Page 65 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

“Oh, he’s doing much better, kiddo, aren’t you sweet for asking.”

Marlowe leans on the counter, lets Mrs. Warren ruffle her pink hair. “Mrs. W, would you be able to patch this phone into the big screen? I’m testing out some new AI enhancement software on door cams for the ’ship.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Warren says, beaming. She turns to me. “Marlowe is such a smart cookie. This whole independent study tech internship you gave her is exactly the challenge she needs.”

It would have beenreallysuper if Marlowe had given me a tiny heads-up. “Yes,” I say. “The internship...”

Marlowe jumps in and saves me. “This is Mo. She’s new at eWolram.”

“Haven’t I seen you before?” The librarian studies me.

“Doubt it,” I say quickly. “I’m usually at... corporate headquarters.”

“Just showing her my latest project,” Marlowe explains.

“Wonderful!” Mrs. Warren says, beaming. “I’ll grab the cables!”

As she ducks into an office I turn to Marlowe, who shrugs. “Yeah,yeah, I made up a fake company and gave myself an internship so I could have a little wiggle room during the day.”

“It’s your own name backward.”

“Nobody’s noticed yet.”

I have no idea how Marlowe has convinced this whole school that she’s nothing but a cute and harmless genius, but in this moment, I’m just grateful.

Returning with the cables, Mrs. Warren patches Claudia’s phone into the big screen at the front of the room and leaves us to it while she reshelves books. I squat in one of the tiny grade school chairs, preparing myself to watch a snuff video prologue.

Marlowe punches in Claudia’s password—it’s 5465 (L-I-N-K, obviously)—and we start scrolling through approximately a million doorbell videos with unhelpful file names that don’t resemble dates or times.

It’s mostly just being triggered by birds, squirrels, and the mailman, wearing a pair of short shorts.

“Helloooo, is that package for me,” mutters Mrs. Warren from over in nonfiction. She’s not wrong, and any other time, I’d be all in, but right now all I feel is a terrible sense of anticipation.

“Hold on,” I say, as another video starts. “Stop here. That’s me.”

“Claudia,” the demented ultra-close-up of me hisses. “It’s me, Mo. I’m sorry, okay? Please—”

Suddenly I have this vague recollection that video-me is about to go into NSFW territory talking about Chris, and I leap up so fast, I knock the tiny chair backward and grab the phone from Marlowe, who protests.

“We can just fast-forward, nothing to see here...” I mute the video to be extra safe, and then speed through my message. The video shuts off as I walk away.

I hit the next video. It’s still night as the vague outline of a—cat,maybe?—casually strolls across Claudia’s front steps. The camera doesn’t havegreatnight vision.

In the video after that, it’s daytime again. Squirrels chase each other.

More squirrels.

More.

“Hang on,” Marlowe says. “What’s this?”

The time stamp for the next video says 4:46 this morning. The two of us watch the enormous screen as a guy walking a bunch of big shapes—dogs!—comes up to the front door. It’s super dark, but the closer he gets, the more I can make out his features.

“Who is that?” I say, squinting. “I think I know him.”

“It’s Benny,” Marlowe whispers. “He walks dogs in the neighborhood.”

There’s something in his hand. He ducks down out of frame, and there’s a little creak which I use my powers of deduction to, uh, deduce is him opening the mail slot in the door. He’s down there for a little while, and then he pops up, looks left, looks right, rattles the doorknob, and then shoves his shoulder against the door, hard.