Page 98 of Missing White Woman

It was strange watching my DMs update like some stock market ticker. It felt like I was gambling with each message. Not knowing if it would be kind or cruel. Helpful or just someone using their anonymity to be a full-on schmuck.

But I kept reading, alternating between DMs, comments, and Twitter hashtags—just in case. I’d made sure to give a description that matched Janelle. The Missing flyer was quite helpful with that. Lots of folks were eager to help, sharing blurry photos and long-winded explanations of someone they’d seen briefly but they didn’t get a name or even a close look. The closest they came was somebody with the same exact name in Illinois, but a quick Google search disproved it was her. There were no sightings in New York City.

I was just about to give up when the DM came. The message was simple.

This her?

By that point I doubted it. It felt like I’d been sent photos of every blond woman in the continental United States.

But I still clicked anyway. The angle was sloppy, the camera aimed low, and the shot was taken from a distance, as if the photographer was backing away. It was of a brown take-out bag on a front porch. Delivery. Whoever had ordered it was caught mid-snap—blond hair cascading over taut, tanned shoulders. Muscled arms accustomed to much heavier weights bending down to grab one of their three suggested meals for the day. But it wasn’t the hair or body that made me take notice.

It was the face mask.

Red. Bedazzled. Familiar.

Bingo.

The message had been sent a good twenty minutes ago, but there was no indication of where—or when—the photo actually had been taken. I wrote back immediately, afraid to allow myself to get too excited.

When was this?

I pressed Send, saying a prayer the response would be quick. Thankfully they were as attached to their cell as I was.

Last night.

My heart sped up and I couldn’t type the next word fast enough. Where?

Another lightning-quick response. Here.

Here.

One word. Several meanings. Several places. There were no landmarks. No telltale backgrounds. Just a close-up of a bag of food. There wasn’t even a restaurant name on it. It was just a generic greasy brown paper bag. It could’ve been Manhattan, but with my luck this was the other side of the world. Janelle-Lori would’ve had enough time to walk there at this point.

I responded. City?

I was still hoping for New York.

Them again. Sorry. Thought you knew. Here. JC.

And if the other responses had my heart racing, that made it stop. Here. Janelle or Lori was here. I didn’t respond right away. Too busy scrambling around for a pen and paper so I could write the address down when they gave it to me. But when I got back to my cell, they’d responded anyway.

Almost there.

It took me a minute to connect the dots. First here. Now there. Because of me, someone was on their way to confront what could be a killer. And I didn’t even know their real name.

My first response was to freeze. My heart. My breath. My hands. Nothing moved except the fear. It started at my toes and slowly snaked its way up until it got to my head. And only then did my brain jump-start. It was too late to freak out.

This was not what I’d wanted at all. This harshest of reminders about the consequences of saying crap online. So I did what I had to. Pushed the Camera button and waited as it rang.

They picked up. The face was as young as I was afraid it would be. A cute white brunette cheesing it up like she’d finally beat her mom in Connect Four. But it made sense because this was all a game to her. She giggled. “This needs to be quick because we want to film us pulling up.”

We. Of course there were two of them.

I skipped all pleasantries. “You can’t do this.”

“Of course we can. Gonna live stream it. Kara is too since she has way more followers than me.”

“That woman—Lori Stevenson—is dangerous,” I said, but I might as well have been mouthing the words.

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