Never Saw Me Coming

by Vera Kurian

  Chloe laughed. “Excuse me?”

  “You pick on him when it’s clear all he wants is for everyone to think how great he is. The guy ran for office—he probably lives for people blowing smoke up his ass.”

  She seemed to contemplate this seriously. “So you think it’s better to just play his game?”

  “Play his game and let him think he’s winning it. And what did you invite him for if you don’t want us all to work together?”

  “I do want us all to work together—he’s just really annoying. And I wanted to gauge his reaction when I brought up all the Emma stuff.”

  “Didn’t seem like he knew her at all.”

  “He was pretty quick to volunteer to find her.”

  “Does she really seem like someone Charles would hang out with?”

  Chloe sighed, then shook her head. “Andre, there’s something else you haven’t seen.” She got up and sat next to him at the table. On her phone was a text—a picture of her sleeping. “Someone took this picture of me in the middle of last night and sent it to me.”

  “They got into your dorm room?” he asked, sitting straight up.

  “No, I was at this guy’s house. A frat house.”

  “He took it?”

  “I’m one hundred percent certain he didn’t. He’s basically a golden retriever and he keeps apologizing about what happened. Blah blah he’s going to make SAE take sexual harassment training or blah blah to make it right.”

  “Wait a minute—do you understand what this means?” Andre exclaimed. “It means they were a few feet away from you and didn’t kill you.” Chloe seemed stunned. “Maybe they don’t intend to murder you at all.”

  She stared at the phone. “Maybe they did—the guy I was with was really big. Maybe they saw him and got scared off?”

  “Did you Google the number?”

  “Nothing comes up.”

  “Is there some way you can find out if it was from a real number or a spoofed number?”

  “I’m not that tech savvy,” she said, opening up her laptop again, “but maybe I can find something on the internet about how to tell.”

  They worked in companionable silence. Andre flipped through one of the dissertations at random and settled on an acknowledgment page. The author thanked Wyman and the Wyman lab and listed several other names, all of which were already on Andre’s list except for one—John Fiola. He pulled open another dissertation and flipped to the acknowledgments. The same students were thanked, including Fiola. Andre checked every single dissertation from the CRD era and found the same student listed in the acknowledgments.

  Andre checked the electronic catalog: Fiola had a dissertation entitled “Toward a Greater Understanding of Sexual Violence in Psychopathic Men.” He hurried out of the room and to the stacks and double-checked the call number: all the other dissertations had been there, but the one he wanted was missing. Each dissertation had two copies—how could two copies have both gone missing? He made a mental note to ask the librarian downstairs as he went back to the study room.

  A Google search for “John Fiola DC” yielded results both interesting and disappointing. Tragic Collision Kills Cleveland Park Resident, read the headline from years ago.

  John Fiola, a recent recipient of his PhD from John Adams University, was the victim of a tragic drunk driving accident.

  “Chloe,” he said. He was annoyed to see that she was fiddling around with a dating app. Can these people take anything seriously? “Look at this.”

  Fiola is survived by his fiancée, Mira Wale.

  37

  Day 12

  What a way to burn a Friday night, spending it with a dweeby RA who was probably trying to get into my pants. But a plan had been formulating in my mind for the endgame with Will. If I found out who was committing the other murders, I’d have the perfect stooge to point a finger at. If only I had been in the psych building when Michael was killed. What if I had gotten there a second earlier and seen who had done it? At this point, I’d already be following them, would have already figured out where they lived and would have been crafting a believable story about them going after Will. Maybe they thought they were hunting me, but I was also hunting them, thinking two steps ahead to their high-profile arrest.

  I’d already met with the RA, Trevor Koch, once at the Bean where he marked up my fake CV with a red pen and talked down to me about psychology for twenty minutes. It took all my self-control to plaster a dumb look on my face and keep nodding while I pretended to listen. In reality, I was carefully observing him, collecting all the information I needed. Trevor was gangly and awkward and had zero fashion sense—this was not a guy who got a lot of attention from girls. He didn’t seem nervous around me but I got the sense that he thought being condescending was a style of flirting. But most importantly, I picked up an odor. A particular skunky odor.

