“Oh sure,” Jason said. “We will put together the best cheering section ever for her. No problem at all!”
“Thanks, I appreciate that,” Oscar replied. He then rejoined his team.
The team was setting up a trampoline type device to break her fall in case she actually decided to jump or lost her balance. Several team members went inside the building and up to the fifth floor. A night time janitor provided them with a key so that they could open the locked door for the inside stairway to the roof. Oscar Velez began to talk with Victoria, first through the megaphone, and then asked if he could talk to her more directly on the roof.
“I promise that I or any of my team won’t come near you unless you request us to,” Oscar told her. “It would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to shout at you through this megaphone and you won’t have to shout back to me if you have things to tell me.”
Everyone was very pleased when Victoria agreed. It was a step in the right direction. Oscar then hurried up to the roof. Soon he had engaged Victoria in some meaningful dialogue and persuaded her to step back a couple of steps from the edge of the roof. “That is so much better,” he told her. “Thank you for doing that.”
Through some artful questioning, Mr. Velez got Victoria to express some of her feelings, about how she no longer wanted to live because she would be the laughing stock of her school and cause shame to her family.
“That’s simply not true, Victoria,” Oscar told her. “Right now a group of your friends, schoolmates, and family are in the parking lot very worried about you. The last thing they want is for you to jump off the building. If you don’t believe me, listen to them!” Through his communicator, Velez cued one of the team members down on the group to bring the megaphone over to where the Jason and the others were standing. The crowd had increased in size as more students from Merriam High and onlookers from the shopping center joined Jason and his friends. On cue they all yelled, “Don’t jump! We don’t want to lose you! Yea, Victoria!”
Then Oscar had Mr. and Mrs. Romano do the same kind of thing. “We love you, Victoria!” they shouted through the megaphone. “Don’t worry about a thing. We can work everything out! Please don’t jump!”
With those reassuring words, Victoria’s demeanor began to change. Within ten minutes she had agreed to accept their help, and the rescue team rapidly approached Victoria, held on to her, and pulled her away from the edge. They were very encouraging to Victoria. “You did the right thing. Your life is too valuable to throw away. Sure some bad things happened to you, but everything will get worked out! Your friends are here to cheer you on, and your parents are here to take you home! We are very happy that you made the decision to live and work out your problems! Way to go, Victoria!”
Victoria was brought down to the ground, and reunited with her parents, while Jason and the crowd that had come to watch the crisis unfold cheered her on. Mr. and Mrs. Romano were very grateful, profusely thanking the rescue team for making a successful intervention. As they were leaving, they also thanked Jason, Daniel, Laura, and Diana for being so caring about their daughter.
Soon the rescue team was packing up their gear, and it was time for Jason, Laura, Daniel and Diana to leave.
“I’m sorry your well planned dance got messed up by this incident,” Jason told Laura. “But we helped save a life tonight! To me that is awesome!”
Laura gave Jason a hug and a kiss. “I really am beginning to understand the importance of what you do for others, honey. I’m so proud of you. But let’s not end the night on this note. Let’s grab some ice cream over at the Bascom-Robbins before they close!”
“I’m up for that, too,” Daniel said. “These rescues always make me hungry!”
Chapter 27
A Desperate Plea
(March 19)
Friday was a day off from school, but still a busy day for both Jason and Daniel. Jason used a good portion of the day to work at his Whatever Foundation office discussing their projects to help teens, budget issues, and outlining plans for the future. Daniel and his band members were spending the day recording songs in the studio at Tim’s house for their demo CD. Late Friday afternoon, Jason received a call on his cell phone from Mr. Romano.
“Jason, this is Nico Romano, Victoria’s father. I hope I am not calling you at a bad time.”
“No, Mr. Romano,” Jason replied, “I have time to talk now.”
“Good. I was wondering if you would be able to meet with me and my wife sometime tomorrow. I hope that this isn’t an imposition on you, but we would really like a face to face meeting with you, if you are willing.”
“I am assuming that this is about Victoria and what happened Thursday night,” Jason said. “How is she doing?”
“As you can imagine, Victoria is still very upset and humiliated about what happened,” Mr. Romano answered. “She is very withdrawn and fragile right now, and doesn’t want to see or talk to anyone about what happened.”
“Remember my offer about counseling for her and for yourselves,” Jason went on. “The Whatever Foundation will provide that for you at no cost. We have an excellent psychiatrist and counselor, Dr. Louis Agoura, on our staff who handles that for us. He is very good at reaching out to troubled teens and finding the right kind of counseling and rehabilitation activities for them. I would be happy to refer you to him.”
“Thank you for that kind offer, Jason. I will definitely discuss doing that with my wife and Victoria. But what I want to meet with you about is something else.”
“What exactly do you mean?” Jason asked.
“I was talking with our next door neighbors, whose daughter, Francine, is a good friend with Laura Friesen. They reminded us that not only are you in charge of this foundation, but that you also do detective work. That is what I would like to talk to you about. Would you be willing to talk with us about that tomorrow?”
