Before I check for videos, I do another scan of the other applications she used. I check the Word files, but only an essay for English class pops up.
“This sucks,” Callie says.
“She does everything on her phone like we all do. We still haven’t looked at video files yet, and her email might give us something.”
I click on the QuickTime file. A hotel bathroom appears on the screen. Sidney leans over the sink, wearing only black panties and matching bra. The person behind the camera says something.
“Hey, baby, watcha doing?”
She looks into the camera. On the bathroom sink is a white powdery substance.
“What does it look like I’m doing, stupid? Get that camera away from me,” she says.
Her eyes are glazed over, her face gaunt and dirty. Blood drips from her nose. She swipes her finger across her nose. “I’ll be right out okay, baby. We’re going to have fun. I promise.”
Sidney returns to her task. We don’t need the camera to tell us what’s going on, so I fast forward through that scene. In the next frame, she comes out of the bathroom and dives onto the king sized bed. The camera must have been set up to record the two of them. A guy we assume was recording the earlier bathroom scene starts to kiss her. We can’t see his face, but he has long black stringy hair and a tattoo of an eagle on his shoulder blades.
“I think we can figure out the rest,” I say to the girls.
Callie and Frances make it back to the sofa. I power down my computer and join them.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” I tell them.
“What do you mean?” Callie asks.
“I have to shut down the Keylogger software. I didn’t sign up for this. I’ll have to find another way.”
“I don’t understand why she would store that video on her computer without a password,” Frances says. “It’s just reckless.”
“That’s Sidney,” Callie says.
“I’ll check her email; then I’m shutting down the whole thing.”
“What if the evidence you’re looking for shows up afterward?” Frances asks. “With the drop tomorrow, somebody may contact her or she may contact someone.”
“They would call her phone,” I say.
“Look what we found on her computer. You never know.”
Loud banging on the bedroom door startles us. “Abbie, Callie, Frances, breakfast is ready,” Miles yells.
“We’re coming,” I shout back.
At five o’clock in the evening, I’m the last one to head down to Thanksgiving dinner. It took forever to get my hair to look the way I wanted it to—a French braid around the front area and the rest of the hair falling past my shoulders. The girls got tired of waiting for me and just gave up. I settled on a scarlet red, cable knit sweater dress, a cashmere and cotton combo with gold buttons.
I walk down the grand staircase, holding on to the banister so I won’t trip on my heels. I hear a voice beneath the stairs, which would be the hallway that runs from the foyer all the way down to the family room. I slow my descent. As I get closer, I recognize Trevor’s voice.
“Come on, Cole. I told you I’m good for it. Get off my back already.”
He pauses, listening to his brother. He removes his glasses with his free hand, blows on the lenses, and then returns them to his face.
“Have I ever let you down? I always come through. Just going through a dry spell right now, but it will all work out.”
A pause.
“Don’t worry about it. And please don’t tell Dad we spoke.”
Another pause from Trevor.
“No, Cole, I want to major in Anthropology. I don’t want to be tied to a desk in some stuffy office, no matter how nice it is. So, I won’t be joining the firm after college.”
I don’t know if I should alert him to my presence or not. That conversation is intense.
I clear my throat, and he looks up as I descend the stairs.
“Talk to you later,” he says to his brother, and then he hangs up.
“Is everything okay, Trevor?” I ask.
“Wow. Christian’s eyeballs are going to fall out when he sees you in that dress.”
I reach the bottom of the stairs and face him. “Thanks for saying that. Are you okay, though?”
“Oh, the call. That was nothing. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Working on something for Frances. Don’t tell her. I want it to be a surprise.”
“Okay, I won’t say a word.”
When I arrive in the dining room, my brother yells, “It’s about time. Let’s eat.”
I receive enthusiastic thumbs up from my girls about my wardrobe choice. Trevor wasn’t kidding. Christian’s eyes are stuck on me. I take the seat next to him.
“Sorry, everyone. I didn’t mean to take so long. As my brother said, let’s eat.”
Mom created a feast. The table is loaded with grilled sweet potatoes sprinkled with brown sugar, butter, and nutmeg, homemade macaroni and cheese, bread rolls, dried fruit and sausage stuffing, lasagna, creamy mashed potatoes with chives, butternut squash, and pineapple cranberry sauce. A giant roasted turkey with all the trimmings is at the center of the table. She still found space for the perfect table linens, plates, and flowers. A smaller table in the back of the dining room is loaded with the best desserts ever: cheesecake, apple pie, sweet potato pie, Crème Brulée, and coconut cake, all homemade. I think Shelby Cooper figured out how to squeeze more than twenty-four hours out of a day.
After a brief prayer of thanks led by Dad, we all dig in. The atmosphere is festive with lots of ribbing and teasing. Trevor holds hands with Frances, and they look like a couple in love. I chase away thoughts of what I heard on the stairs.
“Mrs. Cooper, this is the most delicious Thanksgiving dinner I’ve had in my entire life,” Christian says.
“Here, here,” we all agree and toast her with our glasses.
