Hunter nodded. “I bet most of them aren’t allowed to know the men’s full names, so if they need to contact a certain one of them, they get this book, identify them via the symbol, and match it to the phone number in the nextcolumn.”
“Yeah. The men probably only let the most trusted Medusa girls know their names,” I said. “Like Camila. She seems totally brainwashed by them, but she also seems to know who they are. How else would she know that the Network is filled with very powerfulmen?”
“That’s true,” Hunter said, brows furrowing. He pulled out his cell phone and held it out to me. “Anyway, there’s one way to find out if we’re right, if you’re up forit.”
“You want me to call the number in your dad’s row to see if it’s really him?” I asked, brows shootingupward.
“Yeah. I can’t do it, because he’ll recognize my voice right away. But he probably won’t recognize yours. Especially if you try to make it a bit higher ordeeper.”
“All right. I’ll pretend to be a telemarketer or something. Is your number set toprivate?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, he won’t know it’s myphone.”
I took a deep breath and dialed the number in the CRC row. A man picked up on the fourth ring. “Yes?”
“Hello, sir,” I said, affecting a slightly higher voice. “Would you be interested in taking part in a survey? We’re looking for people’s opinions on the upcoming electionin—”
The terse male voice cut me off. “This is a private number. Please take me off yourlist.”
The callended.
“He hung up,” I said, handing the phone back to Hunter. “But I’m ninety-nine percent sure that was yourdad.”
“I heard it,” he replied, eyes narrowed. “It was definitelyhim.”
“So we’re right, then. They all have burner phones that the Medusa girls can contact them on if they want or needto.”
“Yeah. And they only put their initials in the book, so the girls don’t know their full names,” he said. “Also, in case anyone else ever happens to find this book—like a student who decides to randomly pick it up while they’re browsing—they won’t have a clue what they’re lookingat.”
“Right.” I nodded slowly. “I guess we need to try to figure out who all of the initials belong tonow.”
“That’ll take awhile.”
“Yeah, it will. I think we should take photos of the pages, because we can’t take the book home with us,” I said. “Otherwise one of the girls might come to have a look at it, and they’ll raise the alarm when they see that it’smissing.”
“Goodidea.”
Hunter started photographing the pages with his phone. When he got to the third page of Network members, I frowned and pointed to a row that was crossed out with red ink. “What do you think thismeans?”
Hunter stayed silent for a moment, forehead creasing as he mulled it over. “I think I might know,” he finally said. “The initials are RAZ, and I remember my dad used to play golf with a guy named Richard Zane. He died of lung cancer in 2017. I’m betting if we Google his obituary, we’ll find that his middle name started withA.”
I did a quick search on my phone. “Yup. Here it is,” I said, showing the screen to Hunter. “Richard Alan Zane.RAZ.”
“Thoughtso.”
“So the red line means they’re dead,” I said. “I guess we know what happened to Vera Everett in 1995,then.”
“We still don’t know if she was murdered. Like I said before, she could’ve died fromanything.”
“That’s true.” I pointed to another row with a green line through it. “What do you think thismeans?”
“Alive, but no longer a Network member?” Huntersuggested.
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, that could beit.”
He flipped to the next page to take a photo. Near the bottom, there was another row with a green line through it. My stomach plummeted as I scanned the initials, and my left hand flew to mymouth.
“Laney? What’s wrong?” Hunter asked, lowering hisphone.