Page 128 of We Are All Guilty Here

Jude said, “The phone came with a cord that jacked into the back of a television, or you could take the miniSD and plug it into an adaptor that connected to your computer.”

Emmy asked, “Why do you know so much about this phone?”

“Because pedophiles loved it,” Jude said. “Back then, even the smallest camcorders were bulky and hard to conceal. At thetime, this was the highest quality stereo and video phone on the market. You could stick it in your pocket and head to the playground.”

“Damn,” Cole muttered.

Virgil said, “Felix Baker had the phone before Cheyenne.”

“Felix had a solid alibi.” Emmy slid one of the thumb drives across the table. The label had her tight handwriting. “This has footage of Felix walking in and out the front door of the factory at the times he gave us, plus it shows his car in the parking lot, plus there were cameras back in the office space where he worked that showed him at his drafting table, plus license plate scanners caught him going to the river basin.”

Jude asked, “Did the scanners catch anyone else who looked suspicious?”

“Nope.” Virgil picked up another heavy stack of papers and dropped them with a loud thud. “Our system wasn’t compatible with GHP. Had to go through all of these line-by-line. The Jetta didn’t show up anywhere. And not that you asked, but there weren’t any unusual phone numbers in the raw data from the cell phone tower, either. I personally tracked down every number that wasn’t from around here.”

“What about other Jettas?” Jude watched them all exchange glances. “What?”

Virgil said, “The factory was stamping out Jetta drive trains back then. Everybody had a Jetta.”

“Okay.” Jude was always a fan of stating the obvious. “We’re all thinking that Cheyenne had a video on the Nokia that showed the Bad Guy, right?”

Everyone nodded.

“And Cheyenne was probably blackmailing the Bad Guy, right?”

Only Emmy and Cole nodded.

Virgil said, “Blackmail is pretty sophisticated. She was only fifteen.”

Emmy looked like she wanted to laugh. “I caught Tommy sneaking one of Penley’s cigarettes when I was eight and blackmailed him into buying me candy for the next four years.”

Virgil held up his hands in surrender.

“Okay.” Jude went to the whiteboard. She recited the salient details as she wrote. “Cheyenne scheduled a meeting with the Bad Guy on the backroads at six thirty. She was supposed to exchange the Nokia with the miniSD for money. Then she was going to meet Madison at the park at eight o’clock. Madison was anxious because she knew about the plan. This implies she knew that it wasn’t entirely safe.”

Emmy picked up the narrative, “Cheyenne had sixteen grand in her closet. She was saving up money so that she and Madison could leave town. She was selling blow jobs. Selling drugs. Taybee’s daughter, Kaitlynn, heard Cheyenne talking to Madison about an older man she was seeing. Cheyenne joked that she wished the guy’s penis was as big as his wallet. If the contents of the video were damaging enough, I doubt we’re talking a thousand bucks. She must’ve demanded a hell of a lot more. Enough for them to finally leave town.”

Jude felt part of the puzzle finally clicking together. “That could explain the two and a half hours that elapsed between the two abductions. Cheyenne was clever. She might have been hedging her bets. Let’s say she took the Nokia to give to the Bad Guy, but not the miniSD card. The Bad Guy would have been furious. We know from the autopsy report that he beat the hell out of Cheyenne before she died.”

Emmy said, “She held out for two and a half hours before she told the Bad Guy how to find Madison.”

They all went silent as the details of what had really happened that night started to sink in.

Emmy cleared her throat. “The girls were fucking with him. They thought that they were the ones in control, that they were pulling the strings, but the Bad Guy always had the power.”

“Keep going,” Jude told her.

“He found out that Cheyenne’s first burner was confiscated at school. She assured him that she’d reset the device before she’d handed it in to Celia. He wanted the SIM card so that it couldn’t be traced back to him. Madison cut it up, but she didn’t give it to him. She left it in her locker instead of throwing it away or giving it to the Bad Guy.”

“Because?” Jude asked.

“Because she was being an asshole or trying to tease him or because she was a stupid kid who didn’t understand how dangerous the game was.” Emmy’s shrug belied her words. “It’s the same reason Cheyenne never picked up her confiscated phone, even though she was allowed to. She just got another burner. Meanwhile, the Bad Guy knew how high the stakes were. He could get caught. His life would be over, his freedom gone. The girls were only thinking about the things they could gain. They never considered what the Bad Guy had to lose.”

Jude felt another puzzle piece snap into place. “There’s another component at work here. Pedophiles seek out children because they’re easier to manipulate. They can’t handle grown women. Cheyenne and Madison’s killer would’ve been enraged that they were trying to take away his power. The girls didn’t understand that the game could turn deadly.”

Emmy scattered half a dozen crime scene photographs onto the table. Jude recognized the backroad by the white fence that delineated Taybee’s farmland.

“Cheyenne’s first crime scene,” Emmy began. “According to the GBI’s analysis, the Bad Guy chased Cheyenne down this portion of the backroads in his car. They found bike tire tracks where she was weaving back and forth, trying to shake him. He wasn’t going fast, but he tapped the rear wheel of her bike hard enough to bend the rim and break the spokes. Cheyenne lost control of the handlebars and landed in the ditch, here. You can see there was quite a bit of blood.”

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