The Night Tournaments

14 - Claude

I looked up to see Bree Campbell approaching me in the cafeteria lineup at the beginning of lunch. "Claude, I need to talk to you," she said in a low voice.

"Just me? Uh, all right," I replied, slightly confused. Bree seemed like she was in her getting-to-the-bottom-of-something mode, so I didn't really know what to expect.

I followed her into the hallway as soon as I set my food down at The Unbreakable Five's usual table, and Bree glanced in both directions before pinning me down with her calm but urgent gaze.

"So, Claude, you know how I'm the new president of the Junior Disciplinary Committee, right?" she asked, and I nodded. "Well, the thing is . . . we got assigned our first case last Friday - a stalking case. The victim's name is Thea Robinson, and she's a girl in our grade. She's been receiving gifts from an unknown admirer for almost a week, and they include weirdly sentimental messages on notes during class, a banner and flowers in her locker -"

"Hold on. A banner and flowers?" I repeated, something clicking in my mind.

"Yeah, why?" Bree questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"It's just . . . does this 'Thea Robinson' have long black hair?" I inquired, squinting and digging in my memory. Last Wednesday after school, a few hours before I had visited the famous pizza restaurant with my parents, I had briefly witnessed a girl with black hair gawking at a pink banner and fake white roses inside her locker. I hadn't thought much of it back then, but now that Bree was mentioning something similar . . . could it just be a coincidence?

"She does," she answered, her brown eyes gleaming in surprise. ". . . Claude, did you happen to see or hear anything about this?"

"I did, actually," I told her, running a hand through my hair. "Last Wednesday, I was on my way to exit the school building when I saw a girl that I didn't know staring at her locker. When I passed by, I glimpsed a message written on a banner and flowers inside. At the time, I just absentmindedly assumed that it was from some guy who had a crush on her . . ."

"I can't believe this. That girl is Thea Robinson, Claude. Everything that you just told me matches up with what happened to her," Bree said, shaking her head in wonder.

"Wow, that's kind of . . . bizarre," I remarked, leaning against the wall behind me. "To think that all of that was done by a stalker, not just a harmless admirer . . ."

"And that's not even the worst part," Bree stated, sighing. "Thea informed us that her stalker's most recent 'gift' was a Louis Vuitton bag delivered right to her house. Whoever they are knows her address, and just this morning, the JDC's vice-president, the secretary, and I checked the security camera near her locker. We saw the culprit walking up to it during Study Hall on Wednesday and taking the decorations out of their bag, but we didn't find anything useful - they were wearing a hood, and the camera wasn't able to catch their face when they took it off."

"The stalker knowing her address is really creepy," I said, frowning. "But, um . . . is there a reason why you're talking to me specifically about this, Bree?"

"Right, I haven't mentioned that yet," she responded, adjusting her beanie. "So, the thing is, there's a Louis Vuitton shop near Glenmore Street . . . and I thought that I recalled your house being the closest to it, out of everyone that I know."

"You're right, I do live on Glenmore Street," I told her, blinking. How did Bree have such a sharp memory? "I'm . . . sensing that you want me to do something about that. Am I correct?"

She laughed, allowing the tension surrounding our conversation to ease a little. "Well, you pretty much are. Since Thea says that the bag that she received is an authentic product, there's a good chance that the stalker purchased it from the Louis Vuitton shop near your house, especially since there aren't many other stores within a reasonable distance. I was wondering if you could visit it and ask the employees if they saw any suspicious customers shortly before last Friday, which is when the package was delivered to Thea's house."