“To the best chef in the business, the most incredible mother, and best wife any man could ask for,” my dad says and plants a big, wet kiss on mom’s cheek.
She giggles like a teenager.
“Thank you, Mrs. Cooper, for adopting us, too,” Callie says.
“You made being away from our families bearable,” Frances adds.
“I’ll miss you all come graduation,” Mom says.
A melancholy mood sweeps over the room. We all recognize that this moment, this Thanksgiving, will be the end of an era. For four years, this has been a second home to my friends—and Mom, their surrogate mother. Now, we’re about to all scatter like leaves in the wind.
After dinner and dessert, everyone assembles in the family room to relax and watch a movie. I take off to my room for a few minutes. I tell them to start without me. I boot up my computer again. I want to see if anything on Sidney’s email will help. I punch in the username and password I retrieved from the logs. It works, and her email inbox opens up. I scroll through what appears to be mostly junk mail offers from various retailers. I look closely at those because I might find the receipts for any unusual purchases made online. Nothing jumps out at me. I scroll down further and see an email from Patty Bailey, her mother. I open it, and a brief message appears.
Sidney,
Why won’t you return my calls? We need to talk. Your father’s worried, and so am I. Please call.
Love,
Mom
Yes, her mother should be worried. I do a search for Patty Bailey to see if there are any more messages. I find two. One of them includes the string. From what I can put together, Sidney is angry with her parents. What’s interesting is the reason why. Sidney accuses her mom of being a horrible mother, not caring about her, and being just a stupid cow who should leave her alone. She doesn’t say anything about her father. All her rage is directed at her mother.
In another message, Sidney tells her to stop pretending to care; she’s eighteen now and an adult. Her mother’s denials of Sidney’s accusations are strong
throughout the email. Patty tells her they can work through this as a family and how worried they are about her. Sidney isn’t having any of it.
I’m beginning to have sympathy for Sidney. My friends and I thought she was messed up because she was a spoiled, entitled brat. In other words, she was like ninety-nine percent of the student population at our school. However, when I think of the video, her condition when I found her in the girls’ bathroom, her overall behavior, and now these emails, I sense that something is terribly wrong.
How does it tie in with The Avenger and her blackmail scheme? Is Sidney acting out because of her troubles and focused on me because I’m already someone she hates?
I go through the inbox, but nothing else stands out. I check her outbox and see only the messages between her and her mother. I go all the way back to the date when the note first appeared in my locker, and there’s nothing. I search one more time. The only thing that piques my interest this time around is an email from a Dr. Heather Willis.
Sidney,
Below is the address we discussed during our last session. Remember, you don’t have to share anything if you’re not comfortable, but I think being in a room with others who’ve had similar experiences will be helpful. Don’t forget to keep writing in your journal.
Dr. Willis
Whatever Sidney is angry with her mother about is so painful she needs to see a psychiatrist. I still don’t know what it has to do with me. Did I make a terrible mistake or is Sidney a much cleverer adversary than I thought? The answers may lie in her journal.
CHAPTER 24
Black Friday 9:00 p.m.
I pull into Shoppers World off Route 9 in Framingham. I score a parking spot close to the cluster of stores that include Starbucks, Old Navy, and Taylor Books, the place of the drop. I text the girls to let them know I’ve arrived at the bookstore. They tell me they’re hanging out at a fast food joint on Route 30, a five-minute drive from me. I take a visual sweep of my surroundings, looking for anyone suspicious. My hands are clammy. I wipe them on my dark jeans, several times.
At 9:15 p.m., I take a deep breath, calm my nerves, and exit the car with the big brown paper bag with the handles and a plain, black scarf on top. I walk at a steady pace, careful not to appear nervous or in a hurry. I enter the store, and I’m greeted by the smell of new books and an extensive display of fiction bestsellers. Customers are scattered in every section of the store. I mentally remind myself not to let my eyes wander. Look straight ahead. The cameras are embedded in the ceiling.
I stroll past the eReader Center, toys, games, and the teen section. I stop in the diet and nutrition aisle and pretend to browse.
“Can I help you find something?” I feel my leg muscles tightening, my body ready to make a run for it but I don’t. A store employee is assessing me with a forced smile. She is an older lady, perhaps in her fifties with glasses perched on her nose, and barely-there lips.
“No, ma’am. Just comparing these diet books.”
The woman backs up a little and presses her glasses further down her nose. She takes a good look at me. I mentally scold myself. The diet section? Really?
“It’s for a friend,” I explain.
She raises an eyebrow.
“You know what, she can come look at the books herself. I’ll probably get yelled at for picking the wrong one, anyway.”
Another fake smile.
“Excuse me.” I ease past the skeptic. I can feel her eyes on me as I head to the back of the store, my heart hammering in my chest. I must be giving off that nervous vibe. There was no reason for her to be suspicious of me. I look back to see if she’s still staring at me. She is. I have to drop the money before she calls store security. I’m on her radar. Soon, she will start following me around the shop.
