“I like mine better. Or how about this quote: Hadley has more self-control than . . .” She paused and I waited. “I have no idea how to finish that one. It was going to be good, but I couldn’t think of anything that has as much self-control as you.”

“You make that sound like a bad thing.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t make me look bad.”

I picked up my burger. “Hey, I still eat greasy food. I don’t have that much self-control.”

She bumped her 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.”