number. I don’t know how he got it.”

  She could tell by his expression that Dale didn’t believe her. Though it hurt, she was more worried about finding something solid she could take to the police. The only thing left was the picture. She sat in the chair at her desk, powered up her computer, nervously gnawing her thumbnail. Dale stood glowering over her.

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of stupid to start up a conversation with some guy right after Nicki got killed? I mean, you never know who you’re chatting with.”

  “I know. That’s why I made him send me a very specific picture of himself, so I’d know it was just taken and not a phony.”

  “Where’s the picture?”

  “I’ll show you as soon as this thing comes on.”

  It took forever—the screen glowed and icons began popping up, but it all seemed to be happening very slowly. When it finally loaded, Mandy guided her cursor to the file with Kyle’s picture and clicked. She was horrified when the window opened.

  “God, Mandy,” Dale said, the anger clear in his voice. “What the hell were you thinking? The guy looks forty years old.”

  Mandy stared at the picture, wondering if she was losing her mind. Dale was right; the man in the photograph did look forty years old, nothing like the boy who once saluted her. The man still saluted, but now his face sagged. Wrinkles scored his eyes and mouth. His nose was larger. Where Kyle’s neatly brushed blond hair was, now sprouted tufts nearly gray. His embarrassed expression had also hardened, and now he looked amused but cruel. In his hand, he still held somethin g, but it no longer resembled a hairbrush, just a black smudge, like thick smoke, hovering over something with a sharp, silver edge.

  “I don’t believe this,” Dale said. “Was being with me so bad you had to go chasing Grandpa Munster?”

  Mandy shouted, “He didn’t look like this! The picture is changing!”

  “Yeah,” Dale said. “That happens all the time.”

  “Dammit, Dale. I’m not lying. Drew and Laurel both saw this just last week. They’ll tell you he didn’t look like this.”

  “Look, whatever,” he said. “The guy threatened you. Let’s call the cops and get this over with.”

  But what was Mandy going to tell them? It all seemed so impossible: no cell phone record; no instant message; her computer shutting down on its own; a picture of a guy her father’s age, someone she had no business chatting with in the first place. Who was going to believe her? They’d think she deserved what was happening to her for being so stupid.

  She knew she had to call the police, but the ache in her stomach kicked painfully, assuring her that the next few hours were going to be miserable.

  13

  Mandy sat in her desk chair and looked up at Officer Romero, who stood straight-backed, wearing an expression that revealed no discernible emotion. Dale waited downstairs at the request of the police officer, leaving Mandy attempting to explain a series of bizarre events that revolved around a boy named Kyle.

  “That picture,” Officer Romero said. “Did it come attached to an e-mail?”

  “Yes,” Mandy said, with a sudden rush of relief. The e-mail. She’d forgotten about it completely. That would be some kind of proof, some real connection to Kyle. It would help them find him; they could trace something like that.

  She searched her mail folders, plugged in the e-mail address as she remembered it, but came up with nothing. It had to be there. She must have remembered the addy wrong. Instead of trying another search, she scrolled through her saved mail. Nothing.

  “Wait, I wrote back to him,” she said feeling insecure under the intense eyes of Officer Romero. But a thorough search of her sent mail uncovered nothing. Notes to Drew and Laurel and a dozen other people, but nothing to Kyle.

  “This can’t be,” she whispered. “I swear I’m telling you the truth.”

  Officer Romero nodded her head. Her face softened. “Calm down, Mandy. We have the username you gave us. I’m going to take down the e-mail address as you remember it. It’s possible he gained access to your mail service. If he already had your screen name, it would just be an issue of working out your password. We’ll check with the provider. Even if he managed to get in and erase his tracks, they’ll have a record.”

  “Thank you,” Mandy said, relieved. “I thought I was going crazy.”

  “You’re not crazy,” Officer Romero said. “And I don’t want you to upset yourself. I think what we have here is a hack trying to scare you.”

  “But he mentioned Nicki.”

  “I know. It’s mean and it’s sick, but it would be highly unlikely for the real perpetrator to admit to the crime, not when you have everything we need to trace him.”

  “And you didn’t find anything on Nicki’s computer?” Mandy asked. “I mean, what if she was in touch with this guy?”

  “Unlikely,” Officer Romero said. “It’s procedure to run cell phone and Internet records. Everything of Nicolette’s checked out. I’m not saying that we won’t treat this like a real threat or a real crime, because it is. I’m just telling you not to upset yourself too much. That doesn’t mean you should take any chances. I wouldn’t walk anywhere on your own, and make sure you’re with friends if you’re out in the evenings. Also, this guy may try to contact you again. If he does, log the time and what was said and call me immediately.”

  “I will. But, Officer Romero, I still don’t understand what’s happening with the picture. It keeps changing. Is it some kind of program that just looks like a jpeg file?”

  “Maybe. I’m not a computer wiz, so I don’t know how all of these things work. I’ll need you to print out a copy of the image for me, though. Let’s also send the file to my e-mail and I’ll have one of our tech guys examine it.”

