by A J Rivers
"Look at this one," Sam says, pointing out a particular name. "PopTartsandSoda. Nutritious."
"Breakfast of champions, and also one of Mary's most devoted followers," I say.
"I see that. She must have posted thirty times on this one video. She's having arguments with people over what they're saying about the video and about Mary. Do you think she knows her?"
"In real life?" I ask and shake my head. "No. There are comments on an earlier video of her basically spilling her life story to Mary and saying they should be friends. They live on opposite sides of the country. But I don't think she's who I'm looking for."
"Who are you looking for?" he asks.
"I'm not sure. But here's my thought. The person who sent me the video clip with Greg in it had to have close access to Mary. We've already established it wasn't her phone or her computer that were used to send it to me, that whoever it was had access to her cloud. So, what if it was one of these people?"
"One of her followers? You think they hacked her?"
"Maybe. But I don't think so. I think it's more than that. People like Poptarts over here are wrapped up in Mary. She is their focus. But that video clip wasn't about Mary. It was about me. Whoever sent it didn't care what she was saying or even that she was in the video at all. They only cared about Greg being there. Which means not only did they know who I was enough to recognize my name and find my personal contact information to share it with me, but they knew Greg, too. You heard that clip. The instructions to listen carefully were definitely needed. It was really hard to hear what Greg said because he was behind Mary and talking quietly."
"So, someone must have known to listen for what he was saying," Sam nods.
"Exactly. Even if it was just someone prodding around in her cloud, satisfying their post-mortem curiosity, why would they care about what Greg said if they didn't already know something about him? All he said was to give whatever it was to me. That's it. 'Give this to Emma Griffin'. Unless a person knew who Greg was and our relationship, there would be no reason for that to call any attention. Whoever sent that clip specifically went after the video for that clip. Which means it wasn't one of the people who are obsessed with Mary."
"Then why are you reading the comments?"
"Because they had to have access to her. It's not just about getting access to the cloud or to the video. Like you said, a hacker could have done that. My point is the intention. Someone would need to recognize the significance of that clip of video… or know it was going to happen," I tell him.
"Know it was going to happen? Greg has been missing for years. How could anyone possibly have known he would be at that bus station mentioning you?" Sam points out. "And if they did know, why would they go through Mary's vlog?"
I run my fingers through my hair and let out a breath. "All fantastic questions."
"What's this?" he asks, pointing at one of the comments. "One-thirty-four."
"It's a time-stamp. A specific point in the video," I explain.
"I understand what a time-stamp is," he tells me. "What I mean is, what is this one? Why is it in the comment?"
"Mary flips her hair. That's seriously it. She flips her hair over her shoulder. That same person comments on every one of her videos with time-stamps of when she flips her hair. Then at the end," I scroll to the bottom of the list of comments and point out the last comment left by the username JayCalhoun, "a smiley face. Every video. From her first one. Creepy, but that's why I'm not too concerned with him. I'll keep him on my radar, but again, he's too focused on her. He is here for Mary, and that's it. I'm looking for someone who doesn't fit in with the rest."
"Emma," Sam says, running his hand down my arm to get my attention. "Do you really think this has to do with your mother?"
"I do," I tell him. "It lines up too well."
"The names are similar, but your mother died years before you even met Greg. What would he have to do with her murder?" Sam asks.
I look back at the screen and the dizzying row of comments, usernames clamoring for a spark, a hint, a fragment of attention thrown their way by a girl in a video.
Betsy Marion
Jason McGregor
KnightandGay
Fredrick 'Slick' Mason
Dean Steele
MistyEyes
Jefferson West
Gray Parlor Photography
So many of the names repeat on video after video. Many show up a final time tacked onto the ends of previous videos, sharing memories and mourning. The voyeurism of the public grief makes my skin crawl. Lavish expressions of sadness and longing for this woman they didn't even know feels strange and out of place.
At the same time, I can't help but share in their sadness. Mary Preston was so vibrant and full of life in her videos. There've been times watching them when it slipped my mind, even for a few seconds, that she was no longer alive. And when it hits me, all I can see is the rubble of the bus station in Richmond.
"I think I need to go to Florida," I say. "That's where I last remember my mother. It's where she died and where all the confusion and questions keep going back to. I really think if I'm going to finally know why she was murdered, I have to figure out what happened afterward. If I can understand why there are so many conflicting stories and things that don't make sense, maybe I can work backward."
"When are you planning on going?" he asks.
"Soon. I want to wait until I can talk to Christina Ebbots. Bellamy set a good foundation for me, but I need to actually speak to her and find out what she knows about my parents or their relationship with her father. Maybe she'll have found more of the letters from my mother. I also want to ask her about the house and if she has any records of it."
"Why?"
