33
MUSICMAN. HOT WHEELS. WARLOCK. SMOOTH TALK. TRAVELER.
It was like having a wardrobe full of costumes. You could change your clothes whenever you felt like it. You just decided what person you wanted to be that day—whatever fit your mood—and donned the name like a favorite shirt or jacket.
His favorite right now was “Traveler,” for a couple of reasons. One, he had always loved the open road, loved to drive. Just pick a route—back road or freeway, it didn’t matter—and follow it. Go where he pleased, always looking for what was beyond the next bend in the road. But the most pertinent connotation of the word “traveler” came from the books the profilers used, those books about people like him. Men who killed—serial killers—had a tendency to go from place to place so they wouldn’t get caught. They were called “travelers,” and he thought this the height of irony to use that for one of his e-mail names. It was a hint, even though no one had ever picked up on it. A clever nod to fair play.
He had not done much traveling lately, although he had moved ninety miles to the north. Tucson was an easy town to disappear in. He had melted right into the Tucson melting pot. He was careful, though, staying close to the freeway in a Motel 6, only venturing out of the neighborhood to a UPS Store to pick up the money Dark Moondancer had sent him.
He was in the Motel 6 now, doing what he loved best—trolling the net. But even that paled in comparison to what was on his mind: the e-mail from LVRGRL@livewire.com.
Intrigued, he’d opened it—and knew right away it was her.
She told him what happened—how her parents had discovered the camera and jewelry he’d sent her and demanded to know where she got them. She’d refused to tell, and her father, the son-of-a-bitch, took away her computer privileges.
But his girl had spunk. It took her awhile, but she managed to talk her mother into letting her use her computer for school, and immediately she set up a new e-mail account.
Kids these days.
I was scared but now I know how much I really luv U and I know its right. They cant keep us apart
Reading that, Musicman couldn’t help experiencing a tiny kernel of hope.
He had to be sure, though.
He went through all his CRZYGRL12 messages, starting with the most recent and going backward. He read the messages which had lured him to Bisbee, messages he now knew were false:
I have to go visit my dad in the poduk town. Boriiiing. Theirs nothig to do there.
A lie.
I’ve been thinking. Your right. Its time we got together.
Lie, lie, lie.
I know a park were we coud meet
I want to do it now
I luv U
Musicman went back through each e-mail, scrupulously, trying to figure out when the imposter had taken over. Looking for changes in syntax and content. He couldn’t see anything different. She used “lay” instead of “lie”, a common grammatical mistake. Lots of smiley faces and sad faces, depending on her mood. The same misspellings: “their” for “there”; “coud” for “could”.
He printed everything up; sometimes you could spot stuff on hard copy that you missed on the screen. Went through the e-mails again, starting with the most recent, going backward in time.
And then he saw it.
Theirs nothig to do there.
He rummaged through the twenty-seven pages of correspondence he had saved to disk, scanning rapidly, pulse thumping in his ears. Did she use “their” and “there” indiscriminately?
No. Thirteen times she’d written “their”. Never “there”.
Whoever intercepted their e-mails—and pretended to be CRZYGRL12—had slipped up. A common mistake; it’s hard to misspell on purpose. Spelling was a habit like anything else. Like if you tried to change your handwriting. As careful as you were, you had a tendency to revert to what you were.
How had he missed it?
Now he had to figure out if this latest e-mail came from the girl or the imposter.