A new suspect.

The next morning I spent a couple of hours on BetterLife without discovering anything new. The place was slow — it was Monday, and most people were at school or work. NedNick02 was nowhere to be seen. When I did a search for him I also checked his online profile, a page where users could enter information about their avatars, but it was blank. MrNiceGuy, ParteeGrl21, and most of the other names I recognized were inactive as well. I did catch a brief glimpse of Guitarlvr15 when VirtualNancy wandered through the virtual mall, but he disappeared immediately and I wasn’t able to find him again even with a search.

That was frustrating. But at this point, I wasn’t sure my old pal Guitarlvr15 had anything to do with the case anymore. The one I needed to focus on was NedNick02. Who was he? George was still trying to hack the BetterLife system but she wasn’t having any luck, so that seemed to be another dead end for the moment.

As I pondered the difficulties of online investigating, I realized I’d almost forgotten about one of my few real-life leads — Aunt Agnes. Only a couple of days had passed since my Prius was vandalized; maybe she would still recall any suspicious activity she might have seen. It was worth a try, anyway.

I was thinking about calling the university to see if Agnes was working that day, hoping to swing by the dining hall before my volunteer meeting, when the phone rang. It was the garage.

“We went over your vehicle with a fine-tooth comb, and you were right,” Mr. Carr told me grimly. “There’s no way the computer system went haywire on its own. It was definitely tampered with — and by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. We had to contact the company to figure out how to fix it! But it’s all right now.”

“Thanks, Mr. Carr,” I said. “I’ll be able to swing by and pick it up on my way to a meeting, um…” I glanced at my watch. “Oh! Right now!” I exclaimed, realizing it was later than I’d realized. Time seemed to pass differently in BetterLife….

Soon I was back in my own car on the way to my meeting. The volunteer group had a lot to do to prepare for International Peace Week, which was only a few days away now. I was too busy to think much about the case for the rest of the afternoon. In fact, by the time we finished it was too late to stop at Sylvio’s or try to track down Aunt Agnes or do anything except head straight home for dinner.

The next few days were just as busy. Tuesday at breakfast, my father asked me if I had any spare time that day. “If so, I could really use your help at the office,” he said. “One of the secretaries is out with the flu, the others are already swamped with this new case, and the last two people the temp agency sent over couldn’t handle the pace and were more trouble than they were worth. I’m really sorry to ask, but all it would be is filing, returning some calls, things like that.”

“Sure, Dad,” I said immediately. He was looking so haggard and distracted that I wanted to do anything I could to help until his case was over, even if it meant I had less time to work on my own case. I’d planned to check in on BetterLife after breakfast and then visit Sylvio’s and Aunt Agnes. But all that would have to wait.

“Need anything else right now?” I asked Helena Olney, my father’s senior secretary.

“Thanks, Nancy. You’ve done such a good job these past few days that I think we’re almost back under control,” she replied with a smile, peering at me over the tops of her cat’s-eyeglasses. “If you could just cover the phones while I run downstairs for an hour or so, I’d appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

It was Thursday afternoon. I’d spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday at my dad’s office, and had agreed to come in again on Thursday. That morning had been just as busy as the previous two days. But finally things were slowing down, and my thoughts were starting to return to the mystery.

As soon as Helena left, I sat down at the reception desk and logged on to the computer. I’d been checking in on BetterLife whenever I had a chance, and had spent a few minutes there after dinner the previous two nights. George was also monitoring things at home and had promised to call if she saw anything suspicious. There had been one additional message from UrNewReality the day before, but all it had said was UNR IS STILL WATCHING U. Creepy, but not particularly helpful.

I’d checked around for NedNick02 every time I’d logged on, but he seemed to be lying low. I’d asked ParteeGrl21 to keep a lookout for him, telling her only that I suspected it was someone else posing as my real-life boyfriend. She’d promised to do so, and when I checked now there was a message from her in my in-box.

HAVEN’T SEEN U-KNO-WHO, it said. BUT PING ME — STH ELSE IS NQR.

I ran a search and soon located her at the virtual smoothie shop. WHAT’S UP? I had VirtualNancy ask her. GOT YOUR MESSAGE.

HI, VN! She seemed happy to see me, judging by the smile that appeared on the avatar’s face. GOOD 2 C U. WANTED 2 WARN YOU. WAS AT YR CONDO THIS A.M. & A GUY THERE WUZ ASKING ABOUT U. I SAID I WUZ A PAL OF YRS & KNEW U WOULDN’T B AROUND MUCH 2DAY.

WHO WAS HE? I ASKED. IT WASN’T NEDNICK02? OR GUITARLVR15?

NO, she wrote back. HIS NAME IS MRNICEGUY.

My eyes widened as I remembered the good-looking but rather pushy blond avatar. YES, I’VE SEEN HIM AROUND, I WROTE. DO YOU KNOW WHO HE IS?

NO, she replied. BUT I SAW HIM AGAIN JUST NOW. AS SOON AS I WENT 2 THE MALL HE TURNED UP & ASKED ME ABOUT U AGAIN.

THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW, I WROTE. I’VE GOT TO GO. BUT I’LL CHECK IN WITH YOU AGAIN LATER.

C U! SHE REPLIED.

