Catfishing on CatNet

by Naomi Kritzer

  We careen down the highway at what feels like twice the speed limit. “Look,” Bryony says, “if you just let me out somewhere, then you can call the police, right?”

  “I’m pretty sure the cops hate both of us, Bryony!”

  “They only hate you when you are with me!”

  “I’m pretty sure the young cop hated me, too,” I say.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rachel says, “because we can’t let you out. Steph’s dad is too close, he’ll see us dropping you, and we’re not leaving you for him. And we’re not getting you in trouble with the cops, either.”

  “So I don’t mean to make this awkward, but what exactly is our plan here?”

  “I told you. I’m driving to Marshfield.”

  “And then what? Are we going to lose him by circling the Walmart?”

  “There are at least traffic lights there, right? Streets that have corners? Police officers that are slightly less evil?”

  “You know about the time my mom got pulled over in Marshfield for supposedly running a red, right?”

  I sneak another peek out the back window; he’s still following us. I reach back into the trunk, grab the crowbar, and pull it into the backseat.

  My phone rings. I answer, and CheshireCat’s creepy robot voice says, “Hello, is this Steph?”

  “Yes,” I say. “We’re on the road to Marshfield. He’s still behind us.”

  “When you get to Marshfield, head toward the university. I will create a traffic disruption that should delay him and not you.”

  “How exactly is this going to work? I mean, if you get a bunch of people out into the street, won’t they just slow us down?”

  “If I am right, they will be focused on Michael.”

  “If you’re wrong, you’ll trap us with him!”

  “I have a plan B if it’s needed. You haven’t told Rachel to head toward the university area. Please do that.”

  I pull the phone away from my ear. “Rachel, CC wants you to go toward the Marshfield campus. They’re going to try to use the students to keep Michael away from us.”

  “How is that even going to work?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How is your plan even going to work?” Bryony shrieks.

  “Okay, fine,” Rachel says. “I’ll head to the university, but does CC know there are only about six hundred students there? If they’re picturing something like the UW–Madison, well, the whole town is less than twenty thousand people.”

  “You probably should have headed toward Eau Claire,” Bryony mutters.

  “Back when we first left New Coburg would have been the time to suggest that,” Rachel says.

  “Who is this CC person?”

  “The hacker,” I say.

  “What even is this site where you met all these people? How come you didn’t tell me about it? You never tell me about anything anymore,” Bryony says to Rachel.

  “I only just signed up for it,” Rachel says. “And how is it somehow my fault we don’t talk? You’re the one who ditched me for her boyfriend for basically the entire summer.”

  I cannot believe that I am in a car chase, listening to Rachel and Bryony fight.

  “I think we’re heading to the university,” I tell CheshireCat.

  “Who is the third person in the car?” CheshireCat asks.

  “It’s Bryony. One of my friends from school. Rachel forgot her car keys and Bryony brought them out, but Michael was already there so we told her to jump in; we didn’t want him doing anything bad to her. Can you send Bryony an invite to CatNet?”

  “What is her email address?” CheshireCat asks, and I pull my phone away from my ear to ask for Bryony’s email.

  Bryony spells it out for me and then turns back to Rachel and says, “Anyway, you’ve been blowing me off these last few weeks to flirt with your girlfriend.”

  “Steph isn’t my girlfriend.”

  “You gave her art! You invited her over! You haven’t wanted to use henna on me in almost a year unless it’s my birthday or something, and you haven’t had me over to your house since we were twelve!”

  “Yeah. That’s right. I haven’t.”

  The car goes dead silent for a minute, and then Bryony says, “Oh. Oh.”

  “Yeah,” Rachel says.

  I check behind us, but he’s not gaining, just … keeping pace with us. It gives me the bad feeling that he also has a plan.

  “Look,” Bryony says. “I was twelve and I was an idiot and I’m sorry.”

  “You can’t exactly blame me for being nervous about having you over after that.”

