Shuffling through the papers on the coffee table she picked one up at random, surprised to discover that this correspondence was not from Miro Kusak at all.
> From: B. Webster [bbo2@hotmail.net.au]
> Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2007 7:35AM
> To: admin@katyenigma.com
> Subject: hi
>
> I hat my life, sometimes I wanna die. He was round the
> otha da & giv mum a blak i . i had to go next door cos
> Mrs smith the naybor thumpd on the wall then took
> mum to the hopital. Her arms broke 2. I hate him. hop
> things r o k with u.
> rite S.O.O.N
>
> lots of Luv bettybo xxxxxxxxxx
This message posed more questions than it answered. Stevie recognised Bianca’s email address and assumed Bettybo to be her Internet nickname. But who was this man who terrified her so and had broken her mother’s arm? The man on the stairwell and by the lake? ‘Bob’ of the mysterious phone call?—or were these men one and the same? Stella had told her she hadn’t seen Bianca’s father since the conception. Was this a stepfather Bianca was referring to, or a boyfriend, and why hadn’t he been mentioned before?
If it hadn’t been so late, Stevie would have been pounding on Stella’s door now, demanding answers.
The email from Bianca was addressed to someone at a Katy Enigma website. At least that was something she could check out now. She moved over to her PC tucked into a workstation in the corner of her lounge room, pushing Izzy’s collection of ‘My Little Ponies’ from the seat before she could sit down.
When the computer was booted up she typed Katy Enigma into the search engine. A Katy Enigma fan site came up at the top of the list, the only complete entry for the name. This meant that Katy Enigma wasn’t the commercial fad she’d first assumed it to be. And since Emma had been telling Izzy Katy Enigma stories, Emma must be a member of this fan site too.
She clicked on the website link and waited for the page to load.
A cartoon figure of Katy Enigma appeared on the screen. The manga style animation had exaggerated eyes, a dark bob and scarlet hotpants with the letters KE emblazoned in fire on the bib.
‘Welcome to the Katy Enigma fan site,’ the large script at the top of the page said. ‘Here you will find original stories featuring super-girl hero, Katy Enigma. Follow the links to read other stories written by fans, the chat room, message board, writing competitions, prizes and lots more!’
The cursor drifted over the web page and she found a link to a message board, then to a form a potential member had to fill out before joining. She filled in the form, gave herself the screen name of bizzylizzy and clicked to submit it. Within a few minutes she was a member of the Katy Enigma site. As her eyes ran down the list of member names she wondered which, if any, belonged to Emma— poshgirl, squeaky, oddmouse, katyfan!
She checked out her own new profile, which she discovered was accessible to all the board members. Her email address wasn’t displayed because she’d ticked the box asking for it not to be. Members could still contact each other through an internal private mailing box without revealing their email addresses. Soon she found Bettybo’s profile and saw her private email address displayed for the world to see. Kusak had already known Bianca’s email address, but even if he hadn’t, she might just as well have knocked on his door and presented herself to him.
‘If that’s how Kusak did it, it’s too easy,’ Stevie mumbled to herself. He must have cyber stalked her via the Trojan Virus to the KE site, joined up as Daniel, pretended to be a Katy Enigma fan and then befriended her through the message board and chat room.
She rubbed her eyes, yawned, scrolled down pages filled with stories by members. Some of the stories were quite long, too long for her to read now. She’d see if she could persuade Clarissa to give up her Sunday morning to look through them, while she questioned Emma about the site.
Stevie made herself a mug of strong coffee and returned to the email printouts on the table.
> FROM admin@katyenigma.com
> SENT 12 January 2007 8:48AM
> TO bbo2@hotmail.net.au
> SUBJECT hi
>
> Don’t say things like that Bettybo, life is good. U just
> have 2 think of ways of giving yourself powa. Think of
> Katy Enigma, she wouldn’t kill herself, would she? U cn
> b like KE, clever and fast and cute if u wanna b. luv HS
[bbo2@hotmail.net.au] 6 Febuary 2007 7:35 wrote:
Danel thinks Im cool and sexy. Im gonna meet him.
admin@katyenigma.com 8 Febuary 2007 7:52 wrote:
Idiot. He could be any1.
> HS
On 9/2/07 8:49AM, “Bianca Webster”
< bbo2@hotmail.net.au > wrote:
> well Up yors2!? ur jelos!
As far as Stevie knew, this was one of Bianca’s last notes. She was abducted on 12 February from the Shenton Park Lake and her body found on 14 February at a building site in Midland.
Stevie retrieved her notebook from under the piles of paper and scribbled down what she’d learned from the emails. Someone who called themselves Harum Scarum corresponded privately with Bianca via the Katy Enigma website. ‘HS’ seemed to be doing his or her best to boost Bianca’s brittle self-esteem, playing at pop psychology and attempting to ‘empower’ Bianca through stories featuring Katy Enigma. The printed versions of these stories were now strewn before Stevie on the coffee table. She glanced through them; they ranged from missing puppy scenarios and magic castle hideaways, to princesses, evil counts, anger, blood and vengeance.
Unfortunately this empowerment strategy hadn’t worked. Bianca had needed or wanted further affirmation and she’d found it in the form of Miro Kusak posing as a boy called Daniel. Harum Scarum had tried to warn Bianca off the meeting, an email fight had followed which left Bianca still determined to go ahead.
Stevie didn’t need to replay the remaining events in her head; the picture of the abduction, the abuse, the pump house and the duct tape were still livid in her mind.
She looked back at a chat transcript she’d noticed earlier. In it they were talking about running away: betta 2 get even than run, Harum Scarum had said.
Weariness began to creep in. Stevie yawned and swallowed her last gulp of coffee. Just one final look at the website then she’d call it a night and hand the problems over to the experts in the morning.
Back at her PC she clicked on the stories page and found something short, a poem with no title and no author listed.
Living nightmare, darkest fears, he comes at night.
His gain, my pain, I cry in vain and no one hears.
He is the monster from under my bed.