I logged off, deep in thought. Now that I focused on MrNiceGuy, I realized he’d been lurking around in the margins of things since soon after that fake video had been posted. Did it mean anything? Was he connected to NedNick02 somehow, or was he just an overly friendly wannabe online pal like ParteeGrl21?

The phone rang, startling me out of my thoughts. I took care of the call, but as soon as I finished I dialed Ned’s cell number. Something had been bugging me for the past few days, and I’d just realized what it was. Whoever had posed as Fake Ned had known about that picnic spot overlooking the river. Not even Bess and George knew about that date, and I was positive I’d never mentioned it in any e-mails that the culprit could have seen when hacking into my account. So how had he or she known about the overlook?

“Oh! Hi,” Ned said when I reached him. “I was just heading into Econ class.” Was I imagining things, or did he sound a little more aloof than normal? As far as I was concerned, our date the next night couldn’t come soon enough!

“This won’t take long,” I said. “I just need to ask you something. Did you ever tell anyone else about that picnic spot where we went right before I left for New York?”

“You mean the overlook?” he said. “Funny you should ask that now. Actually I just mentioned it to this guy I know.”

“What guy?” My heart jumped with anticipation. Was it really going to be this easy? “And why were you guys talking about it?”

“Just a guy from my English class; his name’s Lyle,” Ned replied. “He was looking for a romantic spot to take a new date, so I suggested that overlook and, um, told him how much you liked it. You know.”

I clutched the phone more tightly against my ear. “When was this conversation?”

“Um…” Ned paused, clearly thinking back. He knows me well enough to realize I wouldn’t be asking unless I wanted a specific answer. “It was this past Friday, I think. Yeah. Definitely Friday — Lyle and I had dinner together at the dining hall after class that day.”

“Tell me about this guy Lyle,” I said. “What’s he like?”

“I dunno. Just a guy. He’s in my English class, like I said, and I think he’s prelaw. He plays tight end on the RHU football team — actually, if you saw yesterday’s paper, he made the front page. MVP at Sunday’s game.”

“Sunday’s game,” I repeated. “Wait — you mean the RHU football game over in Indiana?” I vaguely remembered the guys at the garage talking about that when I’d stopped in to pick up my car on Monday.

“That’s the one.”

So much for my brand-new prime suspect. There was no way Lyle could be the person who’d lobbed that rock at me on Sunday. Not if he was off being MVP at a football game in another state at the same time. Still, this had to mean something — all I had to do was figure out what it was.

“Listen,” I said to Ned, “can you ask him if he mentioned that picnic spot to anyone else after you guys talked about it? It has to do with my case. Could be important.”

“Sure. I’ll see him in class later. I can ask him then.”

“Thanks.” Another phone line had just lit up, and I remembered I was supposed to be working. “Listen, I’ll let you get to class. Call me later.”

“Will do.”

“So your dad actually let you off the hook today, huh?” George said when she opened the door to let me in on Friday right after lunch. I’d spent the morning at another volunteer committee meeting, but now I was ready to throw myself back into my case.

I stepped inside. “Yeah. Is Bess here?”

“Upstairs.”

Soon all three of us were sitting in front of George’s computer. Being there again was giving me weird déjà vu flashes. It was becoming bizarrely difficult to keep track of what was real and what was virtual in this investigation.

“Any new leads, Nancy?” Bess asked as she watched me guide VirtualNancy toward the virtual mall.

“Sort of.” I told both of them about Ned’s acquaintance Lyle. “Obviously he’s not Ned Nick Oh Two himself, but maybe he mentioned the park thing to whoever tried to bean me on Sunday. He missed class yesterday, but Ned’s going to ask him as soon as he tracks him down.”

Bess pretended to pout. “I still can’t believe you and Ned sneaked off for some romantic picnic at the overlook and didn’t even tell us about it.”

I didn’t respond. VirtualNancy had just stepped into the mall, and suddenly a tall, blond guy was rushing toward her. It was MrNiceGuy.

HI! he said. I WAS WAITING 4U. WANT 2 HANG OUT?

“Who’s that?” Bess peered over my shoulder at the screen. “Ooh, he’s cute!”

“He’s a two-dimensional batch of pixels on a screen,” I reminded her. “Also, I think he might be stalking me. Er, stalking VirtualNancy. Maybe both of us.”

“Hey,” George said, taking a closer look. “I recognize that guy. He kept private messaging me when I was scouting around with VirtualNancy yesterday. Wanted to talk and hang out and stuff. I finally had to block him just to get him to leave me alone.”

My jaw tightened. Enough was enough. My fingers flew over the keyboard. WHO ARE YOU? AND WHY ARE YOU STALKING ME?

“Nancy, wait!” Bess cried.

George groaned and smacked herself on the forehead. “When will you learn, Nance?” she complained. “Every time you confront someone like that, you just end up blocked!”

Realizing she was right, I steeled myself for the inevitable blast of sound that meant the other user had blocked me from talking to him. But it didn’t come.

I’M SORRY, NANCY! MrNiceGuy responded. I WAS JUST PLAYING AROUND — I DIDN’T MEAN 2 SCARE U!!! IT’S JUST ME — IBRAHIM!

Дата добавления: 2017-01-14