Usernames mysticpoet, williamblake and bitdefender all had an IP address in Romania; vampirekiss had an IP address in the Lake Como area of Italy. I needed to ask Luke to find out where the IP address was for vampirelove. I decided that purple lines would represent anything iffy, meaning something that looked like a strong connection, but hadn’t been proven yet. I drew a purple line between vampirekiss and vampirelove. I started wondering if maybe mysticpoet was also the same person as those two, since mysticpoet had an IP address in Romania when posting on The Tiger’s Den, and someone going by that exact same username mentioned how cool it would be to visit Romania on The Flying Saucer. I also had a feeling that studentwithdreams was a fourth username for that same person. In other words vampirekiss = vampirelove = mysticpoet = studentwithdreams. It made so much sense. The discussion on cruise ships was started by studentwithdreams; then the very next comment is from vampirelove who specifically mentions Italy. The conversation veers off onto the Twilight series because vampirelove mentioned that and people got all caught up with it. Then mysticpoet brings the conversation back to Italy and specifically mentions Lake Como. It was like the whole reason for starting a Discussion about cruises was to throw clues out there for newspaper reporters to figure out. After all, we’d found Annie that way. Maybe Misty or someone else who’s trying to help her knew that. Everything looked so different through the focus of a decoder lens. I just needed to ask Luke if a person going by the same username could have an IP address in two different countries. If not, I needed to erase some of my purple lines.
When I was done, I showed everything to Kai. Her first reaction was: “That looks like one of those multi-colored balls of wool where the color changes every few inches.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I looked at her blankly. I was so tired.
She said, “For knitting. Haven’t you ever seen anyone knit multi-colored sweaters with those kinds of balls of wool?”
I realized I didn’t know even one person who knits. I said, “No...”
She said, “Look it up on the Internet.”
I typed in: “multi-colored balls of wool.” The results all looked like different color balls of wool stuffed inside each other. Kind of like the turducken of the wool industry.
Kai said, “Try ‘multi-colored threads of wool.’” That worked. We found one picture. It was pretty. I’d totally love a sweater made out of that.
But that didn’t seem like it had anything to do with solving crimes. Oh, look, I’m wearing my crime-solving sweater. Unless, of course, it had superpowers like Leotard Girl’s red tights.
I said, “So, you’re not impressed?”
Kai said, “Actually, it kinda reminds me of the way detectives work on crime shows, except they use a bulletin board. They tack up pictures of suspects and victims and draw lines that show important connections between them, and they stick different color pins into places on a map related to the crime. As people are cleared as suspects, their pictures are removed until, voilà, one suspect remains.”
I said, “Oh. Thanks. Can I show you the details, see what you think?”
Kai said, “Sure. I need a break from homework, anyway.”
As I explained everything in the diagram, Kai became more and more serious. Her eyebrows knitted together and her mouth tensed. When I finished, she said, “I have an empath’s instincts. And I’ve got chills. I’m sure you’re on to something.”
I decided I should text everyone on our newspaper team. I asked them if we could meet, the sooner the better, because I had something important I wanted to share. Of course, practically everyone replied with: what’s that? ... but there was no way I was going to explain it on my cell phone. After seeing how quickly Luke had uncovered IP addresses, I felt all paranoid about someone tapping into my cell phone. I just replied: its something i need 2 share in person.
We decided to meet the next day. It was Sunday, so there wasn’t any school. Everyone just assumed I wanted to meet at my house. I replied: would be best if we had access 2 luke’s tech. can we meet at ur house, luke? That was all very true. I needed him to check IP addresses and work his tech voodoo on his computer.
He agreed. And Lin and Moonjava offered to drive everyone over.
I looked up from my phone and said, “Kai, do you want to come with me to a meeting about everything happening on the forum? Since you’re helping monitor the forums, you should meet everyone else and hear the information we discuss.”
She looked surprised, and maybe overwhelmed. I realized she was still in mourning.
