Fire ants are a particularly nasty insect that live primarily in the southern part of the United States. They aren’t big, but their bite feels a little bit like being injected with acid. Worst of all, like most ants, they’re a co-op. That’s why no one ever gets bitten by just one fire ant. I stepped in a patch of them once, and didn’t notice as half the colony swarmed up my legs. I felt something tickle my thigh and swiped at it without thinking, triggering them to all attack en masse. It was probably the worst pain I’d been in ever, and then for days after, the bites itched so bad I thought I was gonna lose my mind.
I’d rather have my wisdom teeth pulled with no anesthetic while covered in chicken pox than ever go near a fire ant again.
Seth’s casual mention of my aunt’s travels felt for all the world like that half-second of warning before that swarm of fire ants stung the devil out of my legs. I froze in place, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “People should really pay more attention to their privacy settings,” Seth said casually. “It’s ridiculous what anyone can find online.”
“You’re right,” I agreed with him. I’d tried being nice. I’d tried being firm. And I was done playing games while this jerk who couldn’t be bothered to tip on a lousy three-dollar cup of coffee was standing here in my own home tossing around not-so-veiled threats. “Like when I found that message from Stefanie99NYC asking Bethany to meet her at Domino Park the morning she was killed. I already called the cops and told them everything, Seth. Or should I call you Stefanie?”
He growled at me and advanced. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you? How’d you figure it out?”
“You and Stefanie99NYC used the same odd phrase. I don’t get it. Why pretend to be someone you’re not? Did Bethany not like you for you, so you had to invent another persona?” I moved behind the table.
“It’s just a username, don’t read too much into it. It’s kinda like those ship names,” he explained. “It was supposed to be flattering—Seth plus Bethany equals Sethany. Only my phone autocorrected it to Stefanie and I didn’t notice until later.” It was kinda on the nose that Seth would use the word “ship”—a fantasy relationship that only happened in someone’s imagination—to describe his pretend connection to Bethany, but I didn’t think he would appreciate it if I pointed that out, so I kept my mouth shut.
Seth reached the other end of the table and ran a hand over my sewing machine. I was going to Lysol every single inch of this apartment after he left. “You know how you girls are. Sure, you say you want a nice guy, but then you block the nice guys and go for those meatheads like Marco.” He said “Marco” in a mocking, singsong voice.
“I get it.” I nodded and tried to look sympathetic. “You went all full-on stalker mode online and Bethany blocked you, so you invented Stefanie so you could keep tabs on her, knowing she was more likely to let her guard down with a female username.”
“She didn’t just block me. Stupid girl reported me, and for what? Nothing. But no, according to the powers that be, I violated the”—he made little air quotes—“‘Terms of Service’ and my accounts were, poof, gone.”
“Seriously?” I asked, unable to stop myself. “You got your feels hurt over that?”
He gave me an exasperated look. “Chuh. Do you even know what I can get for an account with over fifty thousand followers? It takes weeks to build up a Twitter handle so it’s worth anything. Months, sometimes. It’s a full-time job. My personal handle wasn’t the only account they deleted. They deleted all my accounts. Even the ones I’d already sold, and boy did I have some angry customers demanding a full refund.”
My head swam from trying to follow his train of thought. “Is it even legal to sell Twitter accounts?”
“Everyone does it. Besides, while I’m building accounts, I’m always online. When I saw Bethany’s Facebook relationship status change to ‘single’ I knew that this was my chance to get back in her good graces.” He grinned and a shiver went up my spine. “I’d heard a flash mob was about to go down, and I used that to lure her out to the park.”
“But, I thought she blocked you?” I said.
“She blocked Seth. So I invented Stefanie. I knew once we were on that bridge, I could convince her to give me a chance. I could even forgive her for ruining all those accounts I was building. Then I was gonna make her see that I was the man she needed in her life. Not that Marco clown.”
“And how did that go?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I knew the answer.
