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

I can almost feel him staring at the trunk, wondering if she’s telling the truth or … what.

“Are you new?” Rachel asks. “Like, shouldn’t you have a badge or something if you’re a staff member?”

“Oh, I’m not a staff member, I—”

“Well, then, I’m not talking to you,” she says.

“I’m Stephanie’s father, and I’m trying to find her because her noncustodial mother kidnapped her ten years ago, and I have reason to believe she’s here.”

Rachel goes silent for a minute and then says, “Hey, Bryony! Hop in.” And then she changes her voice to a syrupy mean-girl tone and says, “Yeah, good luck with your search, mister; I’m sure if you just stick with it you’ll find her one of these days,” and then I hear the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard in my life, which is the car engine starting.

“Um,” Bryony says, “why am I going joyriding with you, and what the hell was that all about? Also, where is Steph?”

I squirm out of the trunk again. “Hi.”

Rachel glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Sorry for bringing Bryony into this, but we really couldn’t leave her with Mr. Psychopath.”

“No, I agree.”

“Also, stay down; I’m pretty sure he’s getting back in his car to follow us.”

“What?” Bryony says, sounding sort of plaintive. “How did I stumble into an episode of Fast Girls Detective Agency, and can you just drop me off at my house?”

“No,” Rachel says. “We can’t risk him catching you. He’s following us. Little black car. It’s going to be really hard to lose him in a town this small.”

I need to let the Clowder know. Rachel passes me her phone and I pull up the Clowder app, but the road is bumpy and my hands are shaking and “my dad is here” comes out as “N7 ddddaf id bgeeet.” I close the app and call Hermione, instead.

“Hello?” Her voice doesn’t sound like I’d imagined it, and I realize after a beat that this is because in my head, she always sounded British. Obviously she doesn’t sound British; she’s from Maine.

“This is Little Brown Bat,” I say. “So, my Dad’s here. Here. Like, in New Coburg. I’m in a car with Rachel, I mean Georgia, and with this other girl from my school, and he’s following us. Can you please let CheshireCat know that they were wrong about where Michael was?”

“On it,” Hermione says and hangs up.

My phone rings about thirty seconds later, and I’m really hoping it’s my mother, but it isn’t.

Instead, it’s a totally creepy robot voice, much less human-sounding than the sex ed robot. “Hello, Steph,” the voice says, “This is CheshireCat. I’m sorry to call you on the phone, but I assume Georgia is driving.”

“Good guess.”

“I am trying to track your location, along with Michael’s, but I’m having some trouble. Can you tell me exactly where you are?”

I pop my head up enough to catch an address and relay it.

“Yes. Thank you. Can you describe the car he’s driving?”

“It’s black. New. Like, a car sort of car, not a truck or a van or whatever. I don’t know what kind it is.”

“Thank you.”

“Can you tell the hospital here and warn them to keep my mother safe?”

“Yes. I will do that. I am very good at multitasking. I am also examining options for disabling Michael’s car.”

“Someone please tell me what’s going on?” Bryony shrieks, and I say, “I need to go,” and hang up.

“My mom moves me all the time because my dad is a violent psychopath,” I say. “He hired people to kidnap her and cut off one of her fingers, and I’m pretty sure he had one of her coworkers killed. She tries to keep him from figuring out where we are, but I screwed it up.”

Bryony looks simultaneously horrified and skeptical. I wonder if I should have just told the arson story, because finger amputation is a much weirder crime than burning someone’s house down.

“What’s with the code names?” Bryony asks.

“Those are just screen names,” Rachel says. “From an online chat thingie. I’m Georgia, she’s Little Brown Bat.”

“And the phone call?”

“That was from my friend the hacker,” I say.

“Uhhhh.”

“You wanted to know, so now you know,” I say. “Where do you want us to drop you off?”

“Nowhere the psycho dude’s going to find me!”

“I’m going to Marshfield,” Rachel announces. “Because New Coburg is officially too small to lose someone who’s following you.”

“Do you have enough gas?” Bryony asks.

“Yes, I have enough gas.” Rachel looks at me in the rearview mirror. “I actually filled up this morning just in case.”

We careen down the highway at what feels like twice the speed limit. “Look,” Bryony says, “if you just let me out somewhere, then you can call the police, right?”

“I’m pretty sure the cops hate both of us, Bryony!”

“They only hate you when you are with me!”

“I’m pretty sure the young cop hated me, too,” I say.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rachel says, “because we can’t let you out. Steph’s dad is too close, he’ll see us dropping you, and we’re not leaving you for him. And we’re not getting you in trouble with the cops, either.”

“So I don’t mean to make this awkward, but what exactly is our plan here?”

“I told you. I’m driving to Marshfield.”

“And then what? Are we going to lose him by circling the Walmart?”

“There are at least traffic lights there, right? Streets that have corners? Police officers that are slightly less evil?”

“You know about the time my mom got pulled over in Marshfield for supposedly running a red, right?”

I sneak another peek out the back window; he’s still following us. I reach back into the trunk, grab the crowbar, and pull it into the backseat.

My phone rings. I answer, and CheshireCat’s creepy robot voice says, “Hello, is this Steph?”

“Yes,” I say. “We’re on the road to Marshfield. He’s still behind us.”

“When you get to Marshfield, head toward the university. I will create a traffic disruption that should delay him and not you.”

“How exactly is this going to work?