Catfishing on CatNet

by Naomi Kritzer

  LittleBrownBat: What he wants is to find me. So if he shows up, tell him I’m in Hawaii. That’s far away from all of you.

  Marvin: This is why everyone should use a VPN. He wouldn’t be able to find any of us if we were using VPNs.

  CheshireCat: Are you using a virtual private network, Marvin?

  Marvin: Well NOW I am.

  Actually that’s not true. VPNs are expensive. I’m using a proxy server.

  LittleBrownBat: My mom has us set up with a VPN. So he actually couldn’t see my IP.

  Georgia: Too bad he could see mine

  I don’t know what any of this stuff is

  I never heard of a VPN or a proxy whatever

  CheshireCat: The good news is that because so MANY people all checked out that page, he doesn’t know which city to look in. Hopefully, that’ll buy us some time.

  Firestar: Are we going to know if he goes somewhere?

  I mean if he gets on a flight to Boston tonight are you going to tell me so I can hide out?

  CheshireCat: Yes. If he buys plane tickets or rents a car, I will know. If he starts driving across country, I will know as long as he has his phone with him.

  Marvin: He could have a burner phone. Plenty of people do. Especially if they have nefarious extracurriculars like stalking and arson.

  Hermione: Where does he live?

  CheshireCat: Milpitas, California. That’s very close to where Ico lives. We’ve warned Ico.

  In the meantime, everyone should exchange phone numbers, and I will let you know the minute he does something like buy a plane ticket.

  Firestar: WHAT SHOULD WE DO IF HE COMES TO OUR HOUSE THOUGH

  LittleBrownBat: Call the police?

  Firestar: If I try to tell my parents YO! This dude is a BAD dude and also he’s after my online BFF and that’s how I know he’s a bad dude and by the way I called the cops? They’re going to think I was either looking for online hookups or trying to buy drugs.

  Hermione: Well, if they think that guy was trying to pick you up or sell you drugs, they’ll be on board with him being arrested, yeah? Think positive.

  Greenberry: My school is really strict about cell phone use. If I take my phone out in class, they’ll confiscate it and I’ll lose it for a week.

  Marvin: Will your school pass along emergency messages?

  Greenberry: One time my orthodontist appointment got canceled and they let me know.

  Marvin: So “Your orthodontist appointment has been canceled” can be code for “Evil stalker dude might be headed your way.”

  Greenberry: But what if my orthodontist appointment ACTUALLY gets canceled?

  Hermione: We could make it an ophthalmology appointment.

  Firestar: FOR SURE though, you’ll know if he flies somewhere?

  CheshireCat: I hacked his phone. When you buy a plane ticket, it sends confirmations and reminders to your phone.

  Marvin: Just going to point out again he could have a burner phone.

  Hermione: Seriously, though, if you’re heading somewhere to commit arson or murder or whatever, you don’t want to fly. Airports are full of cameras. Rental car agencies practically demand your DNA. If you drive across country you’re less likely to get caught.

  CheshireCat: And if he does take a burner phone and drive, his phone will be sitting untouched for days. That would also be very uncharacteristic for him. And driving is slow.

  It would take him 31 hours of drive time to reach LBB and Georgia, 46 hours to reach Boston, 47 hours to reach Maine, and 41 hours to reach Raleigh.

  Marvin: Yeah. My dad always insists it’ll be three days to California, and it’s always four.

  I bet Arson Dude could do it in three.

  Probably not in two unless he has an autonomous car.

  Hermione: Taking an autonomous car somewhere to commit a crime would be even stupider than flying. They log everything.

  Marvin: How sure are we that he’s smart?

  LittleBrownBat: If I’m right, he got away with kidnapping once before.

  So smart enough for that.

  Be careful.

  20

  Steph

  “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that is gorgeous,” says a girl in my English class whose name I don’t even know. “Rachel drew that for you, right? I wish I could get her to draw something for me.”

  Rachel’s drawing darkened overnight to a rich black. It really looks like a tattoo and should stay sharp and dark for at least two weeks, unless I spend a lot of time in the sun. Unlikely, this time of year.

