“You sound like a seventies movie,” Justin said. “Didn’t we all watch The Conversation at Raj’s house? During our Coppola weekend?”
“Oh, you remember?” Alex wasn’t letting Justin off the hook anytime soon. I’d realized that our movie night at Raj’s wasn’t the first time Alex had been there, but I hadn’t known that the three of them watched movies together. The list of things I didn’t know was getting longer all the time.
“It just means it will be harder to set up a camera than it was at the library,” Raj said.
“It’s a cheap camera,” Alex said. “It won’t work that well in the dark. We’re better off just following Isabel and watching her ourselves.”
“No way,” she said. “We don’t know what will happen if I get caught. And I’ll be the only one out in the open.”
“We can take Kara’s Prius,” Raj said. “It’s perfect for this sort of thing—so quiet.”
“It’ll be kind of tight with all of us, though,” I said.
“I don’t want any part of this,” Isabel said. “You guys do what you want, but once I drop those pills, I’m out.”
“Well, that solves the car problem,” I said. “And we can make sure to stay far away until you’re gone. It’s not like Blocked Sender will come get the pills immediately. He won’t want you to see him.”
“What makes you think the person who picks up the pills will even be Blocked Sender?” Alex asked. “So far he’s been making other people do his dirty work.”
“Then at least we’ll know one more person who’s involved. We’ll be one step closer.” I hoped that was true, anyway. “Isabel, when are you supposed to drop the pills?”
“Tomorrow,” she said.
“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Alex said. “I get the impulse to follow people around, but maybe we should do some investigation first. We have an address, so let’s do some research.”
“Do you think the address is actually Blocked Sender’s house?” Raj asked.
“Nope,” she said. “Given how careful he’s been to keep everyone isolated, there’s no way he’s going to make himself that easy to find. But there’s a chance there’s some connection between whoever lives there and Blocked Sender, even if that connection won’t be obvious right away. It would help to know a little something before we stake the place out.”
“And then what?” Justin asked. “We watch the drop-off and confront whoever does the pickup?”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Alex asked. “We’ve got it from here.” She wasn’t even trying to hide her anger at him.
“No way,” he said. “We’re all in this together now.”
“Fine, whatever. We’ll pick you up tomorrow. Isabel, what time’s the drop-off?”
“Nine. Look, I’m fine with you doing this whole following me thing, but do me a favor and make sure you don’t get caught, okay? I don’t want this to get any worse than it already is.”
“None of us do,” I said. “We’ll be careful. I swear.”
“Just tell me what happened after, okay?”
I promised I would.
“That’s everything, right?” Justin asked. “Can we get out of here now?”
“Soon,” I said. “But don’t we need to think about what we’re going to do when we find out who’s picking up the pills?”
“That will depend on who it is, don’t you think?” Raj asked. “It’s not like we’re going to just ambush the person on sight.”
“I know you always like to have a plan, Kara. Sometimes we have to wing it,” Alex said.
“I guess.” I wasn’t so sure, though. But I could tell everyone was ready to be done talking. Alex and Raj had already paid for the pizza, and between them and Justin it was nearly gone. Time to go home. It had been a long day.
I knew Alex was planning to do as much research as she could before I had to pick everyone up, so at school the next day I asked if I could come over and help. We hadn’t had a lot of time to hang out alone, and I wanted to make sure she was okay. She’d gotten so furious with Justin, and I still didn’t understand why. Especially if he hadn’t told Blocked Sender her secret, which I really did believe he hadn’t.
We got to her house and settled in at her desk. Alex started pulling up websites and databases and typing faster than I could keep up with her. “I got a head start last night,” she admitted. “I’m not just doing this off the top of my head. Normally I’d just enter the address and follow it wherever it led, but I thought I’d try to be more like you. You know, methodical. When I got home last night, I researched the best way to find out information from an address, so I bookmarked a whole bunch of stuff to get ready.”