Page 39 of The Lair

Again.

Again.

I screamed until the silent promise I’d made under the car reached the sky. Until it answered in the form of a police patrol car, stopping on the other side of the warehouse fence.

“Shit,” the man grabbing me hissed.

My ears started ringing.

I kept screaming.

I couldn’t stop.

Two police officers got out of the car, guns pointed at us.

I promise. I promise. I promise.

I woke up at the hospital two hours later.

When a police officer came by to get my statement, she asked me why I got in the car with that woman. I told her she knew private things about my mother no stranger should’ve known. She gave me a sad, pitying look, asked me a few more questions, and wished me a speedy recovery.

The next day, I found out that Johnny hadn’t been in the ER.

There had been no accident.

My mother didn’t have any friends named Claudia.

When I left the hospital soon after that, I saw myself in the news.

I saw myself everywhere.

Tragedy hits the Buccieri family.

Child of influencer family gets kidnapped. How much of our personal lives should we share online?

Online.

I wasn’t allowed to go on the internet other than to do schoolwork, and even then, someone had to supervise me. I knew my mother posted videos and pictures online because she always said that was her job, but what did that have to do with Claudia?

That afternoon, I took her phone while she was in the shower and saw everything.

Photos of me, of Johnny, of our baby sister, Cindy, all over the internet.

Photos of our home, our bedrooms, our vacations.

Of the shelves she had recently replaced.

Pictures of me in my school uniform, holding certificates and awards with the name of my school.

Pictures of Johnny playing rugby, going fishing with our father, with his own certificates.

Pictures of Cindy’s toy room, of her playing dress-up, of her covered in bubbles in the bathtub.

Our lives for millions of strangers to see.

My body turned cold. Was this how Claudia knew about my family? Because my mother talked about it online?

It wasn’t until years later that I brought up Claudia to Jada and asked her what had happened that day. Not what the news had speculated on, but what hadactuallygone down.

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