  “No. I guess not.” Bryony looks back at the car behind us and adds, “But you know, it was because you told everyone that I only washed my hair once every two weeks.”

  “Was that a secret? You didn’t act like that was some sort of secret.”

  “Well, I did after you told everyone. Because one of the other girls started claiming my hair smelled bad because I didn’t wash it often enough. My hair did not smell bad, and it’s actually really bad to wash natural black hair too often.”

  Rachel shoots her a wide-eyed look. “I had no idea. I don’t remember this! I mean, I remember wanting to know about this in that stupid welcome-to-puberty class when the teacher told us that we should wash our hair every day or every other day, but…”

  “Do you remember her answer?” Bryony says.

  Rachel shakes her head.

  “She said, ‘Good hygiene is the same whether you’re white, black, brown, or purple! And you’ll smell just as much if you don’t wash properly whether you have straight, curly, kinky, or frizzy hair!’”

  “Oh my God,” I mutter from the back seat.

  “Jesus,” Rachel says. “I’m really sorry.” She pauses. “I was eleven, though. Eleven, and I was an idiot, and I’m sorry.”

  “I get it,” Bryony says. “Can I come over sometime, though?”

  “Maybe not right this minute?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Bryony peers over her shoulder. “He’s not gaining,” she says. “Just following.”

  “I’d noticed,” Rachel mutters.

  It’s still farmland on one side of the car, but on the other side there are houses. We follow a set of residential streets that curve around to the U.

  The university looks more like a nice high school: a single big building surrounded by parking lots. But there are students clustered on the sides of the road—quite a few, actually, and although they let us go by, there’s then a big shout and someone pulls a truck across the road to block Michael from passing, and it looks like someone else is hemming him in from the other end. They don’t look like they think they’re stopping someone terrifying and dangerous; they look … celebratory.

  “Okay,” I say to CheshireCat, still on the other end of the line on my phone. “Explain.”

  “There is a contest related to a reality show. They think trapping him will get them a whole lot of money.”

  “How long do you think they’ll hold on to him?”

  “Probably only a few minutes.”

  “Well, we can lose him,” Rachel says. “At least temporarily.”

  “Should we head back to New Coburg?” Bryony asks.

  The problem with heading back to New Coburg is that he will just come back and find me there again. “Maybe I should go to the yurt,” I say.

  “The what?” Bryony says.

  “My parents have a friend with a yurt on Madeline Island,” Rachel says.

  “Can you even get to Madeline Island this time of year?” Bryony asks. “When the ice is too thin to drive on but too thick for the ferry?”

  “I think there’s a way,” Rachel starts to say, but then breaks off and shushes Bryony when Bryony starts talking about the Madeline Island ferry. “Is that a siren?”

  I turn to look out the back again. “Crap,” I say. It’s a police car, coming up behind us.

  “Do you want me to try to outrun it?” Rachel asks.

  “The actua
l police? No, absolutely not,” I say.

  The cop walks up alongside the car. In Rachel’s rearview, I see the black car pull out from a side street and pull up behind us. “Okay,” I say to CheshireCat. “The car’s still after us, and we just got pulled over by the police.”

  My father meets the police officer as he’s walking, shakes his hand, and starts talking to him. He gestures at Rachel’s car. The officer is listening, nodding sympathetically, his arms folded. Whatever it is my father is telling him, he’s going to believe him, just like the school staff did.

  And Rachel’s here. And Bryony.

  “What happened when your mom got stopped here for supposedly running a red light?” I ask Bryony, since she hadn’t told us that part earlier.

  “The police officer called her the N-word,” she says. “She filed a complaint, but no one did anything.”

  I look at the cop and my father, who are having a jolly conversation, and think about what’s going to happen next. And how much I don’t want Rachel to get hurt, or Bryony, and how neither of them would be in this position if it weren’t for me. Especially Bryony. This person had my mother kidnapped out of her bedroom, and now he’s come all the way from California to find us, and the thing that is the most terrifying is the thought of what could happen if he’s allowed anywhere near the only real-life friends I have.