What if someone already moved the decoy bag? What if people witness the exchange? It’s now or never. I glance backward again. Ms. Skeptical has her head down, looking at some paperwork in the customer service center. I duck into the next aisle and ease my way to the opening where the newsstand and magazines are. Two people are browsing through the magazines, their backs to me.
Decision time. Do I swap the bags while their backs are turned or wait until they leave? The risk in that strategy is that more customers might show up in the area, increasing the odds that one of them may take the bag to the front of the store and explain to the staff that someone forgot it.
My body is suddenly freezing. My hands are shaking so badly I’m afraid I’ll drop the bag. One of the browsers turns around. Her eyes land on me, then the bag on the bench. “Is this your bag?”
“Um…yeah. My friend is in the ladies’ room, and she sent me over to get it.”
“Okay.”
She won’t leave. She just stands there, waiting for me to make a move.
“Are you going to pick up your friend’s bag or just stare at it?”
I want to yell at her and tell her that it’s none of her freaking business. Instead, I take tentative steps toward the bench with the bag identical to the one growing heavier by the second in my hand. I pick up the decoy bag loaded with empty shoe boxes and the same black scarf on top. I turn around and take a slow, tense walk down the aisle of biographies. I stop in the middle, drop both bags on the floor, and pretend to browse again.
Painful seconds tick by. She’s still here. The other customer browsing the section has left. The store will close soon. My plan is to wait out Ms. Nosy. Another minute goes by. I can’t stand it. I’m sweating profusely. I want to take off the baseball cap, but I can’t. I walk casually to the end of the aisle and take a book off the shelf. I scan through the pages, unable to absorb any of the content. I then peek around the corner. She’s gone.
I exchange the bags and duck back to the biography aisle, careful to keep my head down, and then slowly backtrack through the store. The double doors are only a few feet away from me. I’m moments from a clean getaway when I hear someone call out.
“Miss, Miss, you forgot something.”
That’s it. They’re going to haul me off to jail. They’re going to call the cops if they opened the bag and saw the money. If I make a run for it, it makes me look guilty, and they’ll definitely call the police. My only chance of walking away unscathed is to turn around slowly. Damn it. Miss Nosy again.
“Yes?” I say, my voice as sweet as honey.
“You forgot this,” she says, holding up the scarf. “You dropped it on the way out.”
What did she do, follow me and pick up the scarf the minute it dropped? I remind myself to look at the positive side of things. She thinks it belongs to the empty shoebox bag I’m carrying.
“Thank you.”
I take the scarf from her and rocket out of the store. I don’t stop until I reach my car. I jump inside, dump the bag on the passenger seat and burn rubber out of the parking lot. Once I’m safely on Route 9, and certain no one is following me, I pull my phone out of my jacket pocket. I give a voice command to call Frances.
I let her know the drop was made.
“I have an idea,” she says.
“What?”
“Callie and I should drive to the store to see if anyone walks out with the bag.”
“Whoa. That wasn’t part of the plan. I don’t want you guys caught in the middle of this. She could be dangerous. She could have another accomplice. There are too many unknowns, Frances. It’s a good idea but too risky.”
“Okay. We’ll meet you at the house then.”
I know she’ll go against my advice. I don’t have the energy to argue further.
I make a second call, to Ty, and I leave him a message.
“We got there too late,” Frances says. “It was ten minutes before closing when we got to the store, and mostly employees were still around. The bag was gone.”
“She must have been watching me from somewhere,” I say.
Callie concurs.
We’re on the sofa in my bedroom, recounting the evening’s events. I’m relieved tha
t the drop was made, but this story is far from over.
“It has to be somebody familiar with this area,” Frances says. “What if she was in the store the whole time?”
Goosebumps appear on my arms, and I shudder. I think back to the store employee who looked at me with suspicion, and the woman who chased me to return the scarf I dropped.
“What’s wrong, Abbie? Callie asks.
I tell them about the two ladies at the store. The only problem is I don’t know either one of them. The store employee was older. Sidney hates anyone over thirty. The younger lady, the one who just happened to be at the spot where I was supposed to make the exchange, seemed to be just a customer. But was she?
“That is odd,” Frances says.
“The younger lady could have been there to pick up the cash. Which means, The Avenger was afraid I would recognize her face.”
“Which brings us back to Sidney,” Frances says.
“Right.”
My cell phone rings, putting an end to our supposition. I scurry off the sofa and grab the phone off the bed. It’s better to stand when I answer. I don’t say a word when I accept the call.
“You’re competent after all,” she says, her tone scornful. “I knew this game would be fun.”
“You got what you wanted. Now it’s your turn to hold up your end of the deal. You know what I want from you.”
“I’m not ready to quit this game, not when things are just starting to heat up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your next assignment.”
“We had a deal,” I shriek, anger rising like bile in my throat. “You promised the photo in exchange for the money. I followed your instructions. Now, it’s time to step up. Are you going to add ‘filthy liar’ to your list of crimes, too? Extortion is a crime. You do know that, right?”
“Did you really think I would make it that easy?” she asks. “This was only a test. You passed. Congratulations.”
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