“Anything involving that kind of work is something that I do with my best friend and detective partner, Daniel Holmes. Please understand also that we are not private detectives for hire. We only take on cases that are of interest to us, or involve someone in immediate danger.”
“I realize that I am asking a lot of you, Jason,” Mr. Romano continued, “but my wife and I are desperate. What happened to our daughter was despicable and cruel. Someone had it in for her for some reason, and we feel that we need to get to the bottom of this if she is ever to regain a normal life again! Would you please come and at least hear us out?”
“I will have to talk to Daniel about this before I can answer you one way or another. Give me your phone number and I will call you back,” Jason told Mr. Romano. Jason then wrote down the number he was given and ended the call.
Jason put in a call to Daniel on his cell phone. Luckily, Daniel was available, having just finished his recording work for the day. “How did the session go today?” Jason asked his best friend.
“It went very well,” Daniel replied. He sounded a little exhausted. “I think we have usable takes on three more songs now. Everyone is very pleased about it.”
Jason then went on to explain about the call from Nico Romano.
“That’s all we need, another case to work on,” Daniel replied. “With all of this other stuff going on, I don’t know if I will have the time. And we still have Jian-heng’s case to resolve. Did he say exactly what he wants us to do?”
“He didn’t say specifically,” Jason went on, “but I am guessing he wants us to investigate and try and find out who was responsible for sending out those pictures of Victoria.”
“Well, I must admit I was very offended about having those sent to me, Diana, and all the other students. It seems that there are some very warped and cruel people on our campus.”
“Yeah, Daniel, that part really bothered me, too. If whoever did this isn’t stopped, it could happen to other kids at our school. Even if it wasn’t in the form of pictures, someone could undertake a very nasty campaign against someone they didn’t like or wanted to humil
iate.”
“Good point, Jason,” Daniel said. “All right, I don’t have too much to do tomorrow. Go ahead and set up a meeting. We can hear this guy out but there is nothing that says we need to take this on, right?”
“Of course, Daniel.” Jason replied. “We only need to do cases that we want to do. But I think both of us would like to get to the bottom of this. After all we could easily be targets, or they could choose to pick on Laura or Diana.”
“Better burn all of those compromising photos then,” Daniel said with a laugh.
“I’m not sorry at all to say that I don’t have any!” Jason replied. “I prefer to keep my romance with Laura a very private and personal affair!”
“Me too,” Daniel said. “Diana would get furious if I even suggested something like that. And that is the $50,000 question for Victoria. Why on earth would she do such an unwise thing?”
“I guess we could try to find out the answer tomorrow at our meeting. What time is good for you?” Jason asked. The two friends discussed possible times that would work for them and decided on 11:00 Saturday morning. Jason then called Mr. Romano back to set up their meeting.
Saturday morning Daniel picked up Jason around 10:45. It was a warm spring day, with temperatures in the high seventies. Both boys were wearing shorts with tee shirts and high top chucks. After their meeting with the Romanos, they had planned to go out to lunch. They would be updating each other on the band’s progress, and on the Whatever Foundation board meeting that Daniel missed due to his recording session. When they arrived at the Romano’s front door, it was quickly answered by Mr. Romano.
He shook hands with the boys, and invited them inside. They went into the living room and sat down. Mrs. Romano was already there. “Would you boys like anything to drink?” she offered.
“No thanks,” Jason replied. “We are good for the moment. Is Victoria going to join us for this meeting?”
“Victoria still feels mortified about what happened to her,” Mr. Romano said, “and doesn’t feel comfortable talking with anyone just yet. She is holed up in her room. We tried to get her to come out and at least say hello, but with no success so far.”
“That makes it difficult for us to work on investigating what actually happened if the principal person involved won’t even agree to talk to us!” Daniel said, slightly exasperated.
“We believe that eventually Victoria will come out of the protective shell she has put around herself,” Mrs. Romano explained. “Right now she is still feeling very vulnerable, especially around people her own age.”
“Have you called anyone about counseling?” Jason asked. “It sounds like that is an extremely important necessity for Victoria right now. If she doesn’t start to process things and begin to deal with her state of mind, she could become suicidal again!” He handed Mrs. Romano a business card. “That is Dr. Agoura’s card. I highly recommend that you talk to him as soon as possible. He is very good in these situations, and remember that our foundation will cover the cost of his services.”
“Thank you for caring, Jason, and for offering your assistance,” Mrs. Romano said. “I know it seems like we have done nothing, but we are watching Victoria very carefully. We have already agreed that she won’t return to Merriam High School for now. We have brought up the subject of counseling with her as well, but still she resists seeing someone on the outside. She did tell us that she would like to find out who did this to her and will cooperate in any investigation. If you have specific questions for her, just write them down, and she will answer them in writing.”
“So what you are asking us to do is discover what person or persons had such a grudge against Victoria that they would try to ruin her life?” Daniel inquired.
“Yes,” Mr. Romano replied. “We would like you to find out who was responsible for sending out those emails. Whoever did this should to be brought to justice and put away somewhere if possible. I’m not sure what the law is in a situation like what happened to our daughter, but I can’t believe sending out hundreds of compromising emails of a young minor girl doesn’t carry some sort of penalty with it!”
