Moment of Truth - Kasie West Page 0,9
burger against mine. “Thank goodness.”
Maybe I did need to give up greasy food. That would probably help my time. “So tell me. What do you know about the masked man?”
She held up her finger, finished chewing, then dug her phone out of her pocket. She typed on the screen and turned it toward me. A picture of Heath Hall—dark hair and startlingly blue eyes looked back at me. The electronic glass was lowered over one of his eyes and a long scar came out from under it and down his cheek. “Look.” She scrolled down past the pictures and had me read the most recent post.
I read it out loud. “I’ll be at the Pacific High swim meet Friday night. Come see what I’ll be facing.” My eyes went to the post below that. It said, “Bravery makes us all heroes,” which was something Heath Hall liked to say in his movies. I rolled my eyes. As if jumping into a swimming pool was equivalent to saving the world.
“Yeah, I saw that when I looked before. He announced it. Who does something like this?”
She shrugged.
“So have you heard any theories about who he is?” I asked.
“Yes, lots. Everyone thinks he’s someone different. So he could be anyone at our school.”
“Or nobody at our school.”
“I guess that’s true,” she said. “But here’s that map of events he’s shown up at. It’s like a web with our school at its center.” She typed something and then showed me her phone again.
“Huh.” She was right. The Pacific Ocean spread out along the left side of the map, but the other three directions surrounding our school were littered with red dots, probably close to fifty of them. I zoomed out and noticed another small cluster inland, surrounding a city at least two hours from ours. “But what about these?”
“The theory is he moved from there to here a few years back.” She pointed at the first cluster of dots and then over to our school.
I narrowed my eyes, following her finger. I was irritated there were any theories about some random deviant. “Well, all I care about is that he doesn’t come to the pool on race day again. I’m going to make sure of that.”
“How?”
“I DMed him.”
Amelia dropped her hands to the table and turned her wide eyes to me. “What? You did?”
“Yes. I told him to stay away.”
“I hear he doesn’t respond to DMs. Wait . . . did he actually respond?”
“No.”
She waved her hand over my phone that was sitting facedown on the table, bouncing on her seat twice as she did. “See if he’s responded now.”
I sighed but then wiped my hands on a napkin and picked up my phone. One message waited in my DMs. I froze for a moment when I saw it was from him. Fake Heath Hall. He’d actually responded, and I found I was nervous to see what he’d said. No, this selfish fake spy hero wasn’t going to make me nervous. I clicked on the icon.
Well, I usually don’t do repeats, but now that I know it bothered you so much, I might take another run at the pool.
My mouth dropped open.
“What did he say?” Amelia asked, leaning close to look.
I tilted my phone toward her and she let out a gasp. “Do you think he means it?”
I grunted. “Yes.”
“You told him you were going to expose him?” she asked, obviously reading the message I had sent him. “But you don’t know who he is.”
“I was bluffing. He called me on it.”
“He totally did.” She laughed.
I returned my phone to the table. “It is now my goal to find out.”
“Find out . . . ?”
“Who he is.”
“Uh-oh,” she said. “He’s in trouble. You always accomplish your goals.”
“Exactly,” I said.
Amelia smiled, then her attention was drawn across the restaurant. “Now I’m starting to think that every guy could be fake Heath Hall. Like that guy in the booth over there. If I tilt my head and squint a little, he actually looks a little like Heath.”
“So you think the guy under the mask actually looks like Heath Hall?”
“Yes. That’s probably why he picked that particular mask. People probably always tell him that he looks like Heath Hall and so he decided to capitalize on it.”
I looked at the guy in the corner booth—squinted my eyes and tilted my head. He did look a little like Heath—minus the scar and technology, obviously.
“I’m going to go ask him if he’s the fake Heath Hall.” Amelia stood.
“Go for