"I don't remember how many times we stayed in that house or for how long. I thought we stayed in several different places in Florida, but the way she talked about it, it sounds like we kept going back to the same house. I want to know why. We traveled all over the place. Stayed in different states, different places within different states. Sometimes we bounced around from place to place in the same area in a matter of weeks. All that just so people wouldn't know where we were or be able to find us because of my father's work. But then we just go right back to the same house in Florida? It doesn't make sense," I explain. "She should be back in the next few weeks. I'll make plans after I see her."
Chapter Eleven
Seventeen years ago…
She loved being in Florida no matter what the time of year, but there was something special about spring. In the days leading up to Easter, some places in the country still hid under the snow. Tiny green shoots and the occasional intrepid flower were starting to climb up through the crystals of ice and into the chilled air, but the last breaths of winter were unquestionably hanging on.
Not in Florida. Here the days of April were the first kisses of summer. While other people prepared to search for Easter eggs with chilly legs sticking out from their fancy dresses and flowers that hadn’t broken through the surface yet, in Florida they were already laying out, tanning on the beaches in the hot sun.
The years she got to spend these weeks of spring in Florida were her favorite. She knew her Easter eggs would be nestled in bright green grass, and by the end of the day, she’d probably be tired and happy from hours spent splashing in the pool. It wasn’t late enough in the year yet for the concrete to sting the bottoms of her feet, and the water was still bracing on her skin, but the promise was there. Summer was coming. It almost felt like a secret. The crowds of people hadn’t formed yet, and there were still times when it was almost quiet.
That year Easter felt a little different. She was still excited about it. She loved the bright colored eggs and the tiny treasures they held inside. She loved the basket she’d find at the end of the hunt and the chocolate bunny tucked among pink grass. Her mother always got the edible kind of grass rather than the crinkly plastic she could remember when she was a very little girl. She could still remember w
hat the plastic grass looked like, how it caught the sunlight coming through the windows and splashed it’s pink and shimmery reflection across the table and the white of her Easter dress. Her mother remembered what it looked like tangled in the brush of the vacuum cleaner and hanging from the corner of the cat’s mouth.
She was still excited to celebrate, but she didn’t know if she should be. That was the year she was turning twelve. Only three more months separated her from officially turning into a preteen. She didn’t really know what that was supposed to mean, but it felt like it was going to change her. Like those months would pass, and suddenly there would be a shift in how she felt or looked or saw the world.
Suddenly she wouldn’t be a child anymore. Maybe that started with Easter. Maybe she was getting too old to want to hunt for eggs through the yard or dig through her basket to discover all the little treats hidden there. Last year tiny bottles of nail polish and flavored lip balm replaced some of the toys she used to get.
No matter what ended up in her basket, she did have reason to be excited about Easter. It would mean her mother would be home. She hated when her mother traveled. She was used to her father traveling. He would be gone for days, sometimes a week or two. Then it was just her and Mama. She didn’t worry about her father. He knew what he was doing, even when she didn’t. And if Mama wasn’t afraid, she wasn’t going to be either. But she hated when Mama left. It wasn’t as often as Dad. She stayed home most of the time. That only made it harder when she did leave.
She felt anxious knowing her mother was leaving that night and wouldn’t be coming back until the night before Easter. She would be asleep when Mama left that night, and she would be asleep when she got back Saturday night. But when she got up Easter morning, Mama would be home. The family would be together.
She would run through the yard in bare feet looking for plastic eggs, then dye hard-boiled ones together. She’d sit in the pool of sunlight on the hardwood floor of the living room and open each egg, sampling the chocolate inside and making stacks of shiny coins she always found in them. They’d go into her piggy bank, the white one with her name painted across it, that her mother got at her baby shower when she was still pregnant. The whole house would smell like ham and brown sugar, potatoes and cabbage, coconut cake, and lemon meringue pie. Her mother’s Easter blended with her father’s, to make hers.
She was drawing each of them a picture to give them Easter morning. It was a surprise she’d been working on for the last few weeks, tucking the pictures away under her bed so her parents wouldn’t see them before she rolled them up and stuffed them into the plastic eggs she kept aside just for them. One yellow, one purple. For Dad, for Mama.
That Wednesday evening, she did everything she could to stall going to bed. The longer she stayed awake, the shorter the time she would be away from her mother. They indulged her for a little while. After dinner, they curled up on the couch together and shared a bowl of ice cream while watching a movie. Even months later, she wouldn’t remember the movie. All she would remember was the smell of a shower clinging to her mother’s skin and the hint of bleach deep in the fibers of the white chenille blanket they cuddled up beneath. Her mother brought her to bed that night and tucked her in, reading her a few chapters from the book they were working on together. She was almost asleep when the bedside lamp went out, and the door to the hallway clicked closed. She stayed awake until she heard her mother call in another goodbye, goodnight, and a promise she would be back soon.
She didn’t know anything else until the blue and red lights came through her window and drew her out of sleep. There was no siren. That scared her. A siren meant they were trying. It meant they were doing everything they could. They wanted people out of their way so they could go as fast as they could to the people who needed their help. A siren meant hope. No siren meant there was nothing to do, no reason to try, no one to help.