I said, “We really need your help, Kai. Your empath skills could be extremely important in separating false leads from real ones. Please...”
Kai agreed. She wanted to help.
The next day, we all went over to Luke’s. I thought back to our old team that had found Annie: just Kailee, George and me, with help from Gabriella and eventually the police. This time, we had a much bigger team: Starshine, Violet Skye, Moonjava, Wolf Song, Luke, Jane, Mark, Gail, Felix, Lin and me at Hidden Lakes; and we had Kailee, George and Chloe from Central High. Plus Kai was joining us and Gabriella was helping out. Truth be told, we needed a much bigger team. We were trying to rescue someone most likely taken to Romania. Gabriella was contacting the police; but they could only do so much, as they don’t have jurisdiction in other countries.
When we got to Luke’s, his mom was outside watering a vegetable garden. She had one patch of tomatoes and beans and leafy greens surrounded by wire and, outside of that, dry desert dirt and scrubby brush as far as the eye could see. Along the house, rose bushes scrambled up the front wall of the main shack. There were a couple of old trees bent by the wind. Everything else was dirt. I admired her determination in coaxing plants out of their seeds under those conditions. You’d half expect them to just roll over and go back to sleep, telling her, “Ten more minutes. Just ten more minutes. Or better yet, wake me up when the rain starts.”
As we drove up, she put her hands over her eyes to shield them from the sun. As soon as she realized who we were, she went back to tending her garden. She turned once to say, “Go ahead on in. Luke’s inside. Make yourselves comfortable.”
My heart leapt into my throat at the idea of facing that barking dog without her intervention. I fell to the back of our group. Not that I was throwing my friends to the wolves, so to speak. I just figured that whoever volunteered to go inside first probably had some idea what to do with dogs. I’d probably just panic, the dog would smell fear and we’d all be in trouble.
Thankfully, my instincts were correct.
As we opened the door, the dog went nuts, flying into the front hallway and barking up a storm. Apparently, to those who understood dog, he was all bark and no bite. Wolf Song, Moonjava, Felix, Gail and Lin all went immediately into some kind of dog-baby-talk mode, saying things like, “Oh, who’s just the cutest dog in the whole world?” and “Who’s a good guard dog?” Rusty responded enthusiastically, leaping up on everyone in a playful way, drooling and panting.
No thanks. I headed down the hallway to Luke’s room. Kai followed.
While everyone else played with Rusty, I opened up my laptop and showed Luke my diagram. I explained to him the connections I was seeing.
He said, “Uh-huh ... Uh-huh ... Uh-huh,” then asked if I could send it to him. He scribbled his email address on a piece of paper and said, “Just send it here.”
I sent it. He got lost in his computer.
When everyone else came into the room, I introduced Kai to everyone who hadn’t met her and explained that she was homeschooled and helping monitor the forums while I was at school. Everyone seemed happy to have her on board. Next, I explained that I’d found some disturbing connections when I took a closer look at both The Tiger’s Den and The Flying Saucer.
Luke hit a button on a printer and handed out copies to everyone. He said, “I’m pretty sure Shade is on to something.”
I asked him if he thought mysticpoet was the same person
on both forums and, if so, could they be posting from both Italy and Romania.
He said, “Yes, absolutely. Several ways. Number one, people with computer savvy who are trying to hide something often go through IP addresses in a different country in order to hide their location. Someone like Misty who’s been kidnapped and being held against her will wouldn’t have the means to do that, even if she knew how to do it. Now, she could be getting help from someone else ... but who? Also, it’s very possible that she’s being taken to different countries to serve as a slave and somehow has access to the Internet. It’s a mystery right now, but I bet there’s an explanation that would solve the whole thing. Unfortunately, we probably won’t know that explanation until we find her. But IP addresses are still a place to start.”
Luke turned away from his computer. He looked at me with an intensity that focused all my attention on him and made me feel a bit intimidated. He said, “Shade, I think we need to use you as bait.”
