Page 122 of The Change
“I am,” she said. “Poor Josh. His ghost was here this morning. He came to warn me. I don’t know what would have happened to me if he hadn’t.”
“I couldn’t see any evidence that someone broke into the house, but I need you to have a look for yourself. You ready now or do you need a few minutes?”
“Let’s do it now,” Nessa said.
She toured her own house, carefully noting the position of every object and examining every scuff and mark. Nothing seemed out of place until she reached the living room. There, sitting on the coffee table, was her grandmother’s scrapbook, filled not with family memories but of newspaper clippings and sketches of all the women she’d found. The message was clear. Whoever had been in her house knew about her gift.
Jo had spent all afternoon searching through boxes in the gym’s basement storeroom, looking for the microcassette player she’d purchased back in the nineties when such devices were cutting-edge tech. She found it in a box, along with a collection of tiny tapes that she’d used to practice her responses to job interview questions.
Nessa, Franklin, Harriett, and Jo gathered around Nessa’s dining-room table with the cassette player in the center. Then Jo leaned forward and pressed the play button.
“Okay, we’re recording.” It was Josh Gibbon’s voice.
“What is that thing?” asked a female voice. She sounded young and nervous.
“This? It’s a microcassette recorder,” Josh said.
“Like from the Middle Ages?”
“Like from the days before people could hack into your phone. So let’s get started. I’m standing in a broom closet at Brooklyn Flea with a young woman and her mother who just came up and introduced themselves to me. Would you mind repeating everything you just told me, starting from the top?”
“All right. Umm. My name is—”
“Okay, stop,” Josh said. “Don’t use your real name. Who’s your favorite celebrity?”
“Beyoncé?”
“Great. We’ll call you Beyoncé.”
“All right,” the girl said, as though she suspected he might be insane. “My name is Beyoncé. I’m fourteen years old, and I live here in Brooklyn.”
“I just want to cut in for a moment to say that Beyoncé’s mother is here with us. Right, Mom?”
“Yes, that’s right,” said an older woman.
“Okay, Beyoncé. One more time.”
“Yeah, so I’m a big fan of your podcast. I listen toThey Walk Among Usevery week, and my mom and me went to see you live at the Bell House last year. Like I told you, I’m fascinated by serial killers, and something happened to me that I thought you’d want to hear about.”
“Tell me your story.”
“Yeah, so I was out on the island at the beginning of July visiting my friend—” She paused. “...Kim Kardashian.”
“Good job,” Josh praised her. “No real names.”
“So Kim and I stayed late at the beach talking to some kids. Before we went home, she stopped to pee in the public restroom, and I waited outside in the parking lot. It was just getting dark when this man pulled up beside me.”
“What kind of car was he driving?”
“I dunno much about cars,” the girl said. “But it was black and nice. Anyways, he gets out and tells me he’s a police officer. He said someone had reported me for keying one of the cars in the lot. He told me I had to come with him to the station so the witness could ID me.”
“What did you say?”
“I figured he was full of it, so I said I wanted to see his ID. Mom told me that when a cop’s out of uniform, they have to show you their ID. But the guy wouldn’t do it. So I told him to go to hell.”
“And what did he do when you said that?”
“He grabbed my arm and tried to drag me to his car.”