  And suddenly it’s very clear what I can do.

  “He only wants me,” I say.

  “Wait,” Rachel says. “Wait, Steph!”

  But I get out of the car and swing the door shut behind me. I don’t want him knowing about CheshireCat, so I hang up the phone.

  I walk toward the cop and my father. “Steph, come back!” Rachel shouts out the window, but she doesn’t get out of the car to come after me. The police officer looks at me, and I can’t read his expression enough to know if it’s pity or contempt or irritation or something else.

  “Okay, Stephania,” my father says. “Game’s over. Your friends can go on home; get in my car.”

  I turn to the police officer. “This man is a violent stalker, and he’s driving a stolen car.”

  He laughs and turns to my father. “You didn’t lie when you said she’d go straight for something big!”

  “You should arrest me,” I say, suddenly inspired, and then I pause, trying to think of a crime that I could have done without implicating Bryony and Rachel. “I tried to burn down my house.”

  “I’ll let your father handle that,” he says, and he walks away, waving Rachel on with an amiable “you can go now” gesture. Rachel pulls away—slowly—I can see her reluctance. The cop gets back into his car, makes a quick U-turn, and heads in the opposite direction.

  And then we’re alone. Me and my father.

  I try to force myself to look into his face. My relief that Rachel and Bryony are out of the way is ebbing, and fear is seeping in. I’ve spent my whole life running from this person, and now I’m out of ideas of where to run to.

  “Stephania,” he says, and he hesitantly opens his arms, like he thinks I’m going to run to him with a hug. He stands there like that for a few seconds as I stare at him. Does he really think I’m going to run to him? Is this just a performance? Even if I thought he was telling the truth here, I wouldn’t want to hug him. He finally drops his arms awkwardly. “I don’t know what your mother told you, but all I want—all I have ever wanted—is to see you again.”

  His voice is husky with emotion, and I think about how he manipulates everyone he meets and I don’t move.

  “I’m not getting in your car,” I say.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “We’re going to get in the car, go back to my hotel in Eau Claire, where we will go out for a nice dinner and get reacquainted. I don’t care about your mother. I only care about having you back in my life.”

  His voice is less husky now and more soothing, and for a moment, I imagine dinner at a restaurant. Looking at pictures on his phone of his life in California. No, I think. You may win over every adult you meet, but you will not convince me to trust you. My throat is closing up, thinking about my mother—why am I thinking about my mother?—and my hands clench into fists. “I’m not getting in your car,” I say.

  “I can understand your fear,” he says. “You’ve been with a paranoid, angry woman for years, and she moved you, didn’t she? She constantly moved you. You never had a chance to settle in, find support that wasn’t your mother, hear anyone else’s version of whether your life made sense. Of course you’re afraid of me. I have never harmed your mother, and I will never hurt you.”

  I want to believe it.

  And CheshireCat was totally wrong about whether Michael was still in California. What if they’re wrong about the finger? What if that other person really did orchestrate the kidnapping? How much do I trust CheshireCat?

  “I’m not getting in your car,” I say again.

  “Do you remember me at all?” he asks. “Hold on, let me show you a picture.” He gets something out of his pocket and hands it out. I don’t move forward to take it, so he holds it up, so I can see it. It’s a picture of a chubby-cheeked baby in the lap of a man with a beard—him, I guess, and probably me. Presumably me. “You were four, when your mother took you, so you were old enough that you might remember me a little. I used to make you peach smoothies for breakfast every morning and call them milkshakes. Do you remember the milkshakes?”

  I don’t. I don’t remember anything.

  “Your doctor was worried that you weren’t gaining weight like a toddler should. I made you a milkshake every morning. Whole-milk yogurt and frozen peaches. They were delicious, actually, I had some every morning, too.”

