by Debbie Civil
Chapter 28
Carmen
I’m half way through watching “the purge” when my cell rings. Chelsea pauses the movie with her remote when I tell her that it’s Jake. With dread, I answer it.
“Carmen, where are you?” He sounds really upset. Maybe he went to wherever the bachelor party was to look for me. Could he be having a change of heart?
“I’m back at the mansion watching the purge with Chelsea. Why?” Chelsea glares at me. I guess that she was hoping for a smart-mouthed response. But I’m not like her. I’m not a fighter. I hear a sigh in my ears.
“I was worried about you,” he admits after a few silent moments.
“Why?” I ask as my heart begins to pulse. Something’s wrong.
“Can you hack into Bridget’s Instagram account?”
“Probably. Why?” Okay, so the probably actually is a yes. She is the type to dictate her passwords whenever she types them. I’m an observant person with an excellent memory.
“Do it. She posted questionable pictures of Eli.” My pulse speeds up because this only means one thing, Eli is drinking again. I sigh and lunge for Chelsea’s laptop. She grabs my wrist.
“What are you doing, Carmen?”
“I need it.” If the press gets wind on this, Eli is screwed. Chelsea, not wanting to get in my way walks over to her desk and calmly types in the password. As soon as she logs me in, I pounce. I’m on Instagram, looking through Bridget’s photos of the bachelorette party when Peter walks in.
“Hey girls, what are you two doing?” I ignore him, so I have no idea what Chelsea says. I’m too busy amazed by the fact that she has captured photos of all of the girls acting crazy. Tia is captured grinding on a shirtless guy. Stephanie has her tongue down some blonde man’s throat. And Danny. What is she doing? She’s topless, her black bra barely keeping in her cleavage. She’s waving her shirt in the air. Earlier she was wearing a turquoise dress. She must have changed. I’m about to delete the picture of Danny when my wrist is snagged. I look up into Kailey’s wide eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Deleting pictures from Bridget's Instagram. Jake asked me to,” I add. Kailey, probably thinking that I had taken the pictures, releases her grip on my hand. She moves aside and Chelsea takes one look and curses.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Peter asks, rushing over to us. I feel cluster phobic with so many people peering over me to see. I sigh and just hand Peter the laptop.
“Wow! Did my brother see this?”
“I have no idea. But I need to delete this,” I insist. Peter puts the laptop in front of me and lets me get through it. I also log on to twitter and Facebook to delete those pictures as well.
“She’ll just put them back up again,” Peter softly tells me. I run over to the bed and grab my phone and dial Jake.
“I deleted them, Jake,” I announce. “Can you tell one of the girls to watch out for Brigit and her phone?” But he’s already gone. I guess that this is my problem. I send a text to all of the girls, minus Bridget. Off course, I don’t get any responses. Instead, I have to take down the pictures two more times. Bridget apparently gets tired of someone erasing the photos because she changes her password. When she does that, I’m screwed.
“They made their own bad decisions, Carmen. You can’t fix it,” Chelsea tells me as I slump in defeat.
“I don’t get it, Chelsea. Bridget is Eli’s friend. Why would she post pictures of her like that? Why does she want to embarrass her? What does she get out of that?” Chelsea puts a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“Maybe she secretly hates Eli,” she suggests.
“Maybe, someone hacked her phone,” Peter suggests. “I’ve seen it happen many times.
“Or maybe, husband, Bridget is a female with a mean streak,” Chelsea argues as she jabs her husband in the ribs. They are sitting side by side on the bed. Kailey is sitting at the round table, her head in her hands.
“What about a hidden agenda. Bridget could be supporting senator Lerma,” I suggest. The room grows quiet. After all, Stephanie Jones is Senator James Jones’ daughter. It would reason that my cousin wasn’t the intended target, just collateral damage. With all of the public hits from the Jones family. State Senator Jones might need to pull out of the race. This is a shame because he’s the public favorite. I wonder what he’s going to do about this.
“Maybe. But how was Bridget able to take all of these pictures?” Peter asks, but before we can even speculate, there is a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Peter calls and my father rushes in. His panicked eyes scan the room, and when they fine me, he breathes a sigh of relief.
“You didn’t go out with them?” I don’t even bother answering because he knows this already. Instead, I talk about something else.
“I tried to erase the pictures.” Dad nods and smiles with pride.
“Oh, my little hacker, I knew that it was you.” I nod.
“Did you reach any of the girls?” I ask.
“Tia texted me and I told her what was going on. Apparently, Eli is passed out. She’s in the hospital. We aren’t sure what she took,” my father tells me, and I’m suddenly disappointed.
“I don’t get it, Dad. She was so happy.”
“Old habits die hard, kid,” he tells me before waving at Chelsea, Peter and Kailey, and taking off. I’m not shocked that Eli pretended to be happy because I’ve been wearing the same mask.
