Kill You Last

by Todd Strasser

  “Only they never got you any jobs?” the anchorwoman said.

  The girl shook her head. “None. We waited for a while, and then called the agency a couple of times, and they said that business was slow and they would be in touch as soon as anything came up that they thought I was right for.”

  “Did they ever call?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” said the anchorwoman. “Let’s go back to the day you were discovered, so to speak. How much did you have to pay for those head shots?”

  “About seven hundred dollars.”

  “Were there any other fees?”

  “Yes. Three hundred and fifty for the stylist to do my hair and makeup. And two hundred dollars for the contract processing fee and my credentials.”

  “What did they mean by credentials?”

  “Like all the information about me that went on the back of the head shots, and a business card with my photo and contact information and the agency name on it.”

  “A business card that it turns out you could have ordered yourself for under twenty-five dollars?” the anchorwoman said.

  The girl nodded.

  “In fact, you and your mom did some research to figure out what all this would have cost had you done it on your own?”

  “Yes,” the girl said. “We figured out that we could have done it all for about four hundred dollars.”

  “And yet, you were charged well over a thousand?”

  “Uh-huh,” said the girl.

  The image on my computer screen swiveled around as Roman aimed her webcam back at herself. “Seen enough?”

  I was stunned. A scam? A modeling agent stopping girls in malls? A photographer and his crew from New York taking over a hotel suite?

  “It has to be a mistake. It doesn’t sound like Dad. He doesn’t go around renting hotel suites. He’s got his own studio here in town.”

  “Didn’t you once tell me he goes away a lot on the weekends?”

  “But that’s to shoot weddings and parties.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Was I sure? The question hovered invisibly between us.

  No, I wasn’t.

  Not anymore.

  Chapter 12

  I TOLD ROMAN I’d talk to her later. For a second I wanted to run downstairs and ask Dad about the story, but my brain was still fuzzy from lack of sleep, and I decided to shower and dress first. Before I went downstairs, I peeked out at the street. The crowd of media people was back. There may even have been a few more reporters than the day before. And a police car had showed up to keep the street clear.

  When I entered the kitchen, Mom was standing at the counter with a mug of coffee, gazing out the window at the backyard. The leaves had started to turn, and a few yellow ones were already lying on the grass. The kitchen TV was off. I poured myself some coffee.

  “There was something on TV this—”

  “I know,” she said tersely.

  The kitchen grew quiet. Mom stared out, unmoving. I’d seen her get like this before when she was really upset. Like everything had shut down except the gears churning in her brain.

  “Where’s Dad?” I finally asked.

  “He left early.”

  I had to assume he’d done that to avoid the media circus outside.

  “Is it true?” I asked. “I mean, about finding girls in malls and charging all that money and promising them modeling work?”

  Mom turned to me. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that her eyes were red, but I was.

  “I think you’ll have to ask him that yourself.”

  I took out my BlackBerry and called, but I got Dad’s voice mail. The sense of discomfort I was feeling deepened. He always answered when I called. Always. I turned to Mom. Even though it was obvious she wasn’t in the mood to talk, I had to ask: “You still believe he had nothing to do with the missing girls?”

  She gazed at me with numb, empty eyes—the expression of someone who’d been disappointed and hurt too many times.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. You don’t have to answer that.”

  She nodded and gazed out the back window again. I couldn’t help imagining those naïve, starstruck wannabes handing over the money they’d hoarded from years of babysitting, in the hope that Dad could turn them into supermodels. The dream of being on the cover of Vogue and flying around the world in private jets.

  The thought made me wince. If the story the girl told on TV was true, it made Dad worse than a scam artist. It made him a con man and a deceiver of innocent young girls. And Janet and Gabriel had to be in on it, too, didn’t they? I felt my jaw tense and a headache begin to blossom. Please don’t be true, I prayed. Dad couldn’t have done that, could he? And not just to those girls, but to Mom and me?

  My BlackBerry vibrated. I picked it up, desperately hoping it was a message from Dad.

  But it wasn’t.

  It was vengeance13773288@gmail.com: Enjoying the news? Hows it feel 2 have a father like that?

  Chapter 13

  A WAVE OF wretchedness crashed through me, filling my eyes with tears as I realized what the e-mail meant. Not just a cruel, hateful taunt to me, it was a reflection of how most of Soundview was feeling that morning. Even if they hadn’t seen the interview, they would soon hear about it from friends and neighbors. By lunchtime, everyone would believe Dad was the worst kind of scoundrel.

  Mom put her hand on my arm. “What is it?”

  “My anonymous e-mailer again.” I handed her the Black-Berry and rubbed the tears away.

  The lines in Mom’s forehead deepened as she studied the message from vengeance13773288@gmail.com. “How many does this make?”

  “Three.”

  The doorbell rang. Mom’s eyes met mine, and I knew we were both assuming the same thing: the media was back, no doubt eager to see how we were reacting to this morning’s news.

  Mom started toward the hall, saying, “I’ll tell them to go away.”

