Find Me (12 page)

I have all the stuff anyone could want.
I look normal. I look happy. Makes me wonder
how many other girls are faking.

—Page 51 of Tessa Waye’s diary

Thirty minutes later, I’m in.

Usually this elicits a happy dance. I learned the Dirty Bird from watching football with Joe. I learned the Funky Chicken from Lauren. But this time?

This time I don’t feel anything like dancing. This time I just feel sad.

And super paranoid.

I can’t afford to make mistakes in here. It’s not just about the police aspect. I’m pretty sure I can duck them even if they are checking all the accounts. It’s about Tessa’s family. Lauren’s not the only one who’s had too much therapy. I know what I’m playing with here, can probably spell it out in Norcut-speak.

It’s been four years since my mom committed suicide, but I can still feel all those moments and hours and days afterward. When I thought I was getting over it and I wasn’t. When I realized I should’ve known and stopped it.

Except, as Norcut always reminds me, you can’t stop it.

Wish I could believe her.

But no matter how many times people say they understand . . . they don’t. No one gets what it’s like to waver between what you had and what you have now. Your new reality perches on top of your old life, but you cannot, cannot, cannot get your head around the fact that you no longer have a mom . . . or a daughter.

And how are you supposed to live without them anyway?

If Tessa’s parents knew someone logged on to her account, they’d immediately think maybe, somehow their daughter was alive and had checked her email. Irrational, yes, but that’s what I would’ve thought—what I would’ve
hoped—
until reason squished it flat.

Then they’d wonder what kind of disgusting person would do that, maybe the press or some hateful classmate. They would worry, period. I want to spare them that.

So I’m extra careful, but I go through everything. All of Tessa’s deleted emails, all of her sent emails, everything she saved, and there’s nothing—absolutely
nothing
useful. How is that possible?

She had to have contact with this guy. I just have to find how they did it. Cell phone records are usually a great starting point, and once I have access to the target’s email account, they’re pretty easy to get into. It’s all just clicking the carrier’s “Forgot Password” link, sending the new temporary password to the hacked email address, and wham, bam, thank you ma’am, I’m in.

But in this case, it won’t work. Tessa would’ve been on her family’s plan, and I’d waste too much time tracking down the email address associated with her carrier.

I rub the skin between my eyes, feeling the beginnings of another headache, probably from caffeine withdrawal. I’m at least two cups of coffee low, and it’s making me feel fuzzy and dull.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been staring at my computer, but Lily’s been asleep in my bed for hours. A while ago, I heard Bren and Todd put in a movie, but even that’s gone quiet now.

I crack my knuckles and decide to switch things up. If the email is a dead end, I’ll try something else. Opening a new window, I log into Tessa’s Facebook account—easy enough, since it’s the same password as her email—and I read through all the comments posted to her wall. Too many go on and on about how she shouldn’t have given up and how much her friends miss her. I shouldn’t read any further, but I can’t seem to stop myself.

Poor Tessa. Is this how they remember you? Matthew Bradford posted he was “sorry she couldn’t take it.” Jenna’s remembering her as a girl who was “afraid.” It makes me stiffen. There was more courage in Tessa’s leap than they will ever realize.

I click on the Friends link and scroll down through the list of names, recognizing almost everyone from our school.

Football player . . . football player . . . Griff. I wonder if Tessa asked him to be her Friend on Facebook or if he asked her.

That really shouldn’t matter to me, but it does.

I keep scrolling. Cheerleader . . . oh wow, Layla Howard. With practically no social skills and even less fashion sense, poor Layla makes me look normal. I like that Tessa was friends with her, even if it was just on Facebook. I bet that made Layla’s day.

Then I spot the name under Layla. Michael Starling. That’s not familiar. I click on the name, and it takes me to an almost empty profile page. There’s some information near the top—birthdate and stuff—but no wall postings . . . and no other friends besides Tessa, even though he says he attends our high school.

Interesting. I click on the only picture at the top. It enlarges to show a good-looking blond-haired guy, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. I still don’t recognize the name, but the guy looks oddly familiar . . . and not quite right.

He looks staged . . . and that’s when it hits me. I don’t know the guy. I know the
picture
—specifically the shirt from the picture. Lauren showed it to me when she was ordering a birthday present for her brother and wanted my opinion. I open Google Images and search for Ralph Lauren polo shirts . . . there it is. Third from the bottom. Michael Starling is using a Ralph Lauren model as his profile picture.

That’s weird. All of Tessa’s other Facebook friends seem to be from school. Unless Michael is some friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend exception, she would have known it was a fake picture. So is it fake because Michael’s a three-hundred-pound shut-in hiding behind a generic-looking model, or is it fake because he was trying to blend in with her other friends?

Some parents check their kids’ Facebook accounts, and it’s not much of a stretch to think Tessa’s would do the same. By putting up some cursory information and how he’s “attending” our high school, Michael looks legit. Tessa’s dad or mom probably would have glossed right over him. Could this be the unnamed “he”?

Could be . . . but it’s not enough. I click on Tessa’s wall again and scroll farther down, looking for past postings. There isn’t a lot. Considering Tessa’s popularity, that seems strange. Did she find Facebook stupid? Or was it something else? She was selective about what she wrote in her diary. Maybe this is the same kind of thing.

I keep scrolling down, clicking the Older Posts link until I’m looking at entries from almost a year ago. Interestingly, this far back, Tessa’s online activity was more frequent. There are the usual shout-outs to friends and comments about weekend plans, but there’s also a link to a newspaper article on National Night Out, and Tessa labeled it as “Another Weekend with the ’Rents.” The article itself is pretty fluffy—lots of talk about community involvement, which is not a lot of help to me.

