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  “Probably something nasty about me.”

  “No,” Mandy said. “It didn’t have anything to do with you.”

  Mandy had hoped that Jacob would give her a lift to Laurel’s before sweeping Drew off on their date. Though early in the evening, it was already dark, and she didn’t want to walk alone. Drew’s father wasn’t home, and her brothers had already gone out for the evening, so she had her digits crossed for Jacob. But when he arrived, she saw it wasn’t going to happen. Jacob had borrowed his dad’s convertible, a sweet little black BMW roadster. No back seat. Only room for two. She supposed Drew could sit on her lap, but that was a less-than-glamorous way to kick off a first date.

  The three of them chatted briefly, and again, feeling like an older sister, Mandy hugged Drew and sent her off. Her friend grinned nervously in the passenger seat when Jacob gunned the engine and sped away.

  Alone on the walk in front of Drew’s house, Mandy hugged herself and looked around the neighborhood. Lights burned behind all of the windows. People wandered through living rooms and dining rooms. For most, it was suppertime. Not late at all.

  CUL8R

  Mandy stepped off the walk, crossed the street, and headed to Laurel’s. A sense of being watched lay over her like a shawl, but she knew it was just lingering paranoia. The Witchman was long gone, probably in Mexico by now, or lying low in some shack three states over. Still, Mandy walked a little faster, checking every yard and sidewalk. She didn’t really think about the direction she was going.

  It wasn’t until she approached the library property that Mandy even remembered it was on her way. But the moment she saw the trees rise up, separating Drew’s housing development from the one where she and Laurel lived, Mandy’s pulse began to race.

  That’s where the Witchman took Nicki. Those trees were the last nice things Nicki ever saw.

  She was totally butchered.

  Mandy crossed the road to put distance between herself and the library. Though the far side of the street was lined with shrubs and another stand of trees, she didn’t care. She was more worried about being too close to the place where Nicki died.

  Walking quickly, head down, ears peeled for any sounds, she pulled her cell phone from her jacket. She’d call Laurel. A familiar voice would help. That way, Mandy wouldn’t feel so alone.

  She dialed, put the phone to her ear, and looked up to see that she was alone on the walk. Across the street, she saw the library. The sight of it chilled her. A cone of light from the floods under its eaves spilled over the edge of the parking lot into the tall brown weeds at the side of the building. This was the same view she’d seen on the news.

  Come on, Laurel, pick up.

  The phone rang twice and a hiss of static filled her ear. “Laurel?” she asked. The static rippled like someone crumpling a paper bag, pausing, then crumpling again. “Laurel. It’s me, Mandy. Laurel?”

  “This isn’t Laurel,” a rasping voice said. Whoever was on the line sounded old.

  He also sounded amused. Behind his voice, that crunching, crumpling sound grew faint and then burst forward, nearly deafening her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said into the phone. Her speed dial must have glitched, and she got the wrong number. “Good-bye.”

  “See you later,” the man said. The word was followed by what sounded like a cough. Or a laugh. Then the static erupted and the line went dead.

  CUL8R

  Mandy looked at the phone, terrified. Her heart thumped hard in her chest. Behind her, in the brush that ran beside the sidewalk, a twig snapped. Branches rustled.

  She ran. At first she sprinted down the sidewalk, but her fear intensified. Someone could leap out of the bushes, drag her in. Oh God. Checking for traffic ahead and behind her, Mandy ran into the middle of the road. In her mind, terrible things happened: the Witchman shot out of the brush, his stooped form moving with inhuman speed to catch her; he appeared as if by magic in the road ahead of her, one long finger pointing at her chest before he raced forward and lifted her from the street; he threw her over his shoulder, carrying her screaming to his special place behind the library, where he would…

  Cut her open…. She was totally butchered.

  Mandy let out a cry of fear and ran faster, trying to keep the Witchman out of her head. But it didn’t work. With every step, his beaklike nose, his pointed chin, his wild eyes were with her. The fear of his outstretched fingers reaching for her back made her charge desperately down the street.

