Two male cops were cuffing a skinny, shirtless black boy they’d shoved against the wall near the ice machine. His jeans were low enough to give me an unwanted eyeful of his blue and green plaid boxers, but I pretended not to see anything and climbed one flight up the metal staircase with mesh grating. The room was in the middle of a row of identical doors, each with marks of being kicked or rammed opened.
Inside was as expected. I slipped off my sunglasses and placed them and my Yankees hat on the table to apprize the situation. A double bed with an obnoxious green and burgundy polyester bedspread, the kind only found in cheap motel rooms. I peeked under the comforter to reveal thin white see-through sheets, which were clean, barely. A painting of an old red pickup, circa the 1950s, in an abandoned field adorned the far wall. It was apropos for the room. The ancient TV only had one channel that wasn’t distorted by flickering lines and grainy images. Surprisingly, the white porcelain in the bathroom had a just cleaned shine, with minimal chipped spots. No one in their right mind would walk barefoot on the carpet.
Cora was going to flip her lid once she arrived. I texted her the address and advised she pick up a hazmat suit on her way.
She replied she’d see me in twenty. I sat on the lip of the desk, not moving, fearful of contamination, but then I remembered the wet wipes I had in the car in one of Mia’s bags. After retrieving the pack of wipes, I cleaned the surfaces in the main room, even wiping the tacky vinyl material on the two chairs.
There was a knock at the door, and I froze.
“Let us in,” Cora said barely loud enough for me to hear.
I rubbed my eyes, feeling foolish. “Welcome to chez shithole.” I waved Cora in but put my hand in the universal Stop right there, you bitch sign when I saw who was with her.
Janie.
“What the fuck? I told you it better not be her!” I barked to Cora, still barring the brunette’s entrance.
Cora yanked my arm, pulling me to the side. “There are people outside. Don’t make a scene.”
I peered over the metal railing and saw a furtive youth in a black hoodie, despite the temperature, hand something over to a preppy twenty-something.
“Lovely to see you again, JJ.” Janie waltzed into the room, looked around with a scowl, and said, “Really, this is the best you can do for your ex-lover?” Her tongue relished pronouncing the last word.
“If I’d known you were coming, I would have reserved a beat-up fridge box under a highway overpass.” My right hand repeatedly furled and unfurled into a fist.
“Okay, you two. I’m not in the mood for catfights.” Cora collapsed into the uncomfortable chair at the desk and motioned for Janie to sit in the chair by the nightstand. “I’m getting old. I remember when four-hour flights were a breeze after a full day of work.” She yawned.
“Your jet left New York at one. Since when is working ’til one in the afternoon a full day?” Janie said.
I zeroed in on the fact that Janie said your jet, meaning they had been on separate flights, or had Janie been in Colorado without my knowing? A creepy-crawly sensation overtook my senses, and it wasn’t because of the seedy motel room.
“Since I started work at four in the morning.” Cora’s smile was anything but sweet. “I’m starving. Shall we get Chinese?” She flipped through a binder in search of takeout menus. Not finding any, she implored me with her doe eyes, the ones she gave me when we had dated so many years ago.
I whipped out the cell Avery had provided earlier in the day, located a restaurant willing to deliver to this miserable excuse for a motel, and dialed the number. “For delivery… Yes, I’ll hold.” When the man with a heavy Chinese accent came back on the line, I said, “I’d like three orders of egg rolls, sesame chicken, orange chicken—”
Janie waved frantically.
I held up a hand. “And tofu in black bean sauce. One egg fried rice and one steamed rice, please.”
When I ended the call, Janie smiled. “You remembered. Maybe I did mean something to you, after all.”
“Or I have an excellent memory because of the business I’m in. The devil is in the details.” I wiped my hand on my jeans before rubbing it through my hair.
“That’s right. You aren’t very honest, especially when it comes to your past.” Janie chewed on a thumbnail, her milk-chocolate eyes working overtime to appear seductive.