OK, seriously, I did not like the sound of that. My mind screamed out: No way, no how! Another part of my brain said: You want to find Misty, don’t you? My mouth said, “What do you mean?”
Luke replied, “I think you should join the discussion, maybe on both forums. I’d start with The Flying Saucer, since you’re an administrator there.”
I interrupted him. It just slipped out. “Actually, I’m kind of an administrator on both forums. They never revoked my privileges at my old school...”
Luke sort of smiled. He doesn’t really do smiles, but the corners of his lips went up enough for me to get the general impression of a smile. He said, “Even better! I think you should start by replying to mysticpoet on The Flying Saucer. Leave a coded message. I don’t know, maybe say you have a friend who went on vacation some place in Romania and you can’t wait for them to return home. Say that you and everyone at school misses them. Say that their parents took them on an extended vacation at the beginning of the school year and that’s the worst possible time for a teenager to be away from school.” He thought for a moment, then added, “You have a username that just includes your real name plus Administrator, right?”
Luke seemed so calm, so sure of himself. I felt like a nervous wreck. I said, “Yeah, I have the username, Administrator Shade. It’s the same on both forums, actually. We basically modeled our school’s forum on my old one.”
Luke said, “Good. Use that. If mysticpoet is Misty trying to get someone from home to notice her, she’ll reply to you if she can. You’ll probably get a Private Message from her. Make sure you check those.”
I said, “I already wrote an open message on the forum about Misty having been kidnapped and taken to Romania, though. I mean there’s already a message out there.”
Luke said, “Yeah, but that message was designed to catch the attention of the kidnapping ring. Misty may be too frightened to act on that one. If she’s sending a coded message and you reply in the same way, chances are she’ll feel safer and more like you’re actually on her side.”
I said, “That makes sense. OK, I get it.”
When I turned around, everyone was staring at me. They’d all been listening.
Luke addressed everyone else. “Follow all of Shade’s interactions on the forum, OK? Join in on her conversations with mysticpoet whenever it seems appropriate. Don’t pile on, though. We don’t want to scare off mysticpoet if they’re in a dangerous situation and trying to remain undercover.”
I said, “I can post a comment right now, if you’d like.”
Luke said, “Sure.” Dressed all in black as he usually was, he reminded me of a monk. My mind went off on a tangent as it usually does when I’m nervous and amped up on adrenalin. I pictured him wearing a monk’s hood and dangling Rosary beads between his fingers. That image reminded me of Kai swinging the blue amulet. I vowed to keep the amulet with me at all times as we went through this dangerous rescue mission. I shouldn’t have left it at home.
I said, “OK. Give me time.” Going off to the far side of the room, I leaned against Luke’s mattress and got into Word to create the message I’d post. I tapped on keys, fumbled stuff a whole bunch of times, corrected mistakes, erased the whole thing, tried again. Finally, I came up with this:
mysticpoet – I’d love to visit places in the Twilight series. I actually have a friend who’s somewhere in Romania right now. Her parents took her on vacation there. I don’t think she’s too happy about it because it’s the beginning of the school year—not a great time to be out of school, right?
It was such a simple message, I couldn’t believe it took me half an hour to write it; but I actually wrote four messages, including a really long one that included a section on Twilight, that I erased before settling on the final post.
I emailed the message to everyone in the room. They all liked it. So, up it went onto The Flying Saucer. The words, Take me to your leader, popped into my head. I was definitely nervous.
We waited about half an hour to see if I’d get a reply or a private message. Nothing.
Luke finally said, “Well, it was worth a try. It could take a while to get a response, especially if Misty’s being guarded. We should all keep checking the forum. Shade, why don’t you text us the minute you hear anything! And we should all contact Shade and then the rest of the group if we see a reply before she does. Kai, can you check both forums while we’re at school and let us know the minute you see anything?”
Kai seemed pleased to be included. She said, “Sure. Absolutely.”