  The familiar houses of her development, aglow with lights, fell in around her. She slowed her pace, caught her breath. A couple, chatting quietly, walked their dog on the sidewalk ahead. Behind the walls and windows of the homes, men, women, boys, and girls sat down to dinner. TVs showed syndicated reruns of popular sitcoms and the national evening news. Eight blocks away, her mother would just be getting home from work.

  It was still early, but for Mandy it felt very late.

  Laurel held the slice of double cheese pizza in front of her mouth and looked at Mandy like she’d just said, “I want to work the drive-through window at Meaties.” Laurel put down the slice and wiped at her lips with a finger as if she’d actually taken a bite. “You’re trippin’,” Laurel said. “I didn’t text-mess you.”

  They sat in the kitchen of Laurel’s house with a large pizza that had arrived two minutes after Mandy. Mandy didn’t want any. She was still scared, and the fear tied a knot in her stomach, twisted it up tight so she couldn’t even think about eating. She could barely get sips of iced tea through the tension in her throat. She was so upset, and all she wanted was some kind of rational explanation. The message must have come from Laurel.

  “That’s not funny, L.”

  “And I’m not joking, M.”

  “I called here.”

  “But the phone didn’t ring. Look, when have I ever been down with practical jokes? That was Naughty Nic’s bag, not mine. Yeah, I get my giggle on bustin’ some chops, but I don’t play the mind screw.”

  “Then who sent that message?”

  “Uh, Dale?”

  “No,” Mandy said. “The more I think about it, the more I’m sure he didn’t do it. Hiding his ID like that would be too complicated for him. Even asking Matthew to do it would be too much effort.”

  “What about your new boy, Kyle?”

  “I didn’t even know Kyle the night of Nicki’s vigil.”

  “Doesn’t mean he didn’t know you.”

  “Oh, come on,” Mandy said. “That’s ridiculous. Why would he?”

  Laurel shrugged and retrieved her pizza from the plate. She took a bite and pulled back, cheese stretching like suspension wires between her mouth and the slice. She washed the bite down with a swig of her iced tea and leaned back in the chair.

  “Your problem is, you’re too rational,” Laurel said. “You expect everyone else to act rationally. But that’s not how people are. They want to be, and they can explain every weird-ass thing they do, but that doesn’t make them rational. Even psychos got reasons. It’s that method-to-the-madness thing. 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.”

  Mandy tried to think of an argument, but everything she considered struck her as overly rational. Laurel was making sense.

  “And let’s not forget,” Laurel continued, “people say ‘see you later’ all the time. Now, I can see why you got the creeps in you. I won’t go anywhere near that library myself these days, but it’s not exactly a death threat, you know?”

  “It was that voice, though,” Mandy said. “When I thought I was calling you. The guy’s voice.”

  “Old people are scary,” Laurel said.

  Mandy laughed.

  “It’s not that he was old. He just sounded, I don’t know…He sounded wrong, but I can’t really describe it. It seems kind of st
upid now. Maybe it was just being by the library that scared me.”

  “Let’s talk about it upstairs,” Laurel said. “Dad is floating around in the living room, and I don’t need him finding something new to freak over. He’d probably make me drive a tank to school or something.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, eat. Or I’ll put this fine cheesiness away by myself, and my skin so doesn’t need that.”

  Before going up to Laurel’s room, Mandy picked at a single slice of pizza. Her appetite didn’t return, and the whole thing seemed to be annoying the hell out of Laurel. In her room, with Mandy sitting on the bed, Laurel went to her computer and killed the screen saver. Her wallpaper, a field of bright yellow sunflowers, burst across the monitor.

  “The first thing to do,” Laurel said, “is forget about that phone call. We both know that nobody can jack into a line like that, unless they’re FBI or magic or something. The signal got mixed up, and you called a wrong number. Unfortunately, you got some old dude with Satan’s voice who says ‘see you later’ instead of ‘bye.’”

  “I know,” Mandy said. But part of her didn’t know. At the time, she’d immediately connected the wrong-sounding old man with the earlier message. It was hard to sever that connection now, no matter what Laurel said.

