The Takedown(77)

Rory shrugged. “Not my type.”

Gorgeous isn’t your type? I wanted to ask, but the study hall monitor was already looking at me, so I just shook my head in exasperation.

“So, it’s definitely normal boy,” Rory continued. “I counted five firewalls around his profile. Or, you know, his dummy profile. Plus, get this, all the travel pics in his cache? They’re all stock photos. He bought them off this site BeenThereDoneThat.com.”

moi Wait. You’re serious. You found him?

Rory laughed. “Yeah, I told you we would. I mean, if it is a ‘him.’”

Rory actually found him. Which meant this was all almost over. I felt the tingly rush of adrenaline of winning a debate, except this prize was so much bigger. I’d just won my life back. Fawn reached across the aisle and gripped my hand.

“And hey, be careful. Nobody puts up this many firewalls without having something major to hide or without being serious about protecting it.”

Who of the half dozen people who hated me would go through this much effort to make a fake profile? Intentional or not, there had to be a clue, either in the awful movies or music they made the dummy profile like or in the uber-WASP-y clothing sites they made him shop at. The fake boy’s avatar profile pic actually reminded me a little of Cobi Watkins. I couldn’t help thinking that this entire account reflected the exact kind of have-it-all-prepster that Audra—or Jessie, for that matter—would hate.

moi You’re telling me this person’s dangerous?

“No. I’m dangerous. This kid’s a guppy who’s about to get caught and doesn’t even know it.”

moi Do you find these lines on some kind of B-movie quote site?

“Nope.” He grinned. “One hundred percent Rory’s original recipe.”

Damn.

moi So what do we do?

“You let me do a little more digging and then we talk in a few and come up with a game plan. Also, wait, don’t disconnect. Can you put in a good word for me with your foxy friend?”

moi Sharma?

“She’s not like sixteen, is she? You’re all seniors, right? No, don’t tell me. But maybe tell her I’d be so good to her, it would crash her system. No, don’t say that. Make something up, but make sure it sounds nerdy so I could have actually said it. But not that nerdy! Like suave nerdy. Just think about it. But make it clear I’d kill to meet her without sounding desperate.”

moi I got it, Rory. I’ll come up with something.

“Don’t make me sound too desperate,” he was saying as I hit disconnect.

Rory clicked off FaceAlert. Sharma and Fawn’s faces became 50 percent larger on my screen. I tried not to think about how one face was noticeably missing. Luckily, watching Sharma squirm made up for this fact.

“One word,” Sharma said, “and I’ll freeze you out of your online memberships for life.”





Maybe it was impossible to find Jessie’s Doc digits, but as I already knew it was very easy to locate the address of where she and her bazillionaire family lived. So, less than three miles yet still somehow one bus transfer later, I was pressing the RingScreen of an enormous marble edifice that could have been mistaken for a museum but, apparently, was the Rosenthal residence. Through a wrought iron gate that shielded the front doors, in the thin line of regular glass that surrounded the frosted door panes, I could just see into the Rosenthals’ massive foyer. An enormous chandelier that was shaped like an overturned rowboat with lightbulbs in it hung from two stories up. Beneath it, a perfectly dust-and clutter-free elegant wood table held an enormous vase of completely out-of-season hydrangeas. And beneath the table lay a pile of suitcases.

I’d had my finger on the RingScreen for two minutes now. As dark and quiet as the interior of the—let’s be honest—resort felt, I knew Jessie was in there.

Sharma didn’t do bad intel.

My wrist was just starting to tire from pressing the screen when I heard the sound of a window sliding up. I stepped back on the portico. Jessie’s house was bigger than Park Prep. It was nearly bigger than the Barclays Center. I craned my head back. Three stories up, a thin, pale face surrounded by a mound of curly hair sneered down at me. As was her way, she wore a fine black blouse with a stiff ruffled collar.

Still, when I spoke, my words contained such relief you’d think I actually liked the girl. “It’s you.”

“Surprise, surprise, seeing as I reside here. What do you want?”

Oh, how I wished vomiting on cue were a talent I possessed, because I would have let loose right there on her perfectly swept marble steps. How had I forgotten? Jessie spoke in a light, fake British accent.

“Are you AnyLies?” I called out.

“What’s that?” She dramatically held a hand to her ear. A hand covered by a black lace glove, trimmed with more ruffles. “I can’t hear you.”

“Jessie, will you please just come outside so I don’t have to shout?”

“Are you batty? I most certainly won’t. You’ve been blowing up my Doc like it’s Los Alamos. Anything you have to say to me you can say fine from there.”

With the house, and her in all those ruffles, and the posh accent, I felt like I was in some Off-Broadway production of Mary Poppins. This was ridiculous. It was all I could do not to stomp my foot in frustration. After a quick glance both ways down the street, I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted, “Why are you doing this to me?”