  I sat alone in the kitchen, fearful of what the day would be like now that the whole world believed my father was not only a suspect in the disappearance of three girls but a con man as well. It might not have been so hard to cope with if I’d believed that he’d been falsely accused of the modeling scam, but something about it—some small part of it—felt ominously true. I truly, truly believed that he’d never hurt anyone and couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with those missing girls. But I couldn’t say the same about the scam.

  My stomach twisted and churned. How could I reconcile the loving, protective father with the loathsome criminal everyone now thought him to be?

  The kitchen door opened, and I expected to see Mom return.

  But Roman came in.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised.

  She looked somber. “Wasn’t sure you’d want to go to school today, but I figured if you did, you’d want some company.”

  My eyes instantly filled with tears of gratitude, and I hugged her. “You are the best.”

  Roman had walked over, so we got into my car. With the windows raised and the doors locked, I drove down the driveway toward the waiting crowd. The media collected in the street when we got close, but the police officer got out of his car and made them clear a path so that we could pass. Some of the photographers took shots of us through the windows.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Roman said. “It’s not all bad news.” She propped her iPad in her lap and turned it on.

  I glanced over and saw that she’d loaded a page from the Soundview Snoop. “Read it to me?”

  “The headline is ‘Rush to Judgment?’ and it’s by Whitman Sturges,” Roman said, then read: “With the recent revelation that three missing young women from the Northeast were all clients of a local photography and modeling agency here, many in Soundview have been quick to accuse the agency’s owner, Kirby Sloan, of being involved in the case. But where is the evidence to support that assumption? As Mr. Sloan’s daughter, Shelby, pointed out in an exclusive interview,
‘My father’s entire reputation…my family’s whole life…is on the line. And except for some head shots, there hasn’t been a shred of evidence linking my dad to the disappearance of those girls.’’ Soundview’s chief of police, Samuel Jenkins, has confirmed this, saying that while there has been a great deal of media attention on the case, his department has found no reason to believe that Mr. Kirby is involved. ‘There are ongoing investigations in Hartford, Trenton, and Scranton regarding the missing girls,’ he said. ‘We’ve been in touch with those police departments. But so far there’s been nothing that indicates that Kirby Sloan had anything to do with this.’ When asked if his department had any plans to investigate Mr. Sloan’s connection to the missing girls, Chief Jenkins said, ‘We’re letting those other departments take the lead. If they come to us with information we feel we need to act on, we will. But until then, it’s important to remember that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Our detectives have spoken to Mr. Kirby, and, as of now, we have no reason to go any further.’”

  I was shrouded by that awful guilt that comes when you’ve been mean to someone who was only trying to do something nice for you. Not only had I been too hard on Whit the night before, but I’d also completely misread his intentions. But then, I didn’t know at that time that he was going to write an article like this.

  “Uh, Shelby?” Roman said. “There’s a stop sign.”

  I jammed on the brakes, and the tires screeched as we lurched to a stop.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “You didn’t tell me you gave this guy an exclusive interview,” Roman said.

  “I didn’t know I had.” I explained how Whit had caught me by surprise the night before. And how I’d gotten angry and blown him off once I realized what he was up to.

  “Think you owe him an apology?” she asked as I started to drive again.

  “No and yes. I mean, I’d like to thank him for what he wrote, but all I knew last night was that he was looking for information for an article. Maybe if he’d told me what he was planning, I would have been a little more understanding.”

  “Are journalists supposed to tell you ahead of time what they’re planning to write?” Roman switched off the iPad.

  It was a rhetorical question, and neither of us spoke as I drove the rest of the way to school. I wondered if Roman was thinking what I was thinking: Whit had obviously written his article before the story about “the alleged” modeling scam appeared on TV. Given this morning’s revelations, would he still have defended my father? And would Chief Jenkins still have said all that politically correct stuff about being innocent until proven guilty?

  But wasn’t I doing exactly what I was so angry at everyone else for doing? Judging Dad based on no real evidence? Just because some girl on TV said he was running a modeling scam, did that mean it was true?

  No, not necessarily.

  Innocent until proven guilty.

  Right?

  Usually.

  But as soon I stepped through the front doors, it was obvious that at school the verdict was already in.

  Chapter 14

  THE STARES AND whispers were everywhere. As Roman and I walked past the main office, even the secretaries paused in what they were doing. I felt Roman nudge me. Chris Clarke was coming down the hall. I steeled my nerves and decided to do what Roman suggested and say something.

  “You go, girl,” she whispered as I headed toward him.

  But I didn’t make it. Halfway there, my eyes met his, and he instantly looked away. No smile. No nod.

  I felt a chill and rejoined Roman.

  “What happened?” she asked in a low voice.

  “He’s not interested anymore,” I said, feeling like I wanted to cry.

  “What are you talking about? He—”

  “Stop.” I cut her short, not wanting to discuss it. “You didn’t see what I saw. He’s not interested, period. End of discussion.”