Seth’s hands balled up into fists. “She laughed at me. Can you imagine? Stuck up little . . .” His voice trailed off. His cheeks reddened, whether with rage or embarrassment I couldn’t be sure, remembering the moment she rejected him.
“I’m sorry she did that to you,” I said. Every time he took a step, I did, too, keeping the table between us.
“So was she.” The furrow in his brow relaxed and I realized he was actually smiling now. I shivered. “That look in her eyes when she realized . . .” He shook his head. “That’s a moment neither of us will ever forget.”
“Sounds like her death was sorta like an accident,” I said, careful not to let my poker face slip.
“Sure. Yeah. Totes. I accidentally shoved her over the rail.” Seth made air quotes around “accidentally.” “Had to make sure she went over hard enough to kill her, didn’t I? You should have seen her. Pathetic.” He held up his scratched wrists. “Trying to grab me, like I was gonna save her or something. Well, I guess I did save a little part of her,” he said. Seth reached into his pocket and withdrew a short length of stainless-steel links.
“Seth, is that Bethany’s medical alert bracelet?” I asked. I had crawled under bushes and dug through a mountain of garbage looking for that fake medical ID bracelet—the one declaring Timothy O’Shay was allergic to bullets—when Seth had it all along.
“It certainly is. Although, maybe she should have gotten one that said she was allergic to major head trauma, instead.” He laughed at his own sick joke. “Catch.”
He tossed me the bracelet, and I caught it out of habit.
“When the police find you dead with Bethany’s missing bracelet in your hand, it won’t take long for them to put two and two together. Sweet little Odessa Dean, consumed by guilt after killing her dear friend Bethany, swan dives off her own balcony.” He clucked his tongue. “Such a tragedy.”
“Detective Castillo will never buy that,” I said, shaking my head. We were halfway around the living room table and I was desperate to do or say anything to buy me enough time to round the table and sprint for the front door. “He knows how hard I’ve been trying to find Bethany’s killer.”
“Haven’t you heard? The perp always tries to insert himself—or herself, as the case may be—into the investigation.” Seth shoved the table, hard. It hit my stomach and I stumbled backward toward the open balcony door.
“I’ve already told the cops everything!” I shouted, grabbing the lip of the table and inching back the way I’d come. It was either get closer to a madman or to that open door, and I was willing to take my chances with Seth. I’d seen what a fall had done to Bethany, and that was just fifteen feet. We were five stories up. “Even if you kill me, and we both know you don’t want to do that, Seth, the cops know you were with Bethany on the walkway before she died. Besides, I have an airtight alibi. I was in the café when she died.”
“So was I,” he said with a grin. “Or at least, that’s what everyone will remember.”
I stared at him. That couldn’t possibly be true. He was in the café pretty much all day, every day, playing on his laptop—apparently using Untapped’s free Wi-Fi to build up his scammy Twitter accounts—and drinking coffee. He was such a fixture in the place, I hardly noticed him unless he was in my section, and even then I didn’t check on him half as often as I would a tipping table. Had he been in the café before Bethany died? I couldn’t remember. But I do vaguely re
member talking to him after the flash mob proposal video was posted online, and telling him Bethany wasn’t coming back.
Would I have noticed if he’d slipped out before Bethany left, and returned after he’d killed her? Apparently, many of the regulars knew there was a back door, and that we kept it propped open with a brick during business hours because we were too lazy to do things the right way.
But what kind of absolute monster could commit cold-blooded murder and then go out for a coffee afterward?
The kind of monster in my living room, apparently.
“There’re video cameras,” I blurted out. Bless Todd and his paranoia. I sure hoped he hadn’t cheaped out on the cameras like he did with everything else, and had paid for more than a day’s worth of storage. “Front and back doors. The police will be able to tell exactly when you came in, and if you left at any time.”
“You’re lying,” he hissed.
