A call patch appeared in her infield, its source the string of
Clair turned to face Zep.
“He’s back.”
“Who?”
“The creep . . . stalker, whatever he is.”
“What are you going to do? Are you going to talk to him?”
“He’s the only lead we’ve got.”
She reached out and took Zep’s hand. His strong fingers gripped hers as she winked the patch on.
Before she could utter a single word, an unexpected voice spoke to her. It didn’t sound like a stalker. It sounded like a child, but that could have been a filter designed to disguise the speaker’s true identity, Clair supposed.
“How do you know Liberty Zeist?”
With the voice came a streaming video, not of the person who was talking but of Libby pacing back and forth in an empty marble foyer, biting her fingernails. It looked real-time but didn’t have any map data or date stamp. The picture was greenish and grainy. Libby was wearing a clingy jumpsuit that Clair had never seen before. Her white hair was tied back in a severe ponytail that made her look somehow older and younger at the same time. There was no sign of the birthmark. Was that makeup or something real? It had to be makeup, surely.
“How do I know Libby?” Clair said. “She’s my best friend, and I’m not going to let you hurt her.”
“I have not hurt her. She is beautiful.”
“Yes, she is, and that’s the way she’s going to stay, buddy.”
“All things change.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“What’s he saying?” whispered Zep. “I can only hear your side.”
Clair shook her head. The voice was still talking.
“You say that she is your friend. You are trying to help her. Is that correct?”
“Of course it’s correct,” she said. “Tell me why you sent me those messages.”
“Change and beauty are the heart of Improvement. I thought you would understand.”
“Understand what?”
“It puzzles me that you do not understand. I don’t understand you in return.”
“Did you message Libby as well?”
“Yes, but she didn’t answer as you did.”
“Is that disappointing? Would you rather Libby had been talkative than silent? Is that how you prefer your . . . your victims?”
She was being deliberately provocative, trying to get a rise out of him.
“I don’t understand what you mean by ‘victims.’ I have hurt no one.”
“So you say, pal.”
“I am merely talking. We are exchanging information and learning from each other. Is that not stimulating for you?”
Clair made a disgusted sound that echoed flatly off the dorm’s walls. She didn’t really want to think about what the person she was talking to found
“If you’ve hurt Libby in any way at all—”
“I would never hurt her. She is beautiful.”
“She is, and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she’s safe.”
“Because she is your friend,” said the voice in its too-innocent way. “If I helped her, would that make me her friend, as you are?”
“I said: if I helped her, would that make me her friend—”
“I heard what you said. I just . . . I don’t believe this. You’re screwing with my head. Is this what you do to people? Is this how you get your kicks? You reel people in with false promises. You find out who they are and toy with them. Maybe you drive some of them out of their minds. Is that what’s happened to Libby? Did you get inside her head and have a little fun?”
There was silence at the other end for a long time.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she said.
“I do not understand,” said the voice. “I am not in your head. I do not understand your motivation at all.”
“Oh . . .”
Clair bit down on a frustrated retort. This wasn’t helping.
“Clair?” said Zep, squeezing her hand. “What’s going on?”
She shook her head. There was only silence on the other end of the line. No breathing, even. It was almost as though there was no one there at all.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Clair Hill,” said the voice. “It is nice to meet you.”
That was the first time her name had been used. It frightened and alarmed her. Of course the caller knew who she was—otherwise they wouldn’t be talking—but to hear her name when she didn’t know the stalker’s in return made her feel vulnerable and exposed.
She ended the chat immediately. The video of Libby closed with it. A new call patch started flashing in her lenses, regular and relentless, like the ticking of an electronic heartbeat.
16
“CLAIR, ARE YOU all right?”
Zep’s hand was still gripping hers. She didn’t want to let go, but she forced herself to.
“I’m definitely okay,” she said, thinking through a fog of confusion and exhaustion. “I used Improvement seventy times, and I feel perfectly fine. Do I look fine to you?”
“Your usual excellent self.”
“So Libby being such a mess can’t have anything to do with Improvement . . . right?”
“Maybe she was a mess to start with.”
Clair glared at him, and he looked away with a shrug.
“What did the stalker say? Did he give you any clues?”
“Nothing. It was weird. I’m not even sure he was a he. . . .”
She trailed off because another call patch was coming through, and this time it had an ID. She stared at it, puzzled. Why was Jesse Linwood contacting her now?
Curious, she took the call.
“Are you at school?” he asked, sounding breathless.
“Why?”
“It’s Dad. I hassled him to keep looking into Improvement, and he found something.”
“What is it?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. Then he left on the electrobike without telling me where he was going.”
“So he went for a ride. So what?”
“This just came.” Jesse sent her a link to a streaming video. “You need to see it.”
She followed the link and saw Dylan sitting in the principal’s office of Manteca New Campus High School.
“Always a pleasure,” said Principal Gordon, a tall, smartly dressed woman with tightly wound auburn hair. Her nickname was Gordon the Gorgon. There was a sour cast to her lips that expressed anything other than pleasure. “What is this regarding?”
“It’s a matter of life and death,” Dylan told her. “One of your students is already at risk.”
