Page 15 of Pied Sniper

“Tiffany Rose,” we both chorused.

“Who is that?”

“Famous vlogger on YouTube.”

Garrett frowned harder. “What is she? A dominatrix?”

“Not a flogger, a vlogger,” I corrected him. “A vlogger is like a blogger but instead of writing on a website, they makes videos of their daily lives and upload them online for people to watch.”

“Why?”

“Money,” I said.

“Free stuff,” said Lily. She raised her eyebrows as she looked at me. “Narcissism?”

“I don’t know. Maybe all of those.” I shrugged. “Definitely free stuff and money.”

“And kudos,” said Lily. “That little ‘like’ button is such a lure. Totally addictive.”

“Have you seen some of the comments Tiffany Rose gets? There’s a lot of jealousy from some of the viewers. Could that be why someone attacked her?” I wondered. “And all that information about her online. Perhaps someone was deliberately inciting violence against her?”

Garrett held up his hands. “Slow down! I got a call from cousin, Tara saying she saw you two brought in and the rumor she heard was you were being arrested for murder. That can’t be true!” He tilted his head, closed his eyes and sighed. Apparently, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility for him, but it was nice to know that he rejected the accusation initially.

“It is. She’s the only cousin we’ve seen,” I told him. My cousin, Tara had recently moved back from a stint in the Chicago Police Department. I didn’t know why she returned from her big city job, but I was glad she did. She was super nice. Knowing that she was the only serving family member to see us arrested was a relief. Now that I was getting over the injustice at being detained, I really didn’t want that news being aired on the Graves family phone tree. “It must be a slow shift. Or is there a family party we don’t know about?” I wondered. I tugged on my wrists, never before realizing how incredibly uncomfortable plastic handcuffs are. Then the little dog nudged my right boob and I wondered what to do about him. Perhaps it was best he remain under my sweater for now.

“Forget about that! I’m worried about the arrest. Murder, Lexi!” Garrett ran a hand through his hair and looked like he was about to implode.

“And me!” said Lily, straightening, her blonde curls flying around her head as she tossed them back. “I was arrested too!”

“Talk!” grunted Garrett, barely restraining himself. I pitied anyone on the receiving end of his vitriol; and my other big fear was my mom getting wind of it before he dealt with it.

“It started like this…” I said.

“We only…” said Lily.

“One at a time,” yelled Garrett.

“I…”

“Well…”

“Lexi,” said Garrett, “you talk.”

“What about me?” asked Lily.

He gave her a stony look and she winced. “I’ll get to you,” he said.

I took a deep breath and started to talk while the dog wriggled and Garrett stared uncomfortably at my sweater, a frown marring his forehead. Eventually, he sighed and fixed his gaze on my face. Finally, after I told him everything we knew, I said, “And once I finished searching the apartment, I knew she wasn’t there but when Lily slipped in a pool of blood, we knew Tiffany must have been terribly hurt. We were trying to call the police but they burst in…”

“And shot at us!” interrupted Lily.

“What?” yelled Garrett.

“Lexi picked up a knife since she had no clue who they were and they shot at us!” she said, her voice lowering as she imparted the horror of that moment.

“Why didn’t you put the knife down?” asked Garrett. “What were you planning to do with it?”

“I didn’t know who the hell those two men were when they burst in, then a bunch of uniformed officers came swarming in after we’d already been shot at. As soon as they identified themselves, I dropped it! We were already expecting to find a murder or a kidnapping. For all we knew, we could be next!”

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