  Other kids roll up their sleeves or pull back the collars of their T-shirts to show off their own body art: there’s a girl with a wolf picture on her shoulder and a girl with a detailed flower on the underside of her arm. They admire Rachel’s art and tell me who did theirs (not Rachel, but there are some other kids in the school who are good with ink).

  At my feet, my backpack has both my laptop and my mother’s laptop, along with our most important papers from the box of paperwork, a Suncraft Farms Breakfast Bar Variety Value Pack, and my toothbrush, just in case. Hopefully, I won’t need any of my textbooks today, because they didn’t fit.

  I try to pay attention in my classes, but my stomach is churning with fear, even though CheshireCat has promised to let us know if anything happens with my father. My father has been a threat for as long as I can remember, but never an immediate threat. I’m used to living in a constant state of mild anxiety. Actual fear is new. Ordinarily, my mother would have pulled me as soon as the news stories ran about the hacked robot. Certainly she’d have pulled me after my friends all found my father’s web page. If she’d had any idea what was going on last night, we’d be halfway to Texas right now. She’d be trailing the IV lines and bags of antibiotics and all the rest down the highway as she took us south in the van.

  Sometime during math class, it suddenly occurs to me that one of the articles mentioned in passing that my mother got kidnapped out of her bedroom while she was sleeping, and that’s probably why she wants to barricade our door every night, and I think about all the times I complained about the fire hazard and feel a wave of guilt.

  Of course, if she’d gone to the damn hospital when she first got sick, she’d probably be out by now. She’s still in there, not answering my texts, because she put it off and put it off until her appendix ruptured. Thinking about that makes me angry, which is a lot less awful than guilt.

  I run through scenarios in my head: fleeing to the yurt (seriously, a yurt?), fleeing back to Thief River Falls, fleeing to some cave in the woods. Are there any caves in the woods near here? The problem is, the thought of fleeing without my mother is too horrible to really contemplate. Especially since she’s stuck in the hospital. Easy to find. Maybe I should call the hospital and talk to them about the danger my mother is in. I try to imagine how that conversation would go. Maybe Rachel will have some ideas.

  I check my phone compulsively for texts, but there’s nothing.

  In art class, we’re all working on pastel still-life drawings when the school secretary comes in. Normally, messages are carried in by the robot, so that in itself is odd. She’s having a conversation with the teacher, and they’re looking at me. They’re looking at me with interest. They’re looking at me the way staff and teachers look at someone with an interesting story.

  My blood turns cold, and I know, without a doubt, that even if I haven’t gotten word from CheshireCat, he’s here.

  My father is here, and I need to get the hell out.

  Rachel is across the table from me, and I scoot over to show her my picture.

  HELP, I write, and draw an arrow, pointing at the secretary over by the door.

  Rachel looks at her, looks at me, and then stands up and clutches her stomach. “Oh no, I think I’m going to throw up,” she wails.

  Everyone’s staring at her, scooting chairs and snatching art projects out of her way, and I leap to my feet. “I’ll get you to the bathroom,” I say, grabbing her elbow and scooping up m
y own backpack. “I’ll get her to the bathroom,” I say to the teacher as we bolt out into the hallway, and he lets us go because no one wants to stand in the way of someone who’s about to vomit, especially if they might be the one stuck cleaning it up.

  We scoot around the corner and out of sight.

  “You’re really good at faking illness,” I say.

  “I had this never-ending case of the pukes back when I was in third grade,” she says. “It’s been years, but everyone still remembers. Let’s head to the side door and we can get to my car, okay? I haven’t heard anything from CheshireCat, and I swear I’ve been checking—”

  “Me, too. But the way the secretary was looking at me—”

  “Yeah, okay. You know what? Let’s just get out of here.”

  We sprint across the parking lot to the car, and that’s when Rachel realizes that she’s forgotten her key. It’s back in the classroom, in the bag she didn’t grab when she faked illness. The car’s not locked—no one here ever locks their car—so we can get in, but we can’t go anywhere. “Shit,” Rachel mutters. We climb in, anyway, and she sends a text to Bryony.