“I will consult with Captain Garcia of the Silicon Valley Police about that,” Jason said. “But to get started, we need to start at the very beginning. That is the very unpleasant part. How and why did these photos come to exist?”
“Let me try and answer that,” Mrs. Romano said. “Nico gets very upset even trying to talk about that part. From what I was able to find out from Victoria, her relationship with Brice Henderson, was starting to break up, and she was desperate to try and keep him as her boy friend. She thought that sending him these photos would keep him interested in her, but instead it actually had the opposite effect. Within a couple of days after she sent them, he broke off their relationship.”
“Were they going steady at the time?” Daniel asked.
“No, at least not formally,” Mrs. Romano continued. “It seems clear now that Victoria was a lot more into their relationship than Brice was. He is a football player and as a result a lot of other girls are interested in dating him.”
“Do you believe that he was the one responsible for sending out all those emails?” Jason asked.
“I can’t answer that,” Mrs. Romano replied. “That is something that you two would need to figure out.”
“Was their break up mean or nasty in any way?” Jason asked.
“Victoria was devastated, but never said anything about Brice being mean to her. He just told her that it was time for the two of them to move on and date other people. He said he wasn’t ready to confine himself to seeing just one person. Victoria took that very hard. She was an emotional wreck for a week, then seemed to get over it.” Mrs. Romano looked at Jason and Daniel with a very sad face. “And then there was what happened to her at the dance.”
“Do you know of anyone else on campus that she was having trouble with, or didn’t get along with?” Daniel asked.
“Not particularly,” Mrs. Romano replied. “Victoria has always been very independent and secretive about her feelings. If she did, she didn’t confide that information to me.”
“When they broke up, did Victoria ask Brice to destroy the photos she sent?” Jason asked.
“Again that is something I don’t have the answer to,” Mrs. Romano said.
Jason began writing things down on a piece of paper. “These are the questions that we will need answers to. If we are to get started, we will need this information.” After a couple more minutes of writing, Jason handed the paper to Mrs. Romano. “As soon as you get the answers to these questions, give me a call.” Then he and Daniel got up to leave.
“We are so grateful for anything you can do to find out who was responsible for this horrible incident,” Mrs. Romano said. “And I will give Dr. Agoura a call.”
Chapter 28
The Investigation Begins
(March 20-21)
Sunday afternoon Jason received a telephone call from Nico Romano. “Victoria has written down the answers to all of your questions. I can bring these by to your home if you would like.” Jason told Mr. Romano that he would be around all afternoon and that he could bring the answers by any time.
Jason then called Daniel. “Let’s get together later this afternoon and go over the answers that Victoria has provided for us. Why don’t you stay for dinner and then we can relax and play some games like we used to do all the time.”
“That sounds great, Jason,” Daniel replied. “My parents want to go out for dinner and a movie, so I think your invitation will work out. I could use some relaxation time. Mom is having me work on homework all afternoon to make sure I am current in my classes after all of the time I have been spending with my band.”
About four o’clock Daniel was knocking on the Hunter’s front door. When Jason opened the door, he greeted Daniel and then suggested, “Why don’t we sit out here on the porch and go over things. It’s such a beautiful afternoon.”
Daniel readily agreed and the tw
o friends sat down in comfortable chairs inside the screened front porch. “How are things going with your recording sessions?” Jason began the conversation. “Anything new since we talked yesterday?”
“Yes, after we had our lunch yesterday,” Daniel replied, “I went back and spent about six hours with Tim working on mixes for our tracks. It is so painstaking to get everything just right! But now we will have six pretty good original tracks recorded and are well on our way to completing our demo record. It’s just a question of whether we should add any other tracks. My gut feeling is that we should have eight tracks, and the eight need to be of a wide variety of styles and emotions. Then we will have enough recorded music for our own CD.”
“I sure can’t wait to hear your latest tracks!” Jason said excitedly. “Once you are done, we can make a big deal about it on your band’s website! Maybe we could upload short clips from the tracks that people could listen to. And hopefully that photo session you guys had will result in some good pictures that could be used as a cover on your CD.”
A little later the subject matter switched over to the Victoria Romano case. Jason took out the hand-written answers she had provided to the list of questions he had left for her on Saturday.
“How do we begin working on a case like this, Jason?” Daniel asked. “This is a first for us, trying to figure out who committed a crime at our high school.”
“I am pretty sure that we need to start by talking with her ex-boyfriend, Brice Henderson,” Jason answered. “Obviously the whole incident started from his cell phone. The main issue with him is how did he deal with the photos once they were on his phone?”
“Do you know Brice at all?” Daniel continued. “The only connection from my end is that Eric was in one of his classes last year. We were talking about what happened during one of our breaks. Eric said that Brice seemed to be a friendly enough guy, but Eric was very surprised to hear about his involvement in the sexting scandal. He didn’t think that Brice would have the technical capabilities to send out all of those emails simultaneously. Eric also said that Brice didn’t strike him as someone who would be vindictive against another student, or would enjoy embarrassing someone like that.”
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