she’d posted and left her a message. His name was Dean, and in the thumbnail photo, his face was mostly in shadow. Very mysterious.
She opened the mail.
HEY. SEE YOU’RE IN THE VALLEY. WHAT SCHOOL DO YOU GO TO? I’M IN BURBANK.
Burbank! Sally Ann, Kimberly’s sister’s best friend, used to date a guy from Burbank. He was very cool, with his own car.
She clicked on Dean’s name and his MySpace page opened up. He went to Burbank High. She was hoping for more photos of him, but he had only posted the one. His page looked a lot like hers: under construction, with very little information on it yet.
The little green flashing icon said that he was online right now.
Kimberly felt her heart beat faster. Should she talk to him? Right after she’d told her mother she would only talk to people she knew? But what was the harm? This was just another kid.
A kid from Burbank.
But what if it wasn’t a kid?
She’d know — of course she’d know. She’d know just by the way he wrote his messages. Adults could never sound like kids — they were way too old even to know what kids were thinking about, let alone how they talked to each other.
She clicked Instant Message on Dean’s page and typed: HEY, DEAN. IT’S KIMBERLY. I GO TO DAILY HIGH IN GLENDALE.
His message came back only a few seconds later.
KIMBERLY! HEY, GLENDALE ISN’T SO FAR AWAY. WHAT KIND OF MUSIC DO YOU LIKE?
Kimberly adjusted her chair and thought for a few moments before responding. She had to be cool. What was the coolest music she could mention?
Within moments their messages were flying back and forth as quickly as if they were talking to each other on the telephone. Dean was funny and nice, and it wasn’t long before all thoughts of dinner and setting the table were far, far away.
• • •
The soft sound of the computer’s beep reached the listening ears first, then echoed through the room, quickly dying away. But even before the sound deserted the ears, the legs and feet swiveled the chair around so the eyes could see the monitor.
SEARCH COMPLETED
FIVE MATCHES FOUND
The heart beat faster.
A single finger clicked on the mouse, and a window opened on the screen. Five small photographs appeared.
Five women, all young.
The arm moved; the finger clicked twice on each of the first four pictures. One by one each was expanded to fill the screen.
One by one the eyes scrutinized the pictures.
One by one, the mind rejected them and the finger on the mouse reduced them to their original tiny size.
Perhaps the parameters were incorrect.
Then the finger clicked the mouse twice more and the last photograph expanded.
The skin tingled with excitement.
This last one looked exactly right. The photograph showed the face in profile.
Young. Fresh. And with a perfectly shaped ear.
The heart beat faster.
The finger tapped again, enlarging the photograph further, for an even closer examination and detailed, professional analysis.
Yes! This was the one.
The finger tapped faster, enlarging the photograph again and again until the ear filled the entire screen.
A fingertip reached out and gently traced the shell-like contours of the girl’s pale pink ear.
Even the girl’s lobe — the most variable part of the ear — was a perfect match.
Perfect…all of it perfect.
The tongue licked the parched lips.
The fingers went back to work on the mouse.
The photograph was reduced to its normal size. A few more twitches on the mouse, and its source became clear.
The program had located the photograph on a MySpace page.
Perfect.
The finger tapped on the mouse once more, and the arm moved slightly so the mouse highlighted a single word on the screen.
SAVE
The first piece of the puzzle had been found, but there was still more to be done — much more.
Now the fingers abandoned the mouse to fly over the keyboard.
A new set of instructions was entered into the search program.
Centimeters, millimeters, geometric ratios, color scale.
The fingers moved back to the mouse.
The arm moved the mouse itself so the arrow on the screen hovered over a button at the bottom of the screen:
EXECUTE SEARCH
The finger clicked one last time, sending the program’s spider out to crawl the World Wide Web, searching inexorably for a perfect match to the precise parameters requested.
It would take time, but when the spider had found its prey, it would beep an alert.
For now, though, there were other things to do.
Preparations to be made.