“Nope. Todd had ’em installed after a break-in a while ago, but now he uses them to watch everyone coming and going.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“The cops also have security footage and cell phone pictures from Domino Park that morning. They’ve got everything they need to place you at the scene, Seth.” At least, I hoped that was true. All it would take was a glimpse of Seth in the background of one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of Instagram pictures to prove he was at the park.
A movement behind Seth caught my eye, and my pulse spiked. Seth must have seen it, too, because he started to turn around, but Rufus jumped up on the table, purring as he slunk around my sewing machine. “Come here, Rufie,” I said in a saccharine voice I typically reserved for babies and small animals.
Seth cocked his head to one side. “I didn’t know you had a cat.”
There it was again, that skin-crawling sensation. Despite the fact that our longest conversation before now had been me asking if he wanted a refill of his coffee or not, he thought he knew me because he’d checked out my online presence. I didn’t even know his last name, but he probably knew my cowboy boot size.
“Rufie, baby, c’mere” I repeated. I didn’t know what terrified me more, the idea that Seth might hurt Rufus, or that Rufus might escape through the open door and possibly fall off the balcony. Either way, I wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to my aunt’s cat. When he got close enough, I snatched him up and held him to my chest.
Rufus, not used to being manhandled, hissed and scratched at my arm, crisscrossing the marks he’d left the day I’d brought Huckleberry home with me. I yelped, and almost dropped him.
“I don’t think the cat likes you very much,” Seth said, a wide grin blossoming across his face.
“And I don’t think I like you very much,” came a man’s voice right next to Seth’s ear. Seth jumped, but Detective Vincent Castillo clamped a hand on his shoulder and shoved him face-first into the table. Seth writhed in discomfort as his freshly tattooed chest smacked into the hard wood. The detective pinned him down with one hand as he reached for his handcuffs with the other. “Nice distraction, Ms. Dean,” he said, winking at me.
“I think Rufus deserves all the credit,” I said through chattering teeth.
Before the detective had opened the front door and Seth had started to turn around, I was sure that I was about to do my best impression of Humpty Dumpty. If it weren’t for Rufus jumping up on the table at that exact moment, I don’t know what would have happened. Just thinking about it, the world got fuzzy around the edges, and it sounded like a bunch of Parker’s bees were buzzing around my head.
I wobbled, but Castillo was there with his arm around my waist, easing me down into one of the dining table chairs before I could lose my balance. “You okay?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” I nodded. “Just ducky.”
He closed the balcony door before rejoining Seth, who was now standing with his hands cuffed behind his back. “You can put the cat down now, Ms. Dean.”
“Odessa,” I corrected him faintly. I tried to swallow, but my throat was as dry as a creek bed in August.
The detective nodded as he looked me up and down. “You’re bleeding.”
I glanced at my arm. It was barely a scratch. “It’s just blood,” I assured him. “I’ll make more. You got my message.”
“Sure did,” the detective said. He pulled a laminated card out of his wallet. “Sorry I missed your call, I was up on your roof with a couple hundred of Bethany’s closest friends. It’s so loud up there, I didn’t hear my phone ring. Then Izzy saw your livestream, gave me her keys, and I got down here as soon as I could. Quick thinking, repeating his name every time you could and getting him to confess on tape.”
“I didn’t think anyone would believe me otherwise,” I told him.
“Sorry I didn’t take you seriously earlier,” Castillo said.
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t take me seriously, either,” I admitted. “Kinda fitting, though? A case that started with an accidental video of Bethany falling to her death ends with a livestream of Seth confessing to everything. I’m just lucky that Izzy saw it.”
“Are you kidding?” Castillo chuckled. “You were logged in to the Untapped Books & Café account. Thousands of people are watching live right now. I think you have a new viral video on your hands.” He winked again, and read Seth his rights.