  “So, that really only leaves the text messages.” Laurel typed while she spoke. “And, I think I have an answer to that. When we were talking downstairs, I remembered something. Here, come read.”

  Mandy walked across the room and leaned over Laurel’s shoulder to look at the screen. Her friend had loaded a news page from a tech site with the headline Cell Phones New Frontier for Hackers. She read the first two paragraphs, which described a series of cell-phone specific viruses.

  “Does it say anything about receiving blind messages like I have?”

  “No,” Laurel said. “But they only talk about a few of the service problems people have with these. See, a hacker doesn’t know anything about you, but he’s groovin’ on knowing that he’s messin’ with your life and everybody else’s. It’s like I was sayin’.”

  Mandy read another paragraph of the article, but every third word was tech slang that she didn’t understand, so she gave up. She’d take Laurel’s word for it. After all, it made perfect sense. Neither of the messages, when taken out of context, was threatening in the least. One was just hahaha, and the other CUL8R, one of the most common phrases she’d come across. She used it herself.

  “God,” Mandy said. “What jerks.”

  “True enough,” Laurel agreed. “But before you call customer service, let’s check out one more thing.”

  “Okay. What?”

  “Kyle.”

  MC9010025: Missed u lst night

  Kylenevers: Sorry. Parents dragged me out.:—( What’s up?

  MC9010025: At a friend’s 2night. Saw u online.

  Kylenevers: It’s my life LOL

  MC9010025: LOL. Can’t chat long. She’ll be back in a minute.

  Mandy turned to Laurel with a smile and winked. Laurel nudged her with a shoulder.

  Kylenevers: b home l8r?

  MC9010025: Probably stay here

  Kylenevers: Oh. Drag. Hoping we could chat.

  “Ask him,” Laurel said.

  “Check your meds. I’m going to.”

  MC9010025: Me too. Hey! Friends and I are getting together at Corey’s that restaurant by the mall tomorrow. U should come.

  Mandy felt Laurel’s arm snake around her neck as her friend leaned in close to read Kyle’s reply. Mandy waited anxiously, but it was taking Kyle a long time to answer.

  “He’s going to bail,” Laurel said. “Boy has got glitches.”

  “Just wait. Let’s see what he says.”

  Kylenevers: Ugh. Can’t…

  “What did I say?” Laurel asked, tapping Mandy’s shoulder.

  Kylenevers: Remember my brunch last Sun?

  MC9010025: Sure

  Kylenevers: Got an early acceptance to Stanford. Have a campus tour on Wed and a meeting with counselor on Thurs. My parents are making a vacation out of it. Ugh. LOL. I just found out we’re leaving Mon morning, so my weekend is kind of screwed. What about next weekend? By then, I’ll need to recharge. Sat night?

  MC9010025: k. Sounds good.

  Kylenevers: Awesome. It’s a date.

  MC9010025: Kewl. Chat l8r. Friend coming back. TTFN

  Kylenevers: BFN

  “Doesn’t mean anything,” Laurel said defensively. “He’s got all week to bail on you.”

  Oddly enough, Mandy was thinking the exact same thing.

  9

  The next morning, Mandy sat at a gleaming white table across from Drew. Most of the dread of the previous evening had faded, and Mandy felt a sense of calm sitting with her friend. They were in Corey’s, the restaurant Mandy mentioned to Kyle the night before. Corey’s was a modern diner with a floor tiled in black marble and high-tech light fixtures that looked like little Chinese hats. The place reminded Mandy of her own house, all slick and polished. As a result, she didn’t usually like Corey’s much, but this was where her friends gathered to drink coffee, gossip, and as was now the case, download information.

  “We had the best time,” Drew said, sounding like it was the most unexpected thing to ever happen. “He’s just so cool, and did you see his car?”

  Mandy was going to remind Drew that the BMW belonged to Jacob’s father, but decided to let her friend enjoy the fantasy. “Yes. How cool was that?”

  “I know. My God. Everyone was looking at us. I couldn’t believe it. It was like a fairy tale.”