  A week later, I sent a bubbly text asking if he had a pot hookup because, being new in town, I didn’t have one myself, hence tonight’s activities. I had invited myself over to “hang out,” which of course had to involve a long evening of sitting around consuming pot with his hookup and having high conversations. Trevor lived in Strayer, one of the smaller dorms across the quad from me. We were hanging out in his roommate Ray’s room, which shared a Jack-and-Jill bathroom with Trevor’s attached room.

  Trevor was sprawled perpendicular on Ray’s bed, staring up at the ceiling at the glow-in-the-dark stars that someone had stuck up there. I was sitting at the edge of the bed, playing with the lava lamp on the table, the only source of light in the dark room. Trevor had awkwardly angled his body toward mine, but not gussied up the balls to actually touch me. Ray and these two other guys called Mousey and Pete were sitting on the floor in front of a laptop arguing about some woman and her internet drama on a forum.

  Trevor waved a hand dismissively, then said very slowly, “I could dox her like that,” he said, snapping his fingers.

  Just then his cell phone made a noise. “Food’s here,” Trevor said, getting up and shoving his Converse on. The friend trio didn’t seem to notice; they barely grunted when I said I was going to use the bathroom.

  Once inside the bathroom, I locked the door to Ray’s room and opened the door to Trevor’s. I was met with a dark room accented by the pale blue light, probably from a computer, coming from the little inlet where his bed was. He had a giant table, possibly stolen from one of the common rooms, filled with computer equipment, some of which was alive and humming, some of which was in the process of being dissected. It was abnormally cold in his room.

  Where would I be, if I was a key? I was betting he wouldn’t keep Wyman’s office keys on his person. I used the flashlight on my cell phone and shone it over the table, looking for a key ring. A coat was thrown on the floor—I checked the pockets but found nothing. Didn’t he have a proper desk? Maybe it was where his bed was. I quickly moved to that part of the room but then froze when I met a sight I didn’t know how to interpret.

  There was his bed, but the inlet was dominated by his desk, which had four large, glowing computer monitors. One showed a girl shoving a dildo into herself. Another showed a girl clipping her toenails. The third showed what looked like someone asleep in bed. The fourth showed a narrow, neatly made bed with a lavender, pin-tucked duvet. Two pillows. A chemistry book. The familiar window just behind the bed. A stuffed whale. It was my bedroom.

  “Do you like them?” came a voice.

  I jumped without being able to stop myself. Trevor was standing behind me. I could see his room door was open a little—I hadn’t even heard him come in. “I don’t understand what I’m looking at.”

  “Cam girls,” he said. “Top left is a real feed—Natasha in Ukraine, she’s a professional. Actually, all of them are but you.” I was still putting it all together, but a quiet rage was washing over me. More videos of me floating out there for anyone to see?
Are you kidding me? I needed to be very careful about what happened next. He grinned, showing small, even teeth. “You need to pay more attention to what links you click.”

  My head was in a whirl, trying to remember anything weird. But who even thinks about all the things they click on and read, stupid bank notifications popping up on your phone and reminders to fill out some form? Then I remembered—about a week ago I had gotten a DM on Instagram from some new company that was recruiting girls to do sponsored posts about their beauty products. I’d received similar offers before, and who doesn’t like some flattery and an offer of freebies? I did click on the link absently, while walking between classes, and never thought of it again. And that had happened a few days after I met Trevor.

  “You’re smarter than you look,” he said. “But I figured if I appealed to your vanity...”

  Some instinct told me to stay calm. “Why would you do this?”

  “I know who you are, Chloe.”

