“So why would she tell me that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s trying to get your attention.”
“Well, it’s working. But why she’d want this kind of attention is beyond me.”
Clair sat on the edge of the bed, feeling exhausted and confused. Libby had taken drugs and gone a little wild. Nothing unheard of for a girl in high school, and there were campus counselors trained to deal with things like that.
“Did Libby say anything to you about strange messages?” Clair asked him.
“What kind of messages?”
“Like someone was watching her,” she said, extrapolating from her own experience, “judging her, even.”
“No. Did she tell you about them?”
Clair debated with herself for a second, then showed him the bumps she had received.
“When I spoke to her yesterday, the first time, Libby mentioned weird messages,” Clair said. “I used Improvement to prove that I trust her. . . .”
He scooched down the bed so he was sitting behind her.
“You used Improvement?” he asked. “Seriously?”
“Why not? It didn’t do anything—nothing I can see, anyway. But now these messages have come, and I don’t know what to think.”
He touched her shoulder, and she shrugged him off.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not trying anything,” he said, backing away with his hands raised. “Honest.”
“I believe you, but . . .” Clair clenched her fists and pressed them into her thighs. She found it hard to think with him so close. “If someone’s bugging her, too, maybe that’s helped push her over the edge. On top of what you and I did, I mean.” She turned on him. “Zep, how could you let her leave like that?”
“I didn’t have a choice. She slipped me one of the painkillers before we went to bed. I was groggy. Still am.”
He did look washed-out and pale, a far cry from his usual confident, unstoppable self.
“I’m going to try calling her,” she said. “Maybe she’ll talk to me.”
“Brace yourself,” he said. “It’s like she’s an entirely different person.”
“Don’t say that. She’s just going through a rough patch.”
To Clair’s amazement, Libby answered immediately.
“I’m beautiful, Clair.” She sounded stoned. “I’m beautiful.”
“Of course you are—you always have been, right? Tell me what’s going on. Let’s talk.”
“What’s there to talk about?” Her voice hardened. “He only wants you because you’re different.”
“Libby, listen to me.” Clair did her best to ignore the attempt to wound her. “I tried Improvement, and it didn’t work—”
“I’m in heaven, and I’m so beautiful,” Libby chanted, marshmallow-soft again. “You’re not and never will be.”
Libby ended the call, and she wouldn’t answer when Clair tried again.
“What did she say?” asked Zep.
“She . . . hang on.”
A call patch appeared in her infield, its source the string of q’s.
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 stimulating.
“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?”
“What?”
“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.
qqqqq . . . qqqqq
16