That Time I Dated a Thief

CHAPTER 2: UNTIL THAT PHONE CALL

AVA BURNS

I've just woken up in a sweat. My phone is ringing and my heart is thumping because, for some reason, the ring has an ominous sound to it.

"Hello?" I say. I never say my name straight away because it changes depending on who's ringing.

"Blu?"

"Yes?" I say.

"This is Shillin. We follow each other on DeviantArt."

I hear myself inhale sharply, and hope he hasn't heard me too.

"Shillin," I say. I say it without any inflection, so it's kind of a non-answer, and there's a protracted silence while he must be wondering whether to confirm that yes, he did just say Shillin, or enlighten me as to who Shillin actually is. But of course I know who he is - everyone on DeviantArt knows who he is, the guy with 550k watchers, posts that get 5M+ page views. I'm just wondering why he's calling me and how he got my number.

I gather myself, shake out my hair, and stand up straight.

"Sorry Shillin, I was just grabbing a ah ... a milk."

Milk?! Uggh. Coffee had been on the tip of my tongue but no thirteen-year-old drinks coffee.

"Milk eh, how very Dutch of you," this Shillin guy says. "I thought you were going to say coffee for a second then."

My laugh is a little too loud. There's something in his tone that's unnerving. Paranoid thoughts are bubbling up into my brain. Like that I sound like a vape-smoking eighteen-year-old after a party on a barge and not at all like my thirteen-year-old alter-ego and social media sensation.

"Is now a good time?" He says. "I can call back if you like."

His accent sounds Irish.

"No no, now's good."

"I saw you live in the neighborhood. I'm also here in Amsterdam."

I know what he'll say next and I'm already flipping through my folder of lies and excuses. Until now I've managed to dodge every fellow Deviant or Instagrammer in the Amsterdam area.

"Oh, that's cool," I say.

"I'm just down in De Pijp. We should meet up."

"So the problem is, Shillin, I don't really go out. Like, ever. Anxiety. It's not something I like to talk about in my posts."

He's silent for a long beat. And then he says, "How's that all goin' anyway? I mean your posts? I notice you've been picking up again lately with your likes. Is that thanks to your new equipment?"

I don't know how he knows anything about my new 'equipment', and suddenly a black mist of what feels like impending death is rising up my brain stem.

Have I got a stalker? His bio is blank. Shillin could be anyone. Some 40-year-old pedo with shaggy grey hair and a bloated gut and a woolly mane sprouting out the top of his open shirt.

"Ummm, yeah. It's been going better. I'm working at it, you know."

There's another long pause, and then it comes. The hand grenade.

"See, I have a bit of a problem. That's actually why I'm calling." There's the sound of movement, his phone shifting against his ear. "I need my laptop back."

"Your what?"

He laughs. A deep and hearty laugh, like I'm a total knob. "My laptop. The one you stole."

And then I go mute. I don't know how he knows it was me. I don't know how of all people, it could have been Shillin's laptop, and I'm wondering if I'm drunk or stoned or, hopefully, still asleep and just having a nightmare.

"So here's the thing Ava Burns." Omigod he knows my name. "I need you to return it. Today. My mate has a shop in De Pijp, called the Workshop. Just come by, drop it off, and I'll forget the whole thing ever happened. Sound fair to you?"

He knows who I am. He knows I'm a fake.

Something incoherent comes out of my mouth, a jumble of apologies and grovelling agreements that of course I'll be there ASAP. And then mid mumble I just hang up.

LUKE O'REILLY

I call this Ava Burns chick from the basement office.

Coming down here I'm immediately hit by the stench of weed and notice that someone's yet again left the door open to the Weed Room, as Robbie calls it.

The Weed Room is the largest part of the basement, a huge illegal cavern thing, dug out by the previous owner and extended by us. It stretches beneath at least three neighbouring houses and their gardens. It's my brother Sean who insists on using it to grow weed.

Personally I think it's an unnecessary risk especially given our risky profession. But I can't help but impressed by the layout. Thirty five plants across, fifty deep, the lanes and gaps between the plants precisely aligned and uniform right down to the millimetre. Sean is so OCD. Right now the buds are huge and pineapple-like with amber hairs and I realise he's going to make a killing out of all that. I'd try to work out the profit in my head, but I'm keen to get out of here. The lighting is like a dentist's surgery and it's stinking hot. Twenty extractor and intake fans make a brain-jarring racket and I feel like I'm on some dodgy light aircraft with the doors open.

Plus, I have a phone call to make.

I close the door on the Weed Room and settle into the chair at my desk, one of five we have down here, along with ten computers.

It's taken me two full weeks of dark-web-diving to find this Ava Burns just based on some grainy CCTV tram footage. But it's been nothing but good news: not only is she a local, but she's a pseudo-criminal. Which gives me a bit of bargaining power.

Hearing her on the phone, I can't believe she pulls off this thirteen-year-old girl thing. Her voice is kind of husky, a little hoarse like a smoker's. I'm picturing someone around twenty five. Never leaves the house. Probably wears big, elasticated clothes with icecream stains down the front. She's only ever chatted with blokes on dating apps and only ever using a fake profile, like she's done with her BluTwist profile. Has probably been blocked by a hundred guys coz she won't leave them alone.

I laugh for a full minute when I get off the phone. She's absolutely freaking out and fuming to the point she can hardly speak. Then again, if someone spoke to me like I just did with her, I'd go nuts.

The minute I finish laughing, the brain squeeze comes back. It's been there ever since this debacle with the Prodiem. Is it possible to have a stroke at twenty? Coz if this Ava chick doesn't pull through, I actually think I might. On second thoughts, I probably won't have the chance. Someone else will have already busted my head in.