Innocent Mistakes

by Melissa F. Miller

  His grin falters. “Did they do it?”

  “No. I don’t know what they were up to, and Colin won’t tell me even though keeping quiet could land him in Shuman overnight. He says we’ll know ‘soon.’”

  “Teenagers. I swear to all that’s holy, Sasha.”

  “I’m beginning to understand the challenges, Joe. I don’t envy you. And I never want another teenaged client. But …”

  “But what? If you’re right, the case against Lainey is going to fall apart fast.”

  “It will. I know it.”

  He rubs his neck. “So, here’s the problem. I was going to release Colin because I thought I’d have the culprit in custody. But I can’t let him go until I have another suspect, Sasha. I just can’t. Not after this stunt.”

  He pulls out his cell phone and cues up a video. She leans in as the camera pans the suburban hospital parking lot, zooms in on the red emergency room sign, and then focuses on a woman wearing a red suit jacket and skirt and a red, white, and blue chiffon scarf tied around her neck. A sullen boy slouches beside her in running clothes, a pair of crutches under his armpits, and a cast on one foot.

  “Where’s dad?”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s the cameraman,” Joe tells her.

  “Right.”

  Leigh Dalton raises her hand and waves to no one. Then she says, “Fellow Green Glen School District parents, what’s happening in our community is a disgrace. A disgrace! As many of you know, my Hunter has been the victim of cyber harassment. And that’s why a safe online environment is the main plank of my campaign platform. But I am horrified to tell you that the abuse has escalated even beyond death threats and bullying comments. Today, in our serene, safe community, he was viciously attacked. Another student ran him over and left him on the side of the road to die.”

  She pauses to gather herself. The camera zooms in and lingers on a tear forming in the corner of one blue eye. She waits a beat, then clears her throat and continues, “I demand—we must demand—that the district attorney protect our precious children. I demand action. I hope Assistant District Attorney Joe Donaldson is listening.”

  She bends down and picks up something at her feet. It’s a sign—red poster board affixed to a wooden stake. Scrawled on the red surface with a thick white paint pen are the words ‘Vote for Leigh. You Can Trust Me.’ She waves the sign at the camera. Hunter continues to examine the ground.

  Joe hits pause and starts explaining, “So you can see how I need to announce an arrest, right? I mean, the woman called me out by name.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Sasha, are you listening to me?”

  “Yes.” Sort of.

  She’s staring at the jagged, slashy lettering on the sign and trying to remember where she’s seen it before. And then it hits her. She grabs Joe’s arm.

  “How long can you stall before you send Colin to the detention center for the night?”

  He sticks a finger under the collar of his golf shirt as if it’s choking him.

  “Joe, come on.”

  “I guess I need to deal with Lainey Fuller and then, if her story is a dud, pick up Mallory and process her … so assuming I plan to send Colin and Mallory down together, I can drag my feet for the rest of the day. But they’ll want them to be through intake and in their beds by lights out. So, seven o’clock is probably the latest I can keep them here—maybe eight.”

  She nods. “That’s enough time.”

  “To do what?”

  She doesn’t answer. Instead she says, “Keep your phone on.”

  39

  There’s an ache in the pit of Siobhan’s stomach after Officer Hill reads Colin his Miranda rights and leads him out of the house and into the squad car. Mom’s freakout distracts her, but only for a while. After she gets Mom a glass of water and satisfies herself that Mom’s breathing normally, there’s only one thing left to do.

  She stares down at her phone. “Ick. You owe me, Colin.”

  She jabs the contact icon for Emmaline Clemson. While the phone rings, she rehearses the lines Colin whispered to her before he was arrested. She closes her eyes and repeats them twice.

  Finally, Emmaline picks up. “Oh, Siobhan, what a surprise. Did you decide you do have a comment after all?”

  The lines fly out of her mind. “Comment on what?”

  Emmaline laughs. “The Tattler exposé on the Hunter-Mallory-Colin love triangle, of course. The issue hasn’t been put to bed yet. You can still comment.”