25
Odessa Dean @OdessaWaiting ∙ July 5
I did another thing, y’all. Whadya think of my new ink? #tattoo #owie #sorrynotsorry #YOLO
A WEEK AFTER SETH was arrested and charged with murdering Bethany, I was sitting on a vinyl-covered chair in a tattoo parlor, staring at the stencil on the underside of my wrist. It was the same outline as Bethany’s cute little owl tattoo, with a few minor tweaks. Bethany’s tattoo had been turquoise. Most everyone who got the memorial tattoo got theirs in black and gray, but remembering what Jenny had told me about Bethany’s dislike of somber colors, I went with bright purple. Also, in place of the comically large eyes, I wanted big green buttons to express my love of sewing.
“You don’t have to do this,” Izzy said. She stood on the other side of me, holding my sweaty hand.
The shop was clean, well lit, and smelled faintly of soap. The walls were painted complementary shades of bright, cheery colors, and instead of examples of common tattoo designs like butterflies and anchors—apparently called “flash”—taped to the walls, the owner had hung framed original artwork. Swing music was piped in over Bluetooth speakers mounted in the corners, and my foot tapped unconsciously to the beat.
“I know,” I said. “I want to do this.” And I did. Yes, I was nervous. And yes, I knew getting an almost exact copy of someone else’s tattoo wasn’t unique. But it would always be special to me, and that was the only thing that mattered.
“The wrist is a bold place to get a first tattoo,” Parker warned me. He stood by my knees, opposite the tray table where the tattoo artist was squeezing colored inks into tiny caps. Parker looked a little green around the gills. He’d offered to come as a show of support, but now I was afraid he was going to throw up or something, and he wasn’t even the one getting inked.
“True,” I replied. “I want it to be visible. I want to see it every day.” It was both a tribute to Bethany and a reminder that life was short. It wouldn’t be much of a reminder if I couldn’t see it, would it? “Besides, go big or go home, YOLO, and all that other stuff, right?”
“You about ready?” the tattoo artist asked, tapping a foot pedal so that the machine in her hand buzzed.
Before now, I’d always pictured a tattooist as a big burly fortysomething man in a motorcycle jacket with “I heart Mom” tattooed on his enormous bicep. I don’t know where that image had come from, but the artist who’d drawn Bethany’s original tattoo and had inked dozens of copies onto her friends during the wake last week looked nothing like that. She was in her early twenties with jet
-black hair styled up in big vintage glam curls held in place with a bright pink headscarf. She wore a full-skirted dress, the kind that needed petticoats, topped off with a short white sweater with an enamel long-necked cat pin near the collar.
All in all, she looked like the perfect nineteen-fifties housewife, if the perfect nineteen-fifties housewife had almost every inch of their visible skin covered in brightly colored tattoos. Even her temples were tattooed—an ice cream cone on the right temple and a simple blue heart on the left.
She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater to reveal a long pink flamingo that ran the length of her arm and snapped on a new pair of gloves. “Say the word,” she told me.
“Ready,” I confirmed.
I braced myself for the agonizing pain to come as she dipped the tip of the tattoo machine into the little pot of ink and brought it to my arm. Then the buzzing needle touched my skin and to my surprise, it wasn’t bad. I’d had worse papercuts.
Just like grief, everyone processed pain differently. What was a mild annoyance to me could have felt like a root canal without anesthesia to someone else, or vice versa. Then again, my grandma taught me how to sew when I couldn’t have been six or seven. Since then, I’d probably pricked my fingers a hundred thousand times with a sewing needle. Maybe that had desensitized me over time, or my artist had a gentle hand, or I’d inadvertently selected a location that had few pain receptors. In any event, it wasn’t anything near as bad as I’d expected.
“You okay?” the artist asked, bent over and concentrating on the design.
“Ducky,” I replied.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” Parker announced, and left abruptly.
I didn’t blame him. I’d felt a little squeamish before she started, too. The fact that Parker had come along to provide moral support was enough.
“Men, am I right?” the artist asked. Beside me, Izzy giggled. I didn’t move a muscle. The very last thing I wanted was to twitch and end up with some random line across my wrist. “I do need you to hold still, but you can breathe,” she told me. “It’s okay.”
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