Catfishing on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer [best e ink reader for manga .txt] 📗

I write. “Maybe my mother kidnapped me, and my father’s actually the victim here?”

“I’m sorry to say I don’t think that’s it.”

But the newspaper clipping was full of lies. Or at least fake names. I go to the other window to see what’s turned up from the Los Angeles Times archive now that all the ads are done playing.

Order of Protection Granted to Former Kidnapping Victim

Laura Packet, 34, has sought an Order of Protection from her husband, Michael Quinn, briefly a suspect when her five-day kidnapping gripped Silicon Valley last year. Their former business partner, Rajiv Patil, killed himself while awaiting trial for the crime. Quinn, who was at an information security conference when Packet was taken from the home they shared, was questioned repeatedly by the police, but Patil was identified by a conspirator, and evidence of the conspiracy was found on his computer.

Packet declined to speak to the press. Quinn’s lawyer released a statement saying that Packet had been left extremely traumatized by the period when she was kidnapped, which included the forcible amputation of one of her fingers, and suggested that she blamed Quinn for not having been present to protect her. Packet presented evidence of stalking in court; Quinn’s lawyer said the messages sent were “more passionate than threatening” and “should not be read literally.”

Patil, who was facing a life sentence, left a note declaring his innocence and accusing Quinn of responsibility for the kidnapping.

I stare at the article, feeling my heart sink. All my fantasies about a normal life with a normal father blow away like leaves in a blast of November air.

Mom told me, when I asked about her finger years ago, that she lost it in an accident involving a lawn mower, and I should never try to remove safety features. More recently—like, last year—I’d asked her why they didn’t try to reattach it. She’d told me it was mangled too badly, but she’d paused first, like she was thinking about what to say. I’m suddenly certain that she was considering whether to tell me the truth. And she decided, once again, to lie to me.

I curl my own fingers against my palms, into fists. I feel sick at the thought of what was done to my mother, and I feel absolute rage that she’d lied to me, that she didn’t tell me the truth even when I asked directly about her hand.

Back in the CatNet chat window, CheshireCat has added, “I think your father did the kidnapping. I’m 99 percent sure. I’m sorry.”

17

AI

Quinnpacket is a really unusual name.

There are thousands of Michael Quinns in the United States, but there’s basically no one out there named Quinnpacket. If you’re trying to track down a Michael Quinn and you know something else about him—a Social Security number, an occupation, a town—you can probably find him, but if you want to find someone named Quinnpacket, all you need is their name, because sooner or later they’ll just show up.

So to find the Michael Quinn who was looking for Stephania Quinnpacket, I thought I’d try making it look like Stephania Quinnpacket had shown up. Maybe Michael Quinn would come looking.

The false trail needed to be somewhere Stephania and her mother wouldn’t go, since I definitely didn’t want to lead this guy to the actual people who were trying to hide from him. But they stayed away from California, and since Michael Quinn had definitely once lived in California, that seemed like a good place to start. I also wanted locations that I could monitor visually through cameras—cameras that were always on and always connected to the internet, not just cameras that did a daily upload. It was important this time, if frustratingly slow, to monitor what was happening in meatspace.

Elk Grove, California, near Sacramento, had more unsecured cameras per capita than anywhere else in California. I found a cluster of camera-equipped businesses that could pull credit reports: a bank, an apartment rental company, a temp agency. Then I pulled the report for Stephania Quinnpacket from each one.

I also stuck Stephania in the enrollment queue for the school district, creating a record, though not much of one. That wanted an address, so I put in the address for the bank, and left the “prior schools attended” blank.

Michael Quinn arrived in Elk Grove first thing the next morning.

“Hi, hello,” he said to the bank teller. “I’m here with sort of an unusual problem, and I’m wondering if someone can help me out.”

He told the bank manager that he had a teenage daughter who’d run away from home and was last seen in Sacramento. He said that Stephania was a narcotics addict and told a long, sad story that included her almost dying from an overdose and then running away from rehab.

“Anyway,” he said, “I’m sure you’re wondering what on earth that has to do with you. It looks like she might have come in in the last couple of days to apply for a credit card or a loan of some kind. And probably what that actually means is that she dropped her ID, and someone stole her identity, but if there’s any chance it was my daughter…”

The bank manager wanted to help him. She was very sympathetic, and she had daughters of her own who were twelve and ten. But she couldn’t find a record of Stephania applying for credit since I didn’t put anything like that in the system; I’d just used the bank’s systems to pull her credit report.

“Thanks so much for all your help,” he said to the bank manager. “If she comes in, can you please call me right away? Day or night. Well, I suppose you’re not open at night. But seriously, I’m pretty desperate to get her back into rehab, as I’m sure you can understand…” She promised to call him, and he left her a card.

There was a camera out in the lot, as well. I watched him go to his car and then looked up the license plates.

The car