Lurker

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?” Mrs. 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.”