  Roman slid her arm through mine. “I’m sorry, Shels; that really sucks.”

  I fought back tears. Yes, I thought. It really does.

  By lunchtime I’d called Dad three times, but he hadn’t answered. It was so unlike him that I even tried the studio number, hoping Janet or Mercedes would get him for me. But all I got was voice mail.

  “No appetite?” Roman asked in the cafeteria at lunch.

  I shook my head. The thought of eating made me ill.

  “Talk to your dad?”

  I told her about the unanswered calls. “I’m worried that something bad has happened.”

  “Why don’t you go over to the studio?”

  The idea hadn’t occurred to me. “You mean, right now? Just leave school?”

  “I told you this morning I was kind of amazed you wanted to come here in the first place.”

  I thought about it and, without realizing what I was doing, let my gaze drift around the cafeteria. For what felt like the first time that day, not one person was staring in my direction. They were all eating and talking with friends. I don’t know why my gaze stopped where it did, at a table filled with girls. Maybe because Ashley Walsh, an old friend of mine, was sitting there. And now I looked at the girls she was currently friendly with: Emily Bryson, Sonja Dean, and Tara Kraus, the girl who’d called Dad a creep the day before.

  Just at that moment, Tara looked up. When she realized my eyes were on her, she wrinkled her nose and gave me the most hateful look imaginable. Then she said something to the other girls at the table, and they all stared at me.

  I quickly looked away, but my mind was made up. Given the choice between getting hateful stares or going to the studio to see if Dad was okay, I chose the latter.

  “I’m out of here.” I got up.

  Roman gave me a quick hug. “Let me know what you find out, okay?”

  It felt strange to walk out of school in the middle of the day, almost as if I expected one of the principals to come running out to ask where I thought I was going. But no one did.

  A few minutes later, as I drove down the street toward the studio, the mob of media people camped outside began to mobilize. Camera strobes flashed, and one guy with a microphone made a cranking motion as if he wanted me to lower my window. I looked for Whit in the crowd but didn’t see him.

  In addition to the regular collection of cars, two dark sedans were parked in the lot behind the studio. The police had returned. Maybe that explained why Dad hadn’t answered my calls that morning.

  I rang the back-door bell and waited a long time before Mercedes answered. She tried to smile, but you could see the stress in her eyes.

  “La policía está aqui?” I whispered as I stepped inside.

  “Yes.”

  “¿Cómo estás?” I asked.

  She blinked, as if surprised that I’d be concerned about her, considering what was going on with my father, then nodded silently.

  “This must be so upsetting for you.”

  “More for you than for me,” she replied.

  “I don’t have a little boy to support.”

  Her gaze quickly dropped. The new allegations didn’t affect just Mom and me. They affected everyone who worked at the studio. “I’ll be okay,” she said.

  I wondered how true that was. Mercedes needed this job. She didn’t have a husband to help raise her son and support her. Each day, a rotating cast of men with tattoos and earrings driving low-riding growly cars would drop her off at work. I had no idea whether they were brothers, cousins, or…boyfriends?

  Janet came around the corner, looking agitated. She walked toward us with her head down, rummaging through her bag and muttering to herself until she looked up and abruptly stopped with an expression of surprise on her face. It was a strange moment, and I had the distinct feeling that she was apprehensive about what I might do or say.

  “Hi,” I said.

  A second passed when she seemed to gather herself. “He’s in the office,” she said, then pulled a pack of cigarettes from her bag and went outside.

&
nbsp; Chapter 15

  I WALKED DOWN the hall toward the studio office, wondering if I’d run into Gabriel next and how he’d react to seeing me. And how I’d react to seeing him after bolting out of his apartment the night before. But I got to the office, and inside, Dad was leaning against a desk with his arms crossed while two men in sports jackets sorted through files. He saw me, said something to the men, then came out.

  “Sorry I couldn’t answer your calls, sweetheart,” he said.

  “These guys have been here all morning.”

  “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  Dad nodded across the hall to the photo studio, where we could speak in private. Inside, we stood in a corner beside a small sink, refrigerator, and espresso machine.

  “They showed up with a warrant to go through the files again,” he said while putting a pod in the espresso machine.

  “But Chief Jenkins said you weren’t a suspect.”

  “Just because they’re looking at files doesn’t mean I’m a suspect in a crime. At this point we don’t even know if there’s been a crime. They’re probably just looking for more information about the missing girls. Want a cup?”

  He carried two espressos over to a table and we sat.

  “What about that girl on TV this morning?” I asked.

  Dad ran his fingers through his hair. “We’re always on the lookout for new talent. Everybody in this business is.”

  “But she said you charged much more.”

  “It’s costly, sweetheart. The transportation…putting everyone up in the hotel. So we have to charge more for head shots than some local photographer with a studio in his garage. But what they didn’t say on TV this morning is we give them a lot more for their money. It’s not just the head shots. Any hack with a Nikon can charge rock-bottom prices for that. We’re a full-service agency. We can give these girls entrée into the modeling world that no hack can match.”