  Oh, no. I had been banking on the fact that I had never seen him in the office before—I had assumed the RAs wouldn’t have a picture of me or something on file. I’d made too many assumptions. I don’t have a lot of flaws, but a total lack of humility is one of them.

  “As soon as you came into the office snooping around for information, you gave yourself away.”

  This disgusting perv—he’d been playing with me this whole time. I wanted to gouge his eyes out, but all I could think about is what he might have seen on my webcam. Me getting dressed. Me hooking up. Chad had been over for a “study” date. I had done tequila shots with Billy the Crew one night when I was bored. But most critically: Had I done anything associated with my Will plan in front of the camera? I hadn’t in the past week, and I didn’t use my computer at an angle you could see from the webcam. “Obviously, you’re going to get fired for this,” I said, resigned, not even sure if he cared.

  He cawed with laughter, then put his hand on my shoulder in a weird, affected way. “Oh, honey, you still think I’m an RA?”

  He was in the program. He knew what I was the second I showed up trying to get an in with the office. “Why were you on one of Wyman’s computers?” He had seemed so at home there—exactly the body language of someone in a workplace.

  “Waiting for Elena. I was seeing if they’d ever gotten any better at passwords.”

  I turned back to the cams, folding my arms across my chest as I looked at the screens, putting on a posture like I was more annoyed than enraged. I had to choose my next steps wisely. Trevor was the seventh student in the program. Trevor might be the killer. He was certainly clever and perverse enough. How out of it were his fellow trolls in the other room? Would they hear if I screamed? I had my wasp spray—my hand edged down to it. “I should be charging you for the free show,” I said mildly.

  “Ha ha. A girl like you could make some money.”

  “Are you the only one who has this, or did you make it public?”

  “I didn’t share it.”

  I turned to face him, doing a polite golf clap. “All right, I give it to you. You won.” He grinned, his eyes sparkling in a way I had never seen before—he had always seemed somewhat dull and phlegmatic. “Here’s the thing, though,” I said in a smooth, friendly tone, gesturing to the monitors. “I don’t like this. I’m not sure I believe that you didn’t share it, or record any—” He tried to protest but I steamrolled over him. “And you know, in today’s day and age, hacking into a girl’s webcam so you can jerk off to her, well, it just doesn’t sit right. I mean, I could get you kicked out of school.” I examined my nails. “Or maybe a few well-placed posts on social media could go viral and then nobody could ever Google your name without the story coming up. Trust me, I would see to that.”

  He looked a little alarmed. “I’ll cut the feed right now!” he said, holding up his hands innocently. He leaned over his keyboard and did a series of rapid things—the feed cut out. But what did that even mean? For all I knew he could get straight back into it. “I didn’t save anything, I promise.”

  “Like a promise from a psychopath even means anything?”

  “Listen, I’ll do you a favor—you need to take internet security seriously. Get yourself a good password manager—use it the right way and even I can’t get into your stuff.” He proceeded to lecture me about technology, while I stared at him, stunned. He had gone from sinister to good-natured—it was almost like he thought my discovery of him creeping on me was an icebreaker to a new friendship, or worse, something more. I was spiritually vomiting.

  I sighed. “I’m very upset, Trevor.”

  He blinked a few times rapidly. “I’ve seen you around campus. I know the sort of people you hang out with.” What the hell did that mean? “I’ll do you a solid.” He hunched over his keyboard again. He dug around for a while before he found something—a folder entitled simply cunt. He was emailing something to me—to my real school address, which was in my name.

  “You’re crazy if you think I’d actually open an attachment from you.”

  He put his hands in his pockets. “That folder contains some information about someone you really need to see. I like you, Chloe. Most girls are boring but you aren’t. You’re like me.” The wasp spray was tempting me, but I needed to pay attention to his every microexpression. “You need to be careful about the company you keep,” Trevor said.