  As Drew spilled out the details of her date—the restaurant where they had dinner, the movie they saw, the coffee place they went to afterward—she emphasized the story with broad hand gestures and enough Gods to fill a sermon. Mandy looked at her friend with a smile. Nodded her head. And though she was trying to listen, keeping her ears alert for key words and pauses that required a response, her mind wandered. She remembered her dates with Dale: how he’d taken her to home-coming, even though he was sick with the flu; how they took turns picking films to watch, whether on DVD or at the movies; the way he held her just tightly enough when they kissed. She wondered if she would have these kinds of memories with Kyle, and she suddenly thought she would not. He was lines of text on a computer screen. He wasn’t real yet, might never be real.

  It occurred to Mandy then that Kyle might simply be a rebound. He was funny and seemed nice, and he was certainly good-looking, but if she was spending so much time thinking about Dale and their wonderful times together, she had to believe that she missed him. And how could she miss someone she didn’t want or like?

  Mandy made herself stop thinking about that. It was silly. Sure, she had a good time with Dale, but that didn’t mean he was right for her. A lot of good traits didn’t mean there weren’t bad ones. She was just confused about Kyle. Last night, Laurel made a big deal about him having glitches. She spent most of the night talking about it. Sure, a lot of it was joking, but her concerns and warnings sank in. Besides, hearing all of the romantic details of Drew’s date was bound to kick up fond memories.

  “And when he kissed me good night,” Drew said, “I could barely stay on my feet. I almost fainted. I swear.”

  “That sounds amazing,” Mandy told her. “When’s he supposed to call again?”

  “He already did,” Drew said, her cheeks bursting with blush. “This morning, just before I left. We’re going to meet at the mall later and look at CD players. Jacob needs a new system for his room.”

  Mandy was about to offer another exclamation of joy for her friend, but the door to the restaurant opened and a familiar face appeared in the lobby. “Crap,” she said.

  Dale stood in front of the hostess stand, looking around the restaurant as if searching for friends. When he spotted Mandy, he went rigid and looked at the floor.

  “What?” Drew asked. “You don’t think I should go?”

  Drew was so caught up
in her new romance that she was oblivious to everything else. Mandy looked into her coffee cup, hoping her hair would cover most of her face.

  “Dale’s here,” she whispered.

  “Let’s leave,” Drew said, all but panicked.

  “Check your meds,” Mandy told her. She straightened up, feeling silly for having tried to hide. “I’m not going to let him run my life.”

  Upon finishing this defiant statement, she glanced back at the lobby. Dale was halfway to their table, looking right at her. Maybe bailing wasn’t such a bad idea.

  “Hey, Drew,” he said when he reached the table.

  “Hi, Dale.”

  “Mandy.”

  “Dale.”

  She clutched her coffee mug between her hands, trying to keep them from shaking. Butterflies went full-on hyperdrive in her stomach. She searched for her cool, but couldn’t find it. Having him standing so close just freaked her. And it didn’t help that he was wearing the sky-colored sweater Mandy gave him for Christmas.

  “How’re you doing?” Dale asked.

  “Fine,” Mandy said.

  “Do you think we could talk?” he asked.

  “I have to go!” Drew announced too loudly, already retrieving her bag and standing from the booth. “I have to meet Jacob. He’s buying a new stereo for his room, and he really wants me to help him pick it out. You know how guys are. So…okay…bye.”

  Amazed, Mandy stared at her escaping friend. How could you? Mandy wanted to ask. Drew looked back at her with an expression of wide-eyed desperation. Not knowing how to handle the situation, Drew chose to get away from it, as fast as her little traitorous legs would take her.

  “She’s dating Lurie?” Dale asked, taking the recently vacated space in the booth. “That makes sense.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Mandy asked.

  “Nothing,” Dale said, lifting Drew’s abandoned coffee and sipping from the mug. “Jacob’s cool. Drew is cool. It makes sense.”

  That’s not what he meant, Mandy thought. He was probably going to say something nasty, but knew it would piss her off even more than she already was, which would be quite an accomplishment, considering how she felt.