  Put to bed. As if Emmaline’s cranking her tabloid out on a printing press. Sure. Just say what you need to say and end the call, Siobhan tells herself.

  “Uh, no. I’m calling with a tip. Go to www hunterisapig dot com. It’s password protected, but there’s a, um, collection of materials for an exclusive story there. It’s all yours if you want. But the deal is you have to publish today.”

  “What’s the password?” Emmaline doesn’t even try to hide her excitement.

  “It’s hunterdalton. All lowercase. No space. Do you agree to the deal?”

  She can hear the clack clack clack of Emmaline’s keyboard, then a squeal. “Oh my goodness, yes, yes, I’ll publish today. Thank you, Siobhan.”

  “I’m just the messenger. I haven’t even seen the website.”

  “Oooh, it’s good. I mean, it’s bad. Hunter really is a pig.”

  Siobhan’s heart speeds up. “So you’re going to do a story on what a pig Hunter is?”

  “Apparently. I’ve got texts, pictures, screencaps … it’s a treasure trove.”

  Siobhan glances at her laptop, thinking about Gurl Pwr15, thinking about the deep fakes, thinking about Hunter growling threats in her ear in the cafeteria line.

  This is it. Now or never. Do or die.

  She clears her throat. “Actually, I might have something you can use for your story. Something I’m sure isn’t on the website.”

  40

  The Daltons’ wide stone house sits at the center of the loop of a quiet cul-de-sac, as if it’s the keystone of an arch. A flagstone walkway leads to the front porch. But Sasha’s more interested in the garage. She locks her car door and crosses the lawn to circle around to the left of the house. The three-bay garage squats off to the side in the shadow of the house. It’s designed to look like an old carriage house, but unlike the one Carter Lightman is currently pouring a small fortune into, she sincerely doubts this structure ever housed a horse-drawn buggy. It has wide automatic doors fashioned in the faux-old look that new construction in this suburb favors.

  Leaving aside the aesthetics, that’s bad news for her. A hundred-plus year old latch is one thing. A high-tech lock wired with a camera is another. She steps over a flower bed of purple crocuses and early yellow daffodils and leans in to inspect the garage’s back door, a pedestrian door that’s situated for easy access to and from the house. Definitely alarmed. She tries the knobs just in case, but it’s locked.

  That’s okay, she reminds herself. You’re here to make a spectacle. She scans the yard and spots a pile of bricks stacked against the side of the garage. They’re bright red and new and obviously destined for the outdoor oven under construction at the end of the patio. She bends and takes a brick, hefting it in her hand. Then she pulls out her phone and finds the text from Jordan. There’s the brick that smashed through the front window, sitting on the living room floor like an alien invader.

  She peers at the image. Are they the same style of bricks? She can’t tell. But someone will be able to. Some forensic brick expert will emerge from the vast universe to testify under oath that these bricks were made with the same clay and aged for the same amount of time—or not. For her purposes, the brick’s pedigree is irrelevant.

  She winds up with a motion that would make Colin cringe and lobs the thing through the glass window set in the door. The electronic wail of the Daltons’ alarm drowns out the sound of tinkling glass. She glances up at the round camera eye, mounted on the lintel above the door and blinking red, and wave
s. Then she pulls her shirt sleeve down over her hand and gingerly reaches through the jagged opening in the window to unlock the door from the inside and lets herself in.

  She picks up her brick, then flips the light switch on the wall and surveys the garage. It’s clean, bordering on spotless. There’s a workbench in one corner with a metal tool chest snug up against it. Coated wire shelves against the back wall groan with packages of paper goods, stacks of cleaning products, and lawn care items. She crosses the room and rifles through the stack of small paint cans arranged on the workbench. No white. She pulls open the drawer built into the bench, and a dozen red, white, and blue thick paint pens roll around inside. She selects a white one at random and places it on the work surface next to the brick. A paint expert can decide if the paint matches the paint on the brick that sailed through her brother’s window, and a handwriting expert can determine whether the distinctive printing on Leigh Bolton’s campaign sign matches the threat scrawled on the brick. She’s pretty sure what the answers will be. But, again, it doesn’t matter.