The lights kept flashing long after she wanted them to stop. Minutes piled on top of each other. On the floor of the house beneath her, she could hear doors and voices. She got out of bed quietly, not wanting anyone to know she was there. But it wouldn’t have mattered. There was so much happening in the entryway of the house; even if she had been loud, they wouldn’t have noticed her. She wasn’t what they were there for. She wasn’t even on their minds. Somewhere in the back of her father’s mind, she still existed. But only as a static image, lying in bed, sleeping. He didn’t have to worry about her, so he didn’t think about her.
At the top of the steps, the landing had closely placed spindles, perfect for her to hold and peer through. They offered her some sense of protection, shielding her from view if the people below just glanced up her way. The night air was chilly. She would remember that always. The day had been warm enough to lie in the grass and look up at the clouds passing through, but by the time she was curled up against her mother’s side watching commercials for Easter candy and wishing time would slow down, the air had cooled. That wasn’t so unusual. The days were warm during Florida springs, but as the hours passed, they weren’t as able to hold onto the heat. Nights were often chilly enough for her to burrow under the covers and wish she was wearing socks.
That was the thought at the very edge of her mind as she sat on the steps and watched the men scurry around like ants below her. Her toes were cold, and she curled them up, digging them into the carpet that rippled down the steps from the landing at the top.
She didn’t know what was going on. She wished her father would come find her, even if he was upset with her for getting out of bed. Anything that would help her understand what was happening. She didn’t know any of the people in the house. It seemed like they just kept coming, that they swarmed in and didn’t leave. She searched their faces, hoping to find any of them who might look familiar or give her some comfort. She looked for the big man with dark eyes and a somber expression. Then her father appeared. He was in his pajamas, his hair unkempt. But she realized quickly it wasn’t from him being in bed. He dragged his hands back through it, pulling on it as he paced among the strangers.
Her heart felt heavy in her chest when she saw the stretcher come into the entryway. The white sheet over it was just as terrifying as the silence where there should have been sirens. The sheet wasn’t to keep someone warm or to protect them. It was so no one could see what was beneath. She was just starting to learn that. There were just enough years to her name for her to start to notice the odd habits and rituals people went through to somehow guard the other people around them, even if it was just for show. Like everyone was walking around surrounded by a thin, fragile, glass shell and you did whatever you could to stop from cracking those shells.
Only this time, she wasn’t sure who was being protected. Was it the privacy of the person beneath the sheet? Or was it the emotions of the people around it?
Part of her wished the sheet wasn’t there. She already knew who was under it. Though it didn’t make sense. Though it was the worst thing she could imagine. If the sheet wasn’t there, she would have to see it, and then she wouldn’t be able to deny it. This way, there would be a voice in the back of her mind for the rest of her life.
Was it really her?
Could it have been someone else?
At least she wouldn’t mind that voice. There was another, a stronger, louder one that forced its way into her thoughts and overtook everything. If the sheet was gone, that voice wouldn’t have been there either.
Were her eyes open?
It wouldn’t be until years later that she understood why that question stood out to her. Why it bothered her so much to think about. It wasn’t that she wanted to know if those warm, reassuring blue eyes she would never see again were open beneath the sheet. It was because it bothered her to think about them being covered that way. She wanted to know if she saw what happened to her.
Someone did this. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t something that just happened because her body gave out. Someone willfully and purposely killed her mother
.
But she didn’t know who. And she didn’t know why.
Mama wasn’t even supposed to be there. She should have been gone.
The people she didn’t recognize took her father away while she sat there and watched. He didn’t come back until later when the house was quiet, and the cold had crept from her toes up her legs and to her fingertips. She didn’t know what to say to him. He barely made it into the house. Instead, he shut the door behind him and slid down to the floor, like there was a wall in front of him he couldn’t pass through.
She went to sit beside him, then. Just so she could be close to him and not have to feel so alone. There wasn’t anything she could do. She knew that. But she was scared.
She scolded herself for it. She was too old to be scared, to want to curl up in his arms and cry. It was only earlier that day she wondered if she was getting too old for the Easter basket she’d hoped to find Sunday morning. Now she told herself she was too old to be afraid, to feel alone, after her mother’s murder.
Chapter Twelve
Him
Seventeen years ago…
His stomach turned, bile rising up in his throat and burning his lips. The breath locked in his lungs ached against his chest and left his stomach hollow. Thoughts spun through his head, creating a blur of color and pain, questions breaking through and screaming down the back of his neck.
How could this happen? How could they let this happen?
Rage blackened his veins. Acid seared through his body. Horror tore at his intestines, tangling them until he felt like he was strangling from the inside. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe.
He had been so clear. Every instruction. Every detail was precise. Exact. They knew what they were meant to do. He trusted them.
That was his mistake. He never should have trusted them. He never should have offered a piece of himself up that way. No one deserved that. He had tried to offer it before. There was a time when he willingly reached within himself and took another piece, a hidden piece no one had ever seen, and held it out.