  Mandy reached across her desk and pushed the button, turning on her printer. Then, she looked at the image of Kyle, now a middle-aged man, and felt the familiar, cold fingers of fear on her neck and spine. She sent the image to print, then closed the file. After she had e-mailed the image to Romero’s office addy, Mandy pulled the printed image from the tray.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  In the middle of the white sheet of paper was a black square with a narrow gray line down the center. No Kyle, young or old, no hairbrush, no room appeared at all.

  “I don’t understand,” Mandy said.

  “That makes two of us,” said Officer Romero.

  After Officer Romero left, Mandy turned off her cell phone. She signed off the Internet, then shut her computer down completely. Once, these devices had represented a connection to her friends, an invisible thread to keep them together no matter how many miles separated them. They were gateways to the world and its people, conversation, and fun. Now they scared her, because among the welcomed and known people in her life was Kyle, unwelcome and unknown. As she severed the pathways Kyle used to find her, Dale hovered at her shoulder, standing like a bodyguard. Finally, Mandy’s mother came home. Then her father. Dale told her he had to get home for dinner.

  At the door, after kissing her good night, he said, “I’ll come by later. We’d better just stay in tonight.” Mandy nodded her head and kissed him again.

  Over dinner, Mandy explained her situation to her parents, told them about Kyle and Officer Romero’s visit. Her father looked at her like she’d just told him she was pregnant. Her mother, always intent on being so understanding, dropped her fork on the plate and leaned on the table, resting her chin on her hands.

  “And when were you going to tell us about this boy?” Mr
s. Collins asked angrily.

  “We haven’t even met. We were just chatting. It was no big deal.”

  “Apparently, it was,” her mother said. “The police were here. You didn’t even bother to tell us you’d broken up with Dale.”

  “So?” Mandy asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Her mother shot a quick glance at her father, who had said little up to that point. His sturdy round face wore an expression of disappointment and disgust, and Mrs. Collins gave him the floor.

  “Mandy,” he said, scratching the day’s growth of stubble on his chin. “If we don’t know what’s going on in your life, we can’t really do our jobs. I’d say we’ve given you plenty of room. We don’t ask a lot of questions or make a lot of rules. But that’s going to have to change now.”

  “Dad,” Mandy said. “Dale and I are supposed to…”

  “I’m speaking,” he warned, his voice low and controlled. “You’re nearly an adult. Pretty soon, you’ll be out on your own making a lot of the same mistakes your mother and I did when we were your age. But until then, it is our job to protect you, which means knowing what’s going on in your life. After dinner, I want you to run up and get me your cell phone. I’m going to have to change the number anyway, apparently. You’ll get it back in two weeks. Until then, you’re grounded.”

  “Dad!” Mandy said. “You can’t punish me for being a victim.”

  “You’re not a victim, and we aren’t going to let you be one,” her mother said, nearly in tears. “We are not going to go through what Nicolette’s parents went through. We are not going to wait while the police search for your body. We are not going to stand up on a stage and cry our hearts out because we were so afraid our little girl would hate us that we didn’t protect her. I don’t want you on that cell phone, and I don’t want you online.”

  “So, I’m just supposed to ignore my friends for two weeks?”

  “They can visit you here,” her father said. “You can use the house phone. That’s it.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “After dinner, I’m going to call Officer Romero and see if there are any other precautions we should be taking. I’m pretty pissed off she didn’t bother to call us. Also, if you have a picture of this man, we want to see it.”

  “…and, it’s like I already turned the phone off and shut the computer down,” Mandy told Laurel over the clunky plastic phone her dad installed in her room. “I’m not stupid, but God, to forbid me from going online for two weeks? I’ll have like a billion e-mails.”

  “Don’t tell my dad, or we’ll both be land-locked.”

  “They’d better catch this ass.”

  “Did he really say he was going to cut you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he mentioned Nicki?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you better do what you’re told,” Laurel said. “And I’m thinking that after my target practice tomorrow, I ought to swing by your place with a present.”

  “The gun?”

  “That’s right.”

  “No way,” Mandy said. “I don’t even know how to work one.”

  “It’s easy. You shoot the fast thing into the slow thing.”

  “Uh…no. Thanks. My dad’s already been climbing up Officer Romero’s butt, so now we have a police car cruising our block.”

  “Are they hotties?”

  “Laurel!”

  “I’m just playin’. Look, five-oh has this guy’s stats. These days, it takes like two minutes to trace that kind of info. It’s probably just some clown with a tiny unit looking for giggles, but you just don’t know, right? I’m not usually down with parental guidance. This time, I say let ’em lead. Lie low. It’ll probably all be over tomorrow.”

  “I hope so.”

  14

  Mandy didn’t sleep well. How could she? As she lay in bed, her mind was filled with rambling voices and frightening lines of text.

  What if I want 2 hurt u?…When I slice open your belly and stick my hands inside, I’m sure you’ll feel very warm. Nicki didn’t think so either, but I think it’s hilarious. Hahaha…CUL8R.