But then I see the picture near the end. The caption labels it as “Local Community Leaders Fight Crime,” and it’s your standard group shot with everyone lined up and grinning. I’m a little surprised to see Todd and Bren at the far right, all happy and smiley and at ease with each other, but this is the kind of community stuff Todd loves, so I guess it makes sense they would be there. Farther to the left is some guy I don’t recognize, but on the other side of him is Jim Waye.

He’s in the dead center of the picture, with a game-show-host smile and one arm wrapped tightly around Tessa, who looks stiff and uneasy, her eyes slanting sideways like she’s looking for someone.

I double-click the picture to enlarge it. Tessa’s looking at Carson. The detective—hands stuffed deep in his pockets and scowling—is standing on the far left. He seems oblivious to the photographer and is looking in Tessa’s direction as well. Coincidence?

Maybe, until you think about how Tally said Carson kept coming by their house. I push closer to my computer and try to evaluate the detective’s expression.

He looks pissed. Why? Maybe he doesn’t like Jim’s attention whoring, or maybe he’s just tired, or maybe he’s jealous someone else is touching Tessa.

It’s this last thought that sticks.

But just like Michael Starling, it’s not a good lead. I need something more. I close the picture and hit the back button until I’m on Tessa’s Facebook page again. There are no new posts to her wall, and for a long moment, I just read Jenna’s comment again and again.

Maybe that’s why I open up the diary again—because there are no more options and I’m stuck. I push through, telling myself this is just another job—even though every word makes me wonder if this was the way my mom felt or, even worse, how Lily will react if he gets close to her.

It takes me just under an hour to finish, and when I get to the end, I’m back to where I started. There’s nothing helpful. I think the guy is older. She wrote he was “worried about what he’ll lose” if anyone discovered them—that doesn’t sound like a guy from school. Then again, they started as friends and then it became more . . . and that makes him sound like a classmate.

Tessa wanted him, but after they slept together, she slowly, very slowly, became afraid of him. She tried to end it, and
that’s
when the abuse turned violent. If he was older, that means it was rape. Even if they were the same age, it would still be abuse. Once she told him no, he began to hit her where no one would see the bruises.

I lean back in my computer chair, stretching until my spine pops. I don’t really know what to do. I have no definite leads. I don’t know anything except that I’m dealing with a very specific kind of monster, one who hides his victims in plain sight.

I need more information, but he’s so hidden how will I get it? How do I drive him out of the shadows?

With bait.

I pull closer to my computer, wiggling my mouse until the computer emerges from sleep mode. I’ve never hacked without a plan, and what I’m about to type is no plan. It’s not even a good idea. What I’m about to type is a bullet shot into the dark to see if someone else will shoot back.

In other words, it’s a Hail Mary shot, and I hate those.

I click on the Facebook comment box at the top of Tessa’s wall—say a quick apology to Mrs. Waye—and press my feet into the floorboards, because part of me is kind of scared I’m about to float away as I type:

I know who killed me.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

After we did it, I ran.
I ran and I ran and I ran. Must have put two miles in between us, but it didn’t
matter. All that space and I still sobbed under a sky
the same color as his eyes.

—Page 33 of Tessa Waye’s diary

Joe lives in the west end of Peachtree City in a subdivision called Wynnmeade, and until that dawn raid when the cops came for my dad and found Lily and me instead, we lived there too. It’s a funny place. Drive five minutes farther into the city and you’ll find multimillion-dollar homes. Here you can find Hispanic families living nine and ten to a house. You can buy meth from one of my dad’s dealers. While other kids went to camp, I learned to code. While other dads taught their daughters to play soccer, mine taught me to scam. I think the newspaper once called the neighborhood a “blight,” but Lily and I always thought of it as home.

I’m almost at the front porch when the door opens. Joe Thompson, my dad’s best friend and my “mentor,” ambles onto the warped deck. The wooden planks creak under his feet. Big to begin with, Joe must have put on another fifty pounds since I last saw him. It’s like looking at a Baby Shamu crammed into human clothes.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Wicket Tate herself.”

“Drop the act, Joe.” I stand at the bottom of the stairs and glare up at him, all attitude, even though I’m pretty sure I look like I was dragged through a bush. A five-mile hike down the bike paths in ninety-degree weather doesn’t do much for your appearance, but it beats the hell out of having to explain why you need your foster dad to give you a lift. “What do you want?”

“To see if you would come when you’re called.”

I don’t say anything, mostly because there isn’t anything to say. I hate the idea that he can yank me around like this, and he knows it.

Joe rubs one hand over his mouth, but it does nothing to hide his grin. There’s something dark and satisfied sitting behind his eyes. He looks like he’s been fed with secrets. “I mean, you’re living in that big house, wearing all those fancy clothes. I just thought you might get the idea you’re too good for your own family.”

Family. Great. If that doesn’t make me want to scrub myself with bleach, nothing will.

“You been watching me, Joe?” I don’t know what disturbs me more—that he’s been spying on me or that I’ve been too distracted by Carson to notice.

“Yeah, I have.” Joe’s daring me to smart off. I look at his catcher-mitt-sized hands, however, and decide to decline. The last time he smacked me, my ear hurt for a week.

Joe looks me up and down again. You can see his thoughts ticker-tape through his eyes: different clothes, same girl. He thinks I’m a coward, and he’s probably right.

“Come on in.” Joe palms the screen door wide and motions for me to pass beneath his arm. This is the part where I should march right on in like a good little hacker, but I don’t move. Not sure I can, actually. If I step across that threshold, I’ll step into my old life.