  “Better here than in the school,” I say, although I’m looking at the edges of the parking lot, wondering if I should go take my chances hiding … well, if the cornfields were still there, they’d make a good place to hide, but cut down post-harvest, not so much.

  Rachel pops her trunk, goes around to the back, and flips down something to open up the trunk into the back seat. “If you get in the back,” she says, “and you really need to hide, you can climb into the trunk. Or you could just climb back there right now.”

  I get into the backseat but don’t climb into the trunk, because I want to be able to keep an eye out for my father. It’s still full of my stuff from the apartment. “Do you remember what he looks like?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Rachel says.

  “Do you think you’d recognize him from the picture?”

  “Yes,” Rachel says. Her phone buzzes, and she looks at it. “Bryony says she’ll go get the key and bring it out. Also, I sent a message to CheshireCat saying I think he might be here. CC says that makes no sense and am I sure it’s him, that his phone is still in California.”

  “Unless he has a burner phone, like Marvin said.”

  “I’ll point that out.”

  “Maybe I’m just really paranoid. Like my mom.” I think about all the times mom made us move because of a “bad feeling.” But then I think back to how the secretary was looking at me. She was looking at me. I didn’t imagine that.

  Rachel’s phone buzzes.

  “Bryony says they’re really upset that no one can find you; there’s someone at the school who came looking. Jesus, Steph. You’re right. I’m sure it’s him. Who the hell else would it be?”

  “I … maybe Mom got out of the hospital?” I check my phone again for texts.

  “Someone’s coming out, Steph, get down.”

  The door to the school is swinging open. I duck down.

  “I can’t tell if it’s your father,” Rachel says. “He’s too far away. Bryony says she’s got the key; she just walked in and grabbed it while people were arguing in the art room and no one stopped her, and she’ll be out in another minute.”

  “Can’t be soon enough,” I say. My heart is pounding.

  “Shit,” Rachel says. “Get in the trunk, get in the trunk, quick, get in the trunk.”

  I’m squeezing through the gap in the backseat even as she’s talking. “Why? What’s happening?”

  “Whoever it was is driving around the parking lot. He’s still looking. Shhhh.”

  It’s dark in the trunk, and really cramped, and I suppose it should not have come as a surprise that there’s a lot of random stuff in here, all of which is jabbing me. There’s also a glow-in-the-dark handle that says PULL HERE IF TRAPPED TO OPEN TRUNK, that is apparently a safety feature for kidnap victims. I definitely do not want to pull this handle. That would not be in my interests at the moment.

  I’m lying on what feels like a crowbar, and I squirm around enough to get a grip on it. At least that’s some sort of weapon, if I need it, although I’m in a really bad position to use any sort of weapon right now.

  “Yeah?” Rachel says. “You want something?”

  “Are you Rachel Adams?” a voice asks. He has to shout because Rachel’s windows are rolled up. Hopefully he’ll assume she’s keeping them rolled up because she’s hiding pot smoke.

  “No,” she says in a sort of sarcastic, who-are-you-to-ask-me tone.

  “Do you know a girl named Stephanie?”

  “The new kid? I know who she is.”

  “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “Nope.”

  It occurs to me that when Bryony comes out, she might say, “Hey, Rachel,” or in some other way give away the game here. I tighten my grip on the crowbar and try to figure out a way that I could pull the release and jump out of the trunk really quickly so he doesn’t see me coming. Since my leg is in the process of going to sleep, I am not optimistic about my chances. I try to shift position without making noise, since “What the hell is in your trunk?” is not a question I want Rachel to have to answer.

  “Is there something in your trunk?” he asks. Shit.

  “Yeah,” Rachel says. “I have a live raccoon in a cage that my friends and I are going to use for target practice later.”

  I can almost feel him staring at the trunk, wondering if she’s telling the truth or … what.

  “Are you new?” Rachel asks. “Like, shouldn’t you have a badge or something if you’re a staff member?”