  She pictured the Witchman, threats spilling from his thin lips like a black cloud. His cackling laugh cut through her mind. Kyle appeared, looking older and cruel, saluting her with a palm stretched over wild animal eyes. Every car that rolled down the street, every rustle of bush and whisper of wind outside was Kyle coming for her. A board creaked in the hallway, and Mandy’s heart leaped into her throat before she heard her mother’s voice, speaking quietly to her father. When sleep came, she dreamed of the terrible wooded place where the Witchman stalked her and kids sat at misty computers, typing, always typing. Then he was in her room. He crouched like a gargoyle on the end of her bed, his black coat pooling over her comforter like a bloodstain. Motionless, he hunched on the covers with his beaklike nose and his pointed chin. His eyes were as narrow as slits.

  Mandy thought she woke up then, but the monitor of her computer glowed like a ghostly window. It must be part of the dream. It had to be. Mandy squeezed her eyes closed in terror. When she opened them again, the screen was dark.

  She was awake when the dawn came. Grim light filtered through her bedroom window, which suddenly reminded her of a giant computer screen. Groggy, she rolled over and stared at the nightstand, the clunky phone atop it.

  CUL8R

  Mandy began to cry. The tears came out of nowhere, scaring her with their intensity. She felt totally cut off and alone. She covered her face and let the tears come, let the stinging tears burn her eyes and cheeks. This wasn’t real. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “I didn’t do anything,” she whimpered into her palms. Then something Laurel said pounded loudly in her head.

  Now, you think someone is playing you, and you figure it’s got to be someone that has a reason to be playin’. I’m just sayin’ that some folks don’t need a reason. Some folks get their giggle on just knowin’ you’re scared, whether they know you or not.

  Life couldn’t be that random, Mandy thought. It just couldn’t. If it were, then she would never be safe, not truly safe. And again, Laurel’s words were there to knock away her protest with a harsh philosophy, one directed at Drew during Nicki’s candlelight vigil.

  Psychos aren’t interested in morality plays. They hunt and they slice and it’s usually the innocent that take the blade…. And if you think being all innocent and sweet is gonna protect you from anything, then take a good look around, because the next one of these is yours.

  “No, it’s not,” Mandy said, sniffling loudly. She took her hands from her eyes, wiped the tears away. She wasn’t going to be just another victim, another yearbook photo for the nightly news anchor to pretend to care about. Determined to protect herself, Mandy scrubbed the remainder of her tears away and sat up in the bed.

  Across the room, her monitor glowed. Suddenly, icons began to pop up on her wallpaper.

  “Oh God,” she whispered before running from the room.

  Mandy sat with a cup of coffee, her back to the only wall in the kitchen that didn’t have windows. When she heard her parents walking down the stairs, she lifted the knife from the table and returned it to the holder on the counter. She thought of the gun Laurel had offered, wishing she’d said yes, but knew the knife would have to do for now. She’d sneak it upstairs later once her parents were busy. Her parents greeted her with sleepy “mornings” and poured themselves coffee. They didn’t look as angry. In fact, their expressions were soft and understanding. They took turns kissing her on the cheek.

  “Sleep okay?” her father asked.

  “Yes,” she lied.

  “You look like you were up all night,” her mother said.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “I’m allowed to be worried. Did you really sleep?”

  “I’m fine, mom.”

  At ten-thirty, Officer Romero called. She didn’t have good news.

  “The file you sent me crashe
d my system,” she said. “Our support people are going through it now, but they think there was a virus attached to the picture. It might have infected your e-mail, which is how this guy was able to access your files.”

  “What about the username and e-mail address?” Mandy asked.

  “Nothing yet, but it’s the weekend. Nobody moves very fast. I’m sure we’ll have something soon. How are you holding up?”

  Mandy looked around the kitchen to make sure her parents weren’t near and said, “I’m scared.”

  “It’s okay to be scared,” Officer Romero told her. “But the more I think about this, the more I believe we just have a geek with a sick sense of humor.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Mandy said.

  “We’ll keep a car in your neighborhood. You hang in there.”

  “Thank you. I will.”

  Mandy hung up the phone. She stared at it, expecting it to ring, expecting Kyle to be on the other end taunting her. When that didn’t happen, she pulled the big kitchen knife from the holder, held it close to her side, so she could hide it if her parents surprised her in the hall, then went up to her room.

  She stepped inside, her eyes immediately drawn to the monitor. The swirls and lines of her screen saver played over the screen. Leaving her door open, Mandy went to the bed and slid the knife under her pillow.

  At her computer, she killed the screen saver and looked at Kyle’s picture file. What do you look like now? she wondered, her hand hovering over the mouse.

  He was even older. His hair now completely white and jutting from his head in wisps like the fluff of a cotton ball. The nose was bigger, the wrinkles deeper. A virus, she thought. An advanced program masked as a jpeg.

  She wanted to delete the image, just double click it into oblivion, but Mandy knew she couldn’t. Officer Romero might need her to send it again, or else the police might send computer experts to examine her system. It was the only real evidence they had.

  In an act of defiance, refusing to completely give in to her fear, Mandy left the image open. It would remind her to be scared, remind her to be careful.