  What’s taking them so long?

  They have to be home. She eyes the cars. Three Daltons, three cars. An obnoxious, neon green Jeep—the same make, model, and color that Sean saw speeding away from his house; a shiny, emerald green Jaguar; and a dark gray minivan, indistinguishable at a glance from every other dark minivan in this suburban neighborhood. She circles around to the front of the minivan and crouches by the bumper, shaking her head.

  “What in the hell?”

  Finally.

  She stands and locks eyes with Paul Dalton. He’s as red-faced and outraged as he’d been the day he barreled into her in the hallway at school. Only at the moment, he’s gripping a golf club—a driver, if she’s not mistaken—and advancing on her. She wastes a second wishing she hadn’t left the brick on the workbench. Oops.

  “Hi, Mr. Dalton. How’s Hunter doing?”

  The calm, friendly social inquiry confuses him. He stops and blinks at her. “He’s resting. You’re the McCandless kid’s aunt. What the devil are you doing in my garage?”

  “I broke in.”

  “I can see that. The door’s alarmed—it goes straight to the police station, you know.”

  “Perfect. That’ll save us some time if the police are already on their way.”

  Confusion turns to sheer bewilderment. “What kind of game are you playing?”

  Sasha gestures. “Come here, I’ll show you. It’d be nice if you didn’t bring the golf club, though.”

  She watches him eye her. She’s five foot nothing, a mere slip of a woman, and empty handed. He’s a big, strapping man, muscular and blessed with a misguided confidence. He rests the club against the wall and stalks over to stand next to her.

  “You own a car lot, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  She squats and points to the front bumper on the passenger side of the minivan. “If someone brought this car in to trade it in, you’d do an inspection?”

  He huffs and lowers himself into a crouch beside her, his knees cracking in protest. “Of course.”

  “What would you make of this?”

  He squints at the flecks of skin clinging to the still-sticky red smear, the dent in the plastic, the scratches in the paint just above the bumper. He swallows once, twice. His eyes dart up to meet hers, then back to the damage.

  “Leigh, what have you done?” He half-whispers, half-moans the words.

  “I called the police, of course. What are you doing?”

  Sasha and Paul Dalton both stand. Leigh’s in the doorway. She’s traded her red power suit for a pair of chinos and a white sweater with thin red stripes. The jaunty scarf still graces her neck.

  “Who are you?” She demands of Sasha without waiting for her husband’s response.

  “Sasha McCandless-Connelly.”

  “Colin’s aunt. The lawyer.” Leigh’s blue eyes flash fear and understanding. “I’m calling Nathan.”

  “Don’t drag him into this, Leigh.” Her husband’s voice is hoarse and warning. “How could you?”

  She shakes her head. “How could I what?” But her face gives her away. She’s thinking hard, trying to come up with a plausible lie.

  “How could you hit our son with a car and drive off?”

  She clamps her mouth shut and stands, frozen.

  “I’m guessing things snowballed,” Sasha offers. “When Leigh saw the post on the school intranet, it must have seemed like a gift from the heavens for her moribund school board campaign. She could turn a dumb insult on the Internet into a tailor-made signature issue with a little help from her brother, the FBI agent.”

  Leigh turns her head, studiously avoiding meeting either her husband’s eyes or Sasha’s, in a move that reminds Sasha of Mocha’s guilty behavior after an entire roasted chicken vanished from the kitchen counter.

  “But Colin wasn’t arrested that first day, and every narrative needs a villain. So she painted an ominous message on a brick, took Hunter’s Jeep, and broke my brother’s window. She made sure to take a picture to post on the PTA board. Something to keep people talking, keep them engaged in the drama while her brother tried to nail my nephew.”

  Paul gawks at his wife. “You did that? When you went out to buy your yogurt? Why would you take Hunter’s car?”

  Unable to control herself any longer, Leigh Dalton snaps, “Think, Paul. If someone spotted the Jeep, they’d assume it was Hunter. And that would make sense. A brick through a window as payback for a death threat online. At most, the two would cancel each other out. No harm, no foul.”

