With Malice (28 page)

This was a million miles away from what I'd thought she might say. I'd left my crutches by the bed, so I hopped double time to her bedside. “Who is it?” I knew Evan had said that any troll wasn't relevant to the investigation, but he might be wrong. I felt a rush of adrenaline. It was as if I could see a sliver of future opening up. Somehow, knowing who the troll was would put more of the puzzle together. I didn't know how I was so sure—but I could feel it.

“I'm not sure you'll want to know,” Anna said.

She was so serious. It must be someone I knew. “I want to know,” I insisted.

“The thing is, people do things for all sorts of messed-up reasons, and once you know something, you can't unknow it,” she said.

“Tell me.”

“Maybe we should both talk about it with Dr. Weeks tomorrow. You know, in case you need to process it with someone.” Her hands twisted. “Except I'm not sure if we should tell her everything.”

I stared at her.
Process it?
When had she started with the psychobabble bullshit? If she hadn't wanted to tell me, then she shouldn't have brought it up. Anna had her hands in fists in her lap. She was really stressed.

Fuck. It was my dad. That's what she doesn't want to tell me.

I blinked fast to keep from crying. Why else would she be that worried about telling me? I realized I was holding my breath and forced myself to inhale deeply. I think I'd known on some level that it was possible. My dad had always thought my blog was stupid. He never said it directly, but he was clear that he thought everything I posted on there was naïve and that I didn't really understand how the world worked. I snapped my attention back.

“—think if you've waited this long—” Anna was saying.

“I want to know,” I said, cutting her off. “I have a right to know. I'm not going to freak out.”

Anna sighed. “Okay, but sit down.”

I dropped onto the edge of her bed and nodded for her to continue. I practiced the serious, nonhysterical, accepting face I would make when she told me.

“My friend Tomas is the one who checked into it. He sometimes sets up fake free Wi-Fi sites, like in coffee shops, because he can skim people's passwords and stuff.” Anna looked at me. “He's not stealing from just anybody, just people who look like they've got a bit to spare.”

I rolled my eyes. “I'm sure he's a regular Robin Hood. Spit it out already.”

“I'm telling you this so you understand he's a tech genius. He didn't make a mistake—he knew what he was doing. And the other reason I'm sharing is because Tomas was real clear he doesn't want to be messed up in this at all. If anyone asks, he's going to deny he had anything to do with getting you this information.”

“No one else is going to care who it is,” I said.

“It was Simone,” Anna said.

All the air evaporated from my lungs, making a giant crater in the center of my chest.

“That's impossible.”

Anna passed me a sheet of notebook paper. “Tomas figured that the troll set up a dummy account so they could post under that name—VoxDude. Most people figure that's enough to keep them anonymous, but if they post from the same computer as their regular account, the IP address is the same.”

I stared down at the paper. It had a bunch of numbers on it. It might as well have been in Greek.

“The reason Tomas wanted access to your email accounts and other commenters was to see if there were any matches. And there was one.” Anna's finger tapped the paper. “That's the IP address of Simone's email and the comments she left on the blog under her own name.” She tapped farther down the page. “And that's the IP address of your troll.”

“They're the same,” I said, stating the obvious. Anna nodded. I stood up quickly.

I hobbled as fast as I could into the bathroom and puked. It felt like my stomach was tearing free from my body, flesh ripping. I stood panting over the bowl, half expecting to see my guts floating on top of the water. When I was sure nothing else was going to come up, I spat, trying to clear the sour bile out of my mouth.

Anna was in her chair at the door. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I said simply. I spat again. My leg was throbbing. I'd put too much weight on the walking cast. I flushed the toilet and stumbled over to the sink. I swished water around in my mouth and leaned down, stuffing my head under the tap.

“Do you want me to get one of the nurses?”

“I'll be okay. Just give me a second.”

Anna rolled back out, leaving me alone. I stared at myself in the mirror. I'd discussed the troll for hours with Simone. She'd slept over countless times, and we'd lain in the dark and talked about it.