  I didn’t remember, but I knew what a peach smoothie would taste like. Made with yogurt. That summer with Julie, we’d had a blender in our apartment, and Mom had made peach smoothies for me and Julie.

  “I read you Goodnight Moon every night.”

  Suddenly, I do remember something. The story. A goodnight kiss. Being tucked into a bed with a sort of a gauze curtain that hung down from the ceiling, which kept monsters out.

  “I remember that,” I say.

  I can see his breath quicken a little. “Come on, Stephania,” he says, like he’s urging a skittish animal. “If you don’t want to go all the way to Eau Claire, we can go get a milkshake right now. Or a sundae or something. There’s got to be somewhere nearby that sells ice cream, right? And we can talk about what else you remember and what you want to do next.”

  The other thing I remember is monsters.

  I remember believing there was a monster in my house. An actual monster, because some nights I heard my mother weeping. That’s why I needed the curtain to protect me. Because I lived with a monster.

  I lived with a monster.

  I didn’t know what I was hearing at the time, but now I do: I was hearing the same thing CheshireCat heard. I was hearing my father hurting my mother.

  My father steps toward me. I fall back a step. There are a few houses nearby, on the same side of the street that we’re on. I don’t see anyone watching, but maybe people in Marshfield don’t lock their doors. Maybe I could bolt into one and lock him out? He moves in, and I fall back another step. Something in his face has shifted. Did I give myself away? Did he see in my face what I remembered?

  “Get in the car,” he says, and his voice has gone from soothing to furious. I’m shaking from tension and fear; looking into his face, I’m quite sure he’s willing to hurt me.

  “No,” I say, and I take another step back.

  “Get in the car,” my father says.

  “No. I’m not getting in. Leave me alone.” I fall back another step, putting someone’s decorative mailbox on a post between us. Can I get to the door? Can I get into the house? Will it matter if I get inside?

  My father falls back a step, so the car is between him and the houses, shoves his hand in his pocket, and pulls out a gun. He’s got it in his hand, resting against his hip; he’s not
pointing it at me, but my body goes cold and I freeze. I can’t walk. I can’t scream. Bolting into the nearest house is no longer an option because I’m not sure my legs will even hold me up if I try.

  “You have nothing to fear from me,” he says, “if you get in the car.”

  In the distance, I can hear a car coming. Is it Rachel and Bryony coming back? The engine sounds loud, like they’re gunning it. I hope they don’t get pulled over by the cops.

  A small red convertible barrels around the corner. The top is down, and I look to see if Rachel is behind the wheel, even though this is a ridiculous thing to hope for.

  There’s no driver.

  There’s a loud bang as my father fires his gun at the car, at the driver who isn’t there, and the car plows into him. He bounces up and slides, sprawling, across the hood as the car plows through a big overhanging bush, through the yard, and out of sight.

  Another car pulls up next to me. This one’s Rachel. “Get in, get in, get in!” Rachel shrieks.

  My legs are still frozen in place, but I manage to unstick myself and collapse into the backseat. The next street over, we hear a crash, like the red car has driven straight into something large.

  We get the hell out of Marshfield.

  21

  AI

  Michael Quinn is in New Coburg, Hermione said. My first response was denial—how was this even possible when he was definitely in California less than twenty-four hours ago?—and I had to force myself to shift my focus from analysis of where I went wrong in my prior assumptions and onto how to solve the real problem. Michael Quinn had found Steph, he was in New Coburg, and he was a clear and present danger to her, to her mother, and probably to Rachel and anyone else nearby.

  He was following them, so I started by trying to get a fix on their location. New Coburg did not have an abundance of surveillance cameras, but there were at least a few around local businesses. There was also one trained on the high school parking lot, and I was able to identify a black car on its way out. It didn’t have California plates; it had Iowa plates. It was registered to another person who was not Michael Quinn or connected with him in any obvious way. Did he steal it? Did he buy it? Had I even identified the right car?