I blinked away some memories. “Food will be here in thirty. Do you want to shower? Whenever I fly, I feel like I need to shower to rejoin the living.” My eyes took in the surroundings. “Although, would it be best to dive in?” I asked Cora, turning my back on Janie, whom I had once believed was the sweet girl-next-door type. Little had I known then that she was the person rich clients hired to perform character assassinations. I wasn’t her first mark, and I sincerely doubted the viper had gone into a new line of work.
“No need to shower, but I’m thirsty. Got anything to drink?” Janie asked.
“Go to the 7-Eleven on the corner and grab drinks and a pack of cigarettes for JJ. I’m assuming you know what brand she prefers.” Cora reached for her purse.
Cora knew I only smoked when highly stressed or annoyed. I paced five steps on a well-worn swathe of carpet by the front door, resisting the urge to bolt from the room. Janie shook her head in a way that suggested she couldn’t figure out why I was acting so childish. I glared at her as she exited the room.
When the motel door clicked shut, I flipped around on Cora. “What the fuck?” I said each word with force. “You brought the last person on this planet I wanted to see. You knew that.”
She sighed. “I know, I know. I completely ambushed you.”
“That doesn’t begin to describe how I feel right now. How am I going to explain to Claire later tonight I had a clandestine meeting in a fleabag motel with… her?” I pointed with both hands toward the door.
“You’re missing the key word in the sentence. The meeting is clandestine, so no need to mention it at all.” Cora’s manner was easygoing but still authoritative.
“Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do?” Even though I had my personal cell phone switched off and stowed in the car, I felt a phantom vibration. I patted my pocket only to find it was indeed empty.
“I’m asking you to protect a source. We’re journalists, remember.”
I walked five feet again, wheeled about, and retraced my steps. “Is that what this is? Janie has the dirt on some other poor bastard and you want us to print it? After what she did to me?” I clenched the front of my plain white T-shirt over my heart.
Cora flung me a look that I interpreted as Grow up. “You know as well as I do that in our business, more often than not, we don’t have the luxury of choosing our sources.”
That was true. The source of the Fancy Pants story was Flynn’s ex-lover. Exes, whether they were lovers, business partners, or work associates, relished exacting revenge.
My nostrils flared involuntarily.
Cora sucked in some air, released it, studied me, started to speak, and opted to nibble on her lower lip, removing a chunk of light pink lipstick, until she finally said, “Listen to me very carefully. This has nothing to do with Janie blackmailing you.”
I tapped feverish fingertips on my forehead. “What does it have to do with?”
“Someone who needs to be found and stopped. And…”
I raised my eyebrows and motioned with a hand to come out with it.
“And I’m asking you, not only as my business partner but as my friend, to help.”
“If I say no?”
She glanced at the door as if expecting Janie to have a cup to it, eavesdropping. “We don’t have a lot of time. Hear her out, and if you’re still not convinced, we’ll talk. I need your help with this.”
There was a rapping on the door, but I didn’t budge. Cora’s deep inhalation suggested there was something major she wasn’t telling me—something she would only confide if she absolutely had to.
The knocking persisted.
She glared at me and stabbed her finger at the door.
“Okay, okay.” I held my palms up, making my way to the door, which unfortunately was only two steps away—not enough of a reprieve.
Janie’s eyes blazed with the annoyance of having to wait. Shoving a Coke can and pack of cigarettes against my chest, she placed Cora’s bottled water on the desk. I didn’t like that she knew what both of us preferred without having to ask. At the moment, I wish I could add a healthy dose of Jack. Was that why Janie had grabbed me a Coke?
I popped the top of the soda. “What’s this about, then?”
Janie motioned me quiet. “Batteries out of your cells—even burners.”
I quirked a brow at Cora, baffled by the request, although it had become my MO when meeting unknown sources. Cora complied willingly.
What was going on?
Finishing the task, I asked, “What about you? Where’s your phone?”
Janie put her arms up. “Care to search?”
“She’s clean.” Cora’s take no prisoners demeanor suggested Janie get on with it, pronto.