On the ride back home, we all chatted a mile a minute about possible Discussion topics we could post with coded messages, as well as how many would be too many. We didn’t want to scare Misty off if she was reaching out but afraid for her life.
When Kai and I got back to my place, I decided I should contact Gabriella. First, I fished the amulet out of my jacket pocket and put it on.
Kai said, “That looks nice on you. You should wear it more often.”
I pointed out how expensive-looking the gem was and said I planned to wear it under my shirt whenever I went outside to prevent getting mugged.
Kai said, “Well, yeah, there is that. Smart choice.”
Holding onto the gem with one hand, I told Kai I was going to get in touch with Gabriella. I explained exactly who Gabriella was and what role she’d played in solving the case of the missing girls and finding Annie.
Kai’s face lit up. She said, “Oh, wow, an empath. That’s probably how she works—empath intuition. It’s like intuition on steroids.”
I’d never thought of it that way.
I called Gabriella. Thank goodness, she answered right away. She said, “Shade, I was just going to call you. I had a feeling you needed to talk to me.”
I looked over at Kai. She was lying down on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling.
I said, “Gabriella, I’d like to do a video chat, so I can show you some things on the Internet more easily while we talk. Is that OK with you?”
Gabriella agreed. When her image popped up onto the screen, I was flooded with warm memories of her house and how welcome she’d made us all feel.
Sitting in the huge living room chair that dwarfed her, she had a laptop resting on the arm. Her crystal ball sat on its silver stand on the table next to her. I could see the magnificent wooden mantle into which had been carved the faces of wizards with their awesomely crazy hats and the coffee table with its elaborate scenes of mythical creatures. Before I could even say hi, her calico cat, Fury, jumped up onto her keyboard.
Gabriella laughed. She said, “Excuse me a second.”
As she moved her laptop over to the coffee table, we gained a sweeping image of the living room. Flickering candles threw light and shadow over the walls and floor and the ceiling made of polished logs. I remembered feeling as though I’d entered a dimension slightly removed from our own when I’d been there.
Gabriella picked Fury up and moved her over to the couch. Then she grabbed her laptop and returned to her chair as
Fury began grooming her gorgeous calico fur. She said, “Hello, Shade! I’m so happy to see you! How are you, my dear?”
I said, “Well, OK. I’m living in a trailer park in Roswell now, but I’ve made some good friends—mostly at school, but also in the trailer park. And I’ve managed to modernize the school newspaper and forum at my new school which has been awesome. How are you doing?”
Gabriella said, “I’m doing OK. Solving crimes and trying to behave myself.” Wearing a bright orange dress, she had a neon-pink scarf imprinted with black skull bones tied around her gray hair. She didn’t seem the type to behave herself.
I explained everything we’d uncovered in both forums. I said, “Gabriella, can you take a close look at the forums and let me know what you think, especially when combined with the photos of that guy at the mall that you took to the police?”
She said, “Sure. Can I have some time to study them and get back to you?”
I said, “Of course.”
Then Gabriella asked, “Who’s with you there?”
I felt bad that I hadn’t thought to introduce Kai. I tried to make up for it by introducing her as my best friend from the trailer park. Then I felt bad again. I meant my best friend who lives in the trailer park; but I think it came out sounding more like I have another best friend, although Kai’s the best among my friends in the trailer park. Since she’s the only friend I have in the trailer park, that wouldn’t be much of a compliment.
Kai didn’t seem to notice. She took the laptop from me and said hello to Gabriella.
Never one for small talk, Gabriella inquired, “Has anyone ever read your aura, Kai?”
Kai replied, “No. How does that work?”
Gabriella said, “All living things give off a magnetic energy field. They’re different colors depending on the nature of the person—or other living thing—and psychics like me can see that.”
Kai said, “OK.”
Gabriella explained, “Your aura is silver and pink, but clouded by brown and there are strands of black in it.”
Shade and the Skinwalkers Page 21
