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“We don’t have proof, but we can start there,” Dr. Green said. He tapped his forefinger on the table. “So our first job right now is to get the roster for that class. We need phone numbers and data records from everyone there. If they shared her number, we’ll find out who they shared it with.”
Luke pointed at my phone. “What about those text messages? Are any of those from this guy?”
“I haven’t gone through them yet,” Victor said.
“That’s your job now,” Dr. Green said. “Whoever it is probably wasn’t expecting us to jump up and leave school together so quickly. He’s going to be thrown off by that. We have a little time to come up with a plan.”
“Is he smart enough to track the GPS in her phone?” Victor asked. “That’s what we need to know.”
“He may not know how to use a tracking GPS and hack her phone to be able to follow.” Dr. Green rubbed his palm against his forehead. “I doubt he is that clever. He couldn’t figure out her phone number before. He had to wait until it was given to the class. If he was that smart, he probably could have picked up her phone number before now.”
“Are we overreacting?” I asked. I’d been thinking about how my neighbor Derrick once told me how he felt about the Academy cavalry jumping in at every small thing. “I get those notes all the time. Now it’s just phone messages and text messages. They’re not all asking about my bra size or my phone number, are they?”
Gabriel’s eyes flared. “What do you mean someone asked about your bra size? Who did that?”
“We don’t overreact,” Dr. Green said, a gentle smile toying at the corner of his mouth. “We’re just really averse to veiled threats.”
“But those notes aren’t all questions like that, are they?” I asked. “There’s so many.”
Luke shook his head. “We’ll have to check in with North. He reads them. Maybe we’ll find a connection with the text messages and the notes and the weird Morse code thing.”
“I think that’s what bothers me the most,” Victor said. “The guy had to have been thinking of this for a while. It was only what, a half hour since her phone number was passed out before he sent it? So he had to think of a message. He’d want it to be cryptic enough to code it, send it with an unknown number and assume she knew the code or we would to be able to translate it.”
“Right,” Dr. Green said. “No. You did the right thing. If it was someone goofing off, he wouldn’t have worked so hard at this. If he wanted attention from her, he’d send notes and text messages like every other little boy who can’t talk to her face.”
Victor leaned his elbows on the table. “So it is possible it’s one of the guys in class, or someone who got sent her number during the early part of class. That might narrow down the list.”
“Is her phone on now?” Silas’s voice startled me. He’d been so silent before. He stared at my phone on the table.
Victor touched the button to light up the screen. “I haven’t turned it off. Why?”
“Why is it so quiet now?” Silas asked.
We all exchanged glances before looking down at the screen of my phone. Victor punched at the text messages and scrolled through them, but it didn’t appear to be accepting new ones at this point.
“Is it because they’re all in class now?” Luke asked.
Dr. Green chuckled. “Those little monsters won’t put away their phones just for class time. Trust me.”
“Maybe it locked up,” Victor said. “She’s got hundreds from different phone numbers.”
“Is she out of space on her phone?” Gabriel asked. “Delete something.”
“I have to go through the messages.”
“Just delete our texts,” Gabriel said. “We don’t need those right now. See if it’s because the phone’s too full.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Victor said. He scanned through the messages, finding the ones where the boys’ names were listed, and started deleting the conversations. “She’s got the biggest hard drive a cell phone can get. There’s no full storage error icon.”
“We should call North,” Luke said. “We need to get started.”
Dr. Green perked up suddenly. He fished his phone out of his pocket. “That might be them, now.”
Luke and Gabriel twitched similarly, digging in his pocket for their phones.
Silas found his phone. “Are they sending everyone a message? We checked in. They know we’re all here right?” He flicked on his phone.
Victor frowned, finding his phone and checking. “I guess so.”
Dr. Green’s eyes darkened. The others’ faces dropped at the same time.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong? Is it Mr. Blackbourne?”
Dr. Green swallowed. “I might have been wrong about the capabilities of this kid.”
I knelt in the chair, snagging Silas’s arm. I ducked my head near his to read the message.
Only it wasn’t a message. It was a photo.
It was me, a picture taken in the same outfit I was wearing now. It looked like it was taken in the hallway, while I was walking between classrooms. Victor was walking beside me. And it had to have been taken today, because I’ve never worn this outfit to school before.
A message had been scrawled over my face as if with a Sharpie marker. Part of the lettering cut through my eyes.
Forget her.
THE DRAGON DESK AND THE BACKWARD CLOCK
I was afraid to move or breathe. The notes I dismissed. The text messages and the cryptic phone call I was concerned with.
The photograph was way more than I was able to handle, especially after everything else.
Dr. Green ordered everyone to take out their SIM cards, disabling any more cell phone activities and turning off the GPS devices.
I stood stiffly aside as they all repeated what they were going to do and where they were going.
They were only interrupted once, by the same plain girl that had been there earlier. She slipped in quietly, and placed a tray of finger sandwiches and fruit cups on the table in front of us. Luke thanked her. He and Gabriel and Silas gobbled at the food the moment she put it down, as if used to this. She glanced at Victor once as if waiting for approval. Victor was absorbed with talking to Dr. Green. She narrowed her eyes at me and then left the room without a word.
Luke, Gabriel and Dr. Green decided they were going to get the class directory, and find those students’ phone numbers. Dr. Green had a shift to cover at the hospital. Luke and Gabriel were going to work the diner tonight. There was some argument about their general safety, but the verdict was I was to stay here. They now were sure this new threat was after me. Besides, the diner was pretty busy now, and whoever it was would have a hard time trying to get to them there without revealing himself.
After Dr. Green and the others left, Victor and Silas turned to me.
“Time to work,” Victor said. He held out a hand, palm up. “Want to come along, Princess?”
“She doesn’t want to watch you type at a computer,” Silas said. “I mean, is she even supposed to? Isn’t there Academy stuff in there?”
“She won’t know what’s what,” Victor said. “Besides, it’s not like I leave Academy stuff laying around. There’s the maids and security and my parents here after all.”
“What do you want to do?” Silas asked me. “Want to swim? The pool out there is heated.”
“To be honest, I don’t know if I want her outside right now,” Victor said.
“If you’re worried about your parents finding us, we’ll keep quiet.”
“It’s not that.” Victor hooked a couple of fingers into the collar of his shirt, forcing the top button open. “I don’t know if I want her out of sight right now.”
“She’d be with me.”
“I know,” he said. “Not that I don’t trust you. I just ... can we keep her in here? I know there’s a wall and security, but I’m feeling paranoid right now.”
Silas sighed. “You’re probably right. It’s not that
high of a wall. I just didn’t want her to be bored.”
“I’m not bored,” I said. It was true. I was way too on edge to be bored.
