Lurker

caller ID to make sure Dale wasn’t getting his stalker on and saw that the name was blocked. Not Dale. His name came through bright and shiny whenever he called.

“Girl, where are you?” Laurel asked before Mandy finished saying hello.

“I’m at home, where we’re all supposed to be. Where are you?”

“I’m in the chat with, like, everyone.”

Of course, Mandy thought. That was why her mailbox wasn’t choking on e-mails. Everyone she knew was logged in to one of the school chat rooms. There were two: one that was actually moderated by school staff, and one that was independent of the Lake Crest website, which was the best place to learn about parties and anything else parents and teachers weren’t supposed to know about.

“Official or un?” Mandy asked.

“Please,” Laurel said. “Only bottom-feeders use the official site. Now log on. Is Drew with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, slide your butts to the screen. I’ve never seen this place bangin’ so hard.”

And Laurel was right. More than thirty kids had logged in to the room. Mandy told Drew to slide the bench at the end of her bed over so she could see. Once she had, they both scanned the user-names and found they recognized all of them.

“Jacob’s signed on,” Drew said, all but gushing the name of the boy she’d been crushing on for the last two years.

“Still needing that pill,” Mandy said, bumping Drew with her shoulder.

“What are they saying?”

The truth was, Mandy couldn’t tell. Lines of text were rolling up the screen so fast she couldn’t keep up with it all. She saw variations of Nicolette’s name—Nicki and Naughty Nic—and words like murdered, stabbed, shotgun, but just as her eyes would lock on to a line, it was gone.

“It’s like they just want to get it all out,” Mandy said. “They don’t care if anyone can read it or not.”

“Say hi to Jacob.”

“Not.”

“What did that line say? Something about her being raped? Oh God. She was raped!”

“They don’t know, Drew. Calm down. None of us knows anything yet.”

An IM window opened on the screen; it was from Laurel.

Laurel2good4u: Do I speak truth or what?

MC9010025: This is crzy

Laurel2good4u: Best Beleev. U going 2 vigil 2nite

MC9010025: ???

Laurel2good4u: Candlelight vigil 4 Nic. Elmwood Park. 7

“I’m not going out in the dark,” Drew exclaimed right into Mandy’s ear. “Are they crazy? Why don’t they just hand us over to the guy with a chainsaw and say ‘Happy birthday, Chucky’?”

“There are going to be a billion people there, Drew.”

MC9010025: R U?

Laurel2good4u: Y. But dad’s taggin. Meet by fountain?

MC9010025: Y

Laurel2good4u: Kewl. TTFN dads freakin AGAIN. I’m out

MC9010025: TTFN

Mandy closed the window, returning her attention to the rolling lines of text filling the chat room. She decided to scroll to the top and read what had come in since signing on; she’d never be able to keep up with the new comments. But as she read through, she discovered that her first feeling had been right. Her friends were just venting. They shared their fondest memories about Nicolette.

She kissed me on the nose and said “Nope, no prince.”

She told my mom that donuts were pure carbs, and when Mom said she had a fast metabolism, N said that apparently her metabolism hadn’t let her ass in on that information.

She designed fliers for me when my cat got lost.

She danced with me at the junior prom.

She walked me home when that a**hole Joe dumped me.

She always smiled.

I really, really, really miss her already.

Scattered among these reminiscences were speculations about Nicki’s fate. Only now, no one believed the cause of her death was accidental.

And of course, amid all of the fond memories and the wondering were fear and anger. If I catch that SOB, I’m going to tear his head off. They ought to open him up and fill him with scorpions, drag behind my car, needles in his eyes, baseball bat to the nuts. Over two dozen variations on these could be found, though it was unanimously agreed that anything they could come up with was “too good for the bastard.”

“Oh God, look what Jacob said.”

Mandy scrolled back, looking for Jacob Lurie’s screen handle and the message beside it. When she found it, she groaned and shook her head.

I’d pound his face.

“He would too,” Drew assured her.

“Jacob weighs like fifty pounds.”

“He’s wiry.”

“In this case wiry means toast.” Mandy ignored Drew’s whining protest. “There’s nothing here. They’re all just guessing.”

A new IM window opened. Mandy’s heart clenched when she saw Dale’s username. Very aware of Drew’s presence at her back, Mandy kept it cool. Neither Drew nor Dale needed to know how upset she was.

DaleLineBacker90: R U OK? Worried about U

“I bet,” Mandy said. Part of her wanted to write, U seemed more worried about other girls last night. Or maybe something simple like Whatever. Instead, she just closed the window.

“You should answer him,” Drew said. “We’re all pretty freaked.”

“So?” Mandy asked.

“I just thought…” Drew let the sentence die on her lips.

“Let me recap,” Mandy said. “The dumbass was flirting with some girl in a chat room. He invited her to his house to watch DVDs, and he didn’t even bother closing the IM window so I wouldn’t see it. So, he is either astronomically stupid or he let me see it to be mean. Neither of these things is high on my list of coolicious boyfriend traits. Now he thinks that I’m going to let him talk me out of dumping him because something terrible happened, and that brings us right back to astronomically stupid.”

“Okay,” Drew said. “God. Who needs a pill now?”

“Everyone,” Mandy said in frustration. “They can hand them out at the vigil tonight.”

“Are you really going?”

“Yes,” she said. “And you should too. Nicki was one of us.”

“They’ll have a funeral,” Drew said quietly.

“It’s not the same. The funeral is to say good-bye. This is to show how much she meant to us.”

Drew nodded, her eyes now soft with understanding. Then, she pointed a finger at the computer screen over Mandy’s shoulder.

Mandy turned to find another IM window open. No tone had sounded to alert her, or at least she hadn’t heard one, but there was the window. At first she figured it was just Dale with another stupid message, but she quickly saw that the screen handle was not familiar.

Kylenevers: Hey

“Who the hell is this?” Mandy said aloud.

Drew pushed in close to look over her shoulder. “Somebody named Kyle?”

“Well, that clears everything up,” Mandy said. “Do you know him?”