“Okay.” Janie pouted, settling onto the edge of the bed, legs crossed. “It’s about an investigation into deaths the authorities, so far, have ignored.”
I leaned against the windowsill, and the stale stench of cigarettes from the drawn curtains made my eyes water. Yet I still lit my own. Smoke billowed out of my nostrils. “What deaths?”
“Four that we know of.” Janie wore a much too loose, low-cut peasant blouse, displaying fuller breasts than I remembered, and shorts that barely covered her assets.
I averted my eyes from her cleavage, focusing on the glowing tip of the Marlboro Light. “How did you find out about them?”
“One of them was my cousin.” Janie’s slumped shoulders were an indication she wasn’t lying. I didn’t know the woman had it in her. Or was she conning me? It wasn’t until the last time we’d interacted that I realized she was an amazing actress. That was the day she dropped the bomb on me, giving me no choice but to come clean publicly.
“I’m so sorry.” I held her gaze. “How old was she?”
“Fifteen.”
I covered my mouth, and a spurt of air rushed through my fingers. “How did she die?”
“Overdose.” Janie lacked her usual bravado.
“Heroin?”
“No. She concocted a lethal dose of all her parents’ medications,” Cora butted in.
I bolted upright on the ledge. “Wait. She killed herself?”
Janie and Cora nodded as if saying, “Took you long enough.”
“What’s suspicious about that?” I inhaled deeply.
Cora’s eyes bugged at how callous I sounded. I turned to Janie, who sat on the bed with her knees pulled to her chest. I leveled my eyes on hers and said in a staccato voice, “It’s a tragedy.” Softening my tone and stance, I continued, “Parents should never bury their child. But why an investigation into a suicide?”
“Mean Heather,” Janie said.
“Come again?” I shook my head to clear my ears.
“It’s someone online I’ve dubbed Mean Heather. She—I’m assuming it’s a she for the sake of the moniker—bullied my cousin and at least three others I’ve tracked down into committing suicide. My gut says there are more victims.”
“You’re talking about cyberbullying. Why aren’t the police looking into it?”
Someone tapped on the door. “Delivery.”
I stubbed out my cigarette in the corner of the aluminum windowsill, not the first to do so, and pulled two twenties from my wallet. The entire transaction took less than ten seconds.
When I handed Janie the carton with tofu, our fingers touched and she lightly stroked my hand, but the sorrow in her puffy eyes drained the contact of sexual vibes.
I sat in one of the chairs, Janie on the bed, and Cora hadn’t budged from her seat at the desk since arriving. Dipping an egg roll in duck sauce, I said, “Tell me about Mean Heather. Sounds like a mash-up of two movies about high school bullies: Mean Girls and Heathers.”
“Good job. I was starting to wonder if you had any brains in that cute head of yours.” Janie held a tofu piece dripping in sauce in her chopsticks, and her posture stiffened. “She’s a skilled cyberbully. Finds vulnerable teens and piles on the abuse, pushing them to the brink.”
“How?”
“She made contact when my cousin posted on Facebook she was heartbroken because her BFF was insanely jealous and thought my cousin slept with her boyfriend.”
“That seems pretty typical for the age. How did it escalate to—?”
“That’s not all.” Janie’s voice lowered. “The boyfriend and two of his friends raped my cousin at a party.”
“Before or after the Facebook update?” Cora, in reporter mode, asked.
“The day before. At first she didn’t know since she was passed out when it happened. She remembered waking up sore the next day, but didn’t overthink it. She had been a virgin.”
“Was she drugged?” I asked, forcing my mind not to jump back in time.
“She thinks so. She was at a party when she was supposed to be at a sleepover, so she never confided in her parents the following day. It wasn’t until days later when she received a video of the event that she realized what had happened and who was involved.”
“Did she go to the cops?”