  “Oh, I’m not a staff member, I—”

  “Well, then, I’m not talking to you,” she says.

  “I’m Stephanie’s father, and I’m trying to find her because her noncustodial mother kidnapped her ten years ago, and I have reason to believe she’s here.”

  Rachel goes silent for a minute and then says, “Hey, Bryony! Hop in.” And then she changes her voice to a syrupy mean-girl tone and says, “Yeah, good luck with your search, mister; I’m sure if you just stick with it you’ll find her one of these days,” and then I hear the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard in my life, which is the car engine starting.

  “Um,” Bryony says, “why am I going joyriding with you, and what the hell was that all about? Also, where is Steph?”

  I squirm out of the trunk again. “Hi.”

  Rachel glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Sorry for bringing Bryony into this, but we really couldn’t leave her with Mr. Psychopath.”

  “No, I agree.”

  “Also, stay down; I’m pretty sure he’s getting back in his car to follow us.”

  “What?” Bryony says, sounding sort of plaintive. “How did I stumble into an episode of Fast Girls Detective Agency, and can you just drop me off at my house?”

  “No,” Rachel says. “We can’t risk him catching you. He’s following us. Little black car. It’s going to be really hard to lose him in a town this small.”

  I need to let the Clowder know. Rachel passes me her phone and I pull up the Clowder app, but the road is bumpy and my hands are shaking and “my dad is here” comes out as “N7 ddddaf id bgeeet.” I close the app and call Hermione, instead.

  “Hello?” Her voice doesn’t sound like I’d imagined it, and I realize after a beat that this is because in my head, she always sounded British. Obviously she doesn’t sound British; she’s from Maine.

  “This is Little Brown Bat,” I say. “So, my Dad’s here. Here. Like, in New Coburg. I’m in a car with Rachel, I mean Georgia, and with this other girl from my school, and he’s following us. Can you please let CheshireCat know that they were wrong about where Michael was?”

  “On it,” Hermione says and hangs up.

  My phone rings about thirty seconds later, and I’m really hoping it’s my mother, but it isn’t.

  Instead, it’s a totally creepy robot voice, much less human-sounding than the sex ed robo
t. “Hello, Steph,” the voice says, “This is CheshireCat. I’m sorry to call you on the phone, but I assume Georgia is driving.”

  “Good guess.”

  “I am trying to track your location, along with Michael’s, but I’m having some trouble. Can you tell me exactly where you are?”

  I pop my head up enough to catch an address and relay it.

  “Yes. Thank you. Can you describe the car he’s driving?”

  “It’s black. New. Like, a car sort of car, not a truck or a van or whatever. I don’t know what kind it is.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can you tell the hospital here and warn them to keep my mother safe?”

  “Yes. I will do that. I am very good at multitasking. I am also examining options for disabling Michael’s car.”

  “Someone please tell me what’s going on?” Bryony shrieks, and I say, “I need to go,” and hang up.

  “My mom moves me all the time because my dad is a violent psychopath,” I say. “He hired people to kidnap her and cut off one of her fingers, and I’m pretty sure he had one of her coworkers killed. She tries to keep him from figuring out where we are, but I screwed it up.”

  Bryony looks simultaneously horrified and skeptical. I wonder if I should have just told the arson story, because finger amputation is a much weirder crime than burning someone’s house down.

  “What’s with the code names?” Bryony asks.

  “Those are just screen names,” Rachel says. “From an online chat thingie. I’m Georgia, she’s Little Brown Bat.”

  “And the phone call?”

  “That was from my friend the hacker,” I say.

  “Uhhhh.”

  “You wanted to know, so now you know,” I say. “Where do you want us to drop you off?”

  “Nowhere the psycho dude’s going to find me!”

  “I’m going to Marshfield,” Rachel announces. “Because New Coburg is officially too small to lose someone who’s following you.”

  “Do you have enough gas?” Bryony asks.

  “Yes, I have enough gas.” Rachel looks at me in the rearview mirror. “I actually filled up this morning just in case.”