  * * *

  I fled from Trevor’s dorm like a bat out of neckbeard hell. I was so mad my ears were hot. I was holding my phone, desperate to know what was in that file, but of course I wasn’t going to open it. I didn’t even want to open my email app just in case my phone would automatically download the file. Trevor was a creep and a liar—but he knew just where to get me, that I would be too curious to not open it.

  I felt an urge to text Andre—he had proven insanely reliable for a psychopath, doing tons of legwork about Wyman’s history and everything, but I had to remind myself that he had done all that to save his own ass, not mine. No, I would deal with this alone.

  Strayer was kitty-corner to the library, where one of the twenty-four-hour computer labs were. Once I signed into my email I stared at the attachment, dying of curiosity, still angry. I dragged the folder onto the desktop to save it, then quickly signed out of my email.

  I looked around, assuring that I had privacy, then clicked on the cunt file.

  It consisted of a single PDF called “PatientFile34522.” I recognized the first page—it was the same intake form I had filled out when I signed up for the program, but my eyes froze on the first line. Portmont, Charles Andrew. My heart started beating hard.

  Why would Trevor have this? The document was about thirty pages and was cut off in the middle of a sentence. After a couple pages of generic stuff, there were what looked like clinical notes initialed LW or ET. Those first few pages were not surprising. Charles’s poor little rich boy background, getting into trouble as a kid and being sent to one boarding school after another. Your father’s an asshole? The huge empty spaces of all your vacation homes don’t provide any comfort? Blah blah blah.

  I scanned until a few words popped out at me.

  Working with Charles continues to be a struggle. He continues to display high levels of sadism, which hasn’t changed since I began seeing him. The pleasure he takes in causing others’ pain dates back to his childhood. He expresses no remorse for any wrongdoing or criminal activity. For the second time this month, he has talked at length about the sexual desire he associates with thoughts of killing and maiming young women. Has talked about dreams of having sex with dead bodies. I’ve had to let another RA go. Have thought about going to the police about Daisy but am frightened of the consequences. (Father is very powerful.)

  This had to be fake. Trevor playing a game. Then again, he had seemed genuinely worried that I would try to get him kicked out of school. And why would he just happen to have a fake file about Charles on his co
mputer? That awkward way he had touched my shoulder... I think Trevor Liked me—like with a capital L—and maybe he had seen me talking to Charles and, in his own fucked-up way, worried about me or was jealous? Some of the stuff in the file I knew to be true: Dr. Wyman’s signature looked real, and whoever wrote the notes accurately described Charles’s charm, his laziness, and his quick way of going from one mood to the next. Both boys were terrible, but which one was worse?

  Wait, who was Daisy—an RA? I quickly opened Google and searched “Daisy Adams University,” but with low expectations. The first two listings were duds, but then there it was, an article from the Daily Owl. Sophomore Suicide Raises Questions About Student Health.

  Apparently, last year a student named Daisy Crosby jumped off the top of the Math Sciences Tower—which everyone called Suicide Tower—to her death. The article included a quote from her voice instructor about how such a beautiful talent was wasted. She was a voice major, which would put her in Albertson Hall all the time—exactly where Charles frequented.

  Maybe it had been obvious all along. Even his frat brothers literally called him “Terrible Charles.” I had to face the fact that I had a significant bias about Charles and it had colored my decisions. From the moment I heard about the killings—from him no less—I had not for a second seriously considered that Charles could be responsible. Why—because he had helped me back in Fort Hunt? Maybe I liked to think he helped me because secretly he wanted me, but maybe it really was in self-interest—maybe the last thing he needed was people getting assaulted on his property because that’s where he buries his bodies.

  Ted Bundy murdered by wearing a fake cast and asking women to help him, and they never thought he was sketchy because he was supposedly handsome and charming. People, including his girlfriend at the time, and his friend, crime writer Ann Rule, suspected him, but also questioned their suspicions because they simply couldn’t believe it was him. Despite it being in front of their faces the whole time.