Janie shook her head. “Not right away. The same video, which someone doctored to cut out the angles showing she was unconscious, started to make the rounds at her school. And the video she had been e-mailed magically disappeared from her laptop. Not only that, my cousin’s laptop and cell were filled with texts and e-mails making it appear that she had been a willing participant with the boys. It became her word against theirs, and one of the boys was the star quarterback, who’s now a well-known college quarterback. The police and district attorney refused to investigate and, two years later, still won’t budge.”
“And your cousin never sent those texts or e-mails?” Cora asked.
“They were planted.”
I dropped my half-eaten egg roll back into the container. “Jesus.”
Wetness rimmed Janie’s eyes. “Mean Heather hacked into my cousin’s e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and cell phone to make it look like she was the sluttiest of the sluts. And she must have hacked the boys’ accounts to discover the video.”
“You don’t think one of the boys is involved?” I asked.
She shook her head, swiping one eye with the back of her hand. “I’m convinced they’re rapists. But the video—no, that wasn’t them.”
“Did your cousin, I’m sorry, what’s her name?” Cora sipped water from an Evian bottle.
“Briana.”
“Did Briana ever make a play for the boyfriend?”
“No, he was making a play for her, though, according to text messages going back before he started dating Bri’s best friend.”
Cora cocked her head, her droopy eyelids and sagging upper body allowed a rare glimpse into how our failing business affected her. I wondered what else lay behind the stress.
“Mean Heather didn’t stop with framing my cousin. She instituted a slut-shaming campaign against Briana to the point where Bri received heinous messages from people around the globe, especially through Facebook and Twitter. ‘BriTheSlut’ became a hashtag. She received phone messages from guys threatening to rape her. Gut her. Show her who’s boss. Their house was vandalized. Her school locker was sprayed with the word slut. Bri’s father is a pediatrician, and some idiots who thought the word actually meant pedophile defaced his office, and his work website was hacked with messages about my uncle diddling little boys. People informed the cops they had a brazen predator in their mix using the internet to hunt kids.”
“How did everything go viral?” I asked.
“It’s not hard to do. After accessing Bri’s phone number a
nd e-mail address, Mean Heather posted a ‘Make This Slut Suffer’ thread, providing my cousin’s contact details with a message claiming Bri had a foursome with her best friend’s boyfriend and his buddies. To make it more believable, Mean Heather posted porn on Bri’s Facebook wall, implying she was the queen of whores. Usually in cases like this, someone will circulate the thread to other message boards, Twitter, Reddit—you name it and boom, it takes on a vicious misogynist life of its own.”
I stared at the painting of the beat-up truck, doing my best to suppress a memory of another motel room like this one, where I’d woken up bruised and bloodied and then later had gone through a rape kit. Like Bri, I had no memory of the events. Unlike Bri, I didn’t go to the police to force an investigation. Instead, I chose to bury the truth.
Janie caught my eye. “Do you know Plato’s Ring of Gyges, which he mentions in the Republic?”
I studied her, shocked. “Yes, it rings a bell.”
“It’s a magic token that grants an individual invisibility, stripping the person of the onus of having to abide by social mores and allowing them to do whatever. Online trolls are real-life test cases regarding Plato’s theory that morality involves fear about the risks of people knowing what you did and rewards for good behavior.” She sucked in a breath. “Anonymity brings out the worst in some people—people who in real life would never say or do anything to hurt someone’s feelings, but when sitting in the privacy of their homes, something evil is unleashed. People Brianna never met, and who in all probability would never have met even if she lived a full life, hounded her day and night. Once Mean Heather doxed her—”
“Doxed?” Cora quirked one slender eyebrow.
“Find out a person’s identity, including their home address, Social Security number, Facebook friends, addresses and numbers of family members, private photos…” She made a motion implying and so on.
Cora nodded her understanding.
“Once the information was out there, it didn’t take long for others to reach out to all of Bri’s friends via her Facebook account. The doctored video went viral. Her parents took her out of school. But the threats wouldn’t stop. It got to the point where she couldn’t leave the house. None of them could.”
The Fall Girl Page 8