Ripper Read Online Free PDF Page B

her hormones had was on her appearance. At puberty she grew quickly, and at fifteen she got contact lenses to replace her glasses, had her retainer removed, learned to tame her shock of curly hair, and emerged as a slim young woman with delicate features, her father’s dark hair, and her mother’s pale skin, a young woman who had no idea how beautiful she was. At seventeen she still shambled along, still bit her nails, and still dressed in bizarre castoffs she bought in thrift stores and accessorized according to her mood.
     
    When her grandfather left, Amanda felt, for a few hours at least, that she was master of her own space. Three months from now she’d graduate from high school—where she’d been happy, on the whole, despite the frustration of having to share a dorm room—and soon she’d be heading for Massachusetts, to MIT, where her virtual boyfriend, Bradley, was already enrolled. He’d told her all about the MIT Media Lab, a haven of imagination and creativity, everything she had ever dreamed of. Bradley was the perfect man: he was a bit of a geek, like her, had a quirky sense of humor and a great body. His broad shoulders and healthy tan, he owed to being on the swim team; his fluorescent yellow hair to the strange cocktail of chemicals in swimming pools. He could easily pass for Australian. Sometime in the distant future Amanda planned to marry Bradley, though she hadn’t told him this yet. In the meantime, they hooked up online to play Go, talked about hermetic subjects and about books.
    Bradley was a science-fiction fan—something Amanda found depressing; more often than not science fiction involved a universe where the earth had been reduced to rubble and machines controlled the population. She’d read a lot of science fiction between the ages of eight and eleven before moving on to fantasy—imaginary eras with little technology where the difference between heroes and villains was clear—a genre Bradley considered puerile and pernicious. He preferred bleak dystopias. Amanda didn’t dare tell him that she’d read all four Twilight novels and the Millennium trilogy; Bradley had no time for vampires and psychopaths.
    Their romantic e-mails full of virtual kisses were also heavily laced with irony so as not to seem soppy; certainly nothing explicit. The Reverend Mother had expelled a classmate of Amanda’s the previous December for uploading a video of herself naked, spread-eagled, and masturbating. Bradley had not been particularly shocked by the story, since some of his buddies’ girlfriends had made similar sex tapes. Amanda had been a little surprised to discover that her friend was completely shaven, and that she’d made no attempt to hide her face, but she was more shocked by the hysterical reaction of the nuns, who had the reputation of being tolerant.
    While she messaged Bradley online, Amanda filed away the information her grandfather had managed to dig up on the Case of the Misplaced Baseball Bat, along with a number of grisly press cuttings she’d been collecting since her godmother first broadcast her grim prophecy. The kids who played Ripper were still trying to come up with answers to several questions about Ed Staton, but already Amanda was preparing a new dossier for their next case: the murders of Doris and Michael Constante.
     
    Matheus Pereira, a painter of Brazilian origin, was another of Indiana Jackson’s admirers. But their love was strictly platonic, since Matheus devoted all his energies to his painting. Matheus believed that artistic creativity was fueled by sexual energy, and when forced to choose between painting and seducing Indiana—who didn’t seem interested in an affair—he chose the former. In any case, marijuana kept him in a permanent state of zoned-out bliss that didn’t lend itself to amorous schemes. Matheus and Indiana were close friends; they saw each other most days, and they looked out for each other. He was constantly harassed by the police, while