  Mother of the year right here.

  “And running him off the road?” Paul thunders. “Don’t tell me that was no harm, no foul, Leigh. I’m the one who went to get him. He was terrified, scared for his life. About to pass out from the pain. His ankle might never be the same. It might be the end of his running career. What’s wrong with you?”

  Sasha hears a distant siren. She edges around the passenger side of the minivan, keeping the vehicle between her and Leigh, while the woman pleads with her husband.

  “I didn’t mean to actually hit him. I just wanted to scare him, run him off the road. It was foggy, I knew he’d never be able to identify the vehicle, and I figured Nate could help me point the finger at Colin. I didn’t even know I’d hit him until you called me to come to the hospital, I swear.” She’s shaking and screaming, and the sirens are competing with her for primacy.

  Sasha sidles over to the panel on the wall and hits the buttons to raise all three garage doors. As they inch upward, she can see the black and white panels of two police cars parked in the Daltons’ driveway. The doors continue their mechanical journey, revealing four feet and legs, then torsos with guns drawn. The doors clunk to a stop in the top tracks, and two police officers approach the garage.

  Leigh turns toward Sasha, a triumphant gleam in her eye. “Now what? They don’t have a warrant. They can’t search the garage. Some lawyer you are.”

  Sasha smiles. “Actually, they don’t need a warrant. They’re responding to a report of a crime in progress made by the homeowner. You invited them here, and all the evidence they need is in plain view.”

  She steps to the front of the garage with her hands raised above her head.

  41

  The notifications begin to ping on phones throughout the community shortly after five p.m. on Sunday. The Tiger Tattler sends out a push notification to all two hundred and eight of its subscribers, touting a breathless exclusive report on the misdeeds of Green Glen’s own Hunter Dalton. The two hundred and eight recipients of the message pause in weeding the garden, making dinner, doing homework, and read the piece. They forward the link on to friends, neighbors, and relatives with messages ranging from ‘You’ll never believe it’ and ‘You have to see this’ to ‘I always knew there was something wrong with that kid.’ By five-thirty, everyone’s seen it.

  Sasha’s in the back of a squad car when Jordan forwards it to her. The arr
esting officer, Jeff Idioli, gets a text from Officer Hill, and pulls over to read it. Sasha reads along in the back seat, gasping at the image of Hunter, shirtless, with a pig’s snout Photoshopped onto his face. Emmaline Clemson’s included dozens of messages from Hunter to Mallory Fuller, all begging, pleading, and demanding nude pictures. There’s a sidebar tracing the connections that establish Hunter is Castle Rock, and an interview with Siobhan, where she describes what he did to her. Sasha’s gratified to see that Emmaline has declined to include the deep fakes, instead explaining to her readers that they are disturbing and not fit for publication. Finally, there’s a written statement from Colin, alleging that Hunter has also engaged in swatting, but Emmaline’s careful to note she doesn’t have any solid proof of that. The article concludes: Thanks to the bravery of three Green Glen High students and the Tattler’s commitment to bringing you all the news, all the time, Hunter Dalton’s dirty secret has been busted wide open. What consequences await him, Mr. Dunbar? Only time will tell.

  Sasha’s heart swells and threatens to explode. She’s so stinking proud of Siobhan, and Colin and Mallory, and even Green Glen’s own gossip girl, Emmaline Clemson.

  Officer Idioli meets Sasha’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Did you get a load of this article?”

  “I did.”

  She’s grateful that he didn’t handcuff her, and she takes the opportunity to forward the link on to Connelly.

  “This is some wild sh—stuff.”

  “It is,” she agrees.

  “Makes me glad my kids are grown.”

  She smiles. “Mine aren’t quite six yet, so I can’t even imagine what awaits me.”

  He makes a face. “Probably trolling holograms and insults implanted directly into the brains.”

  “Lovely.”

  He brightens. “ADA Donaldson’s going to meet us at the station.”