“But why? This trolling happened almost a year ago. Simone and I were getting along fine then. Nico and the trip weren't even on the radar yet.”

Anna snorted, broadcasting her view that clearly we hadn't been getting along fine. She'd seen the troll comments.

Is it hard being as stupid as you? Why didn't evolution take you out?

With all your money couldn't your daddy buy you any common sense?

Feminist is just another word for ugly bitch who can't get a guy.

Why do you have to have your huge nose in everything?

I'd always known Simone didn't see the point of the blog, but I hadn't realized that she thought it was stupid. That
I
was stupid.

Simone had been the one thing I had been certain I could count on, and now I wasn't sure she'd even liked me.

I hopped back into the bedroom. I didn't want to take a shower anymore. The idea of it exhausted me. Blinking seemed like too much work. I dragged myself into bed and pulled the covers over my head, curling into a fetal ball.

“Do you want to talk?” Anna asked softly.

“No.”

Outside our room I could hear people bustling about. They'd been showing a movie in the common area, and it must have broken up. People were milling around in the halls, repeating jokes from the movie. Laughing.

“She might have had a lot of reasons for doing it, you know,” Anna said.

I kept the blanket over my face. “You mean other than that she hated me.”

“Maybe she was jealous. Or maybe she wanted to feel like you needed her, so she created a crisis.”

“Sure.” My voice came out flat.

“I'm not going to tell anyone,” Anna said softly.

I stared up at the ceiling and realized the importance of her words. This was a motive. I might not kill Simone over a guy, but over finding out that she would do something like this . . .

“This would have given me a reason to have done it,” I said.

Anna reached over and yanked the blankets away from my face. “Look at me.” I rolled over so we were eye to eye. “I don't know if you did it, but I'd get it if you did.”

My heart was racing. It felt as if it was going to burst out of my chest and onto the floor. I started shaking.

“Listen, all I'm saying is that finding out your best friend lied to you? Said those shitty things? That would make anyone snap. There'd be some who would say she had it coming.”

“The cops won't say that. They'll send me to jail.” The idea of spending years, decades, in a tiny cell, thousands of miles from home, reared up in front of me, blocking out all other thoughts. My shaking increased.

“You can't tell them about this.” Anna's voice was stern, like a parent chastising a small child. “Do you get that? You can't tell a soul. Not even Dr. Weeks. I want to trust her, but the fewer people who know, the better.”

I propped myself up on my elbow. “You can't be serious—I can't keep something like this to myself.”

“Yes, you can, and you better. There are only three people who know this—you, me, and Tomas. Tomas isn't going to say anything. He's got his own shit on the line. He isn't going to risk his own ass. He won't tell. And I won't either.”

“But the police could find out on their own. If Tomas can figure out this IP address thingy”—I waved my hand, the explanation she'd given having already disappeared from my mind—“then surely a bunch of trained cops can do it. I should tell my lawyer at least so he can decide what's the best thing to do.”

“The cops aren't looking into it. You shut that blog down at the beginning of the year. No one has connected the blog and what happened in Italy. And for all you know, it's not connected. There's no way to know for sure if Simone confessed this to you on the trip or if you found out some other way. It might mean nothing. Keep your mouth shut, and no one will know.”

I put my weight on my bad leg, using the pain to ground to me. I felt like if I let go of the covers, I would float away. “I don't know if I can do that.”

Anna swung her body out of bed and into her chair. She rolled over so she was inches from my face. “Listen to me. You need to do this. You need to toughen up right fucking now.”

I started to cry harder. I covered my eyes. Anna yanked my hands away, holding them down.

“You don't have the luxury of falling apart. Shit is turning around for you. You tell people about Simone being your troll, and it won't matter if you did it or not. People will assume you did. You have no idea what jail is like. However bad you think it is, it's a thousand times worse. And it will go on forever, not just while you're locked up. You'll have kissed your fancy college education goodbye. Even once you get out, try getting a job with a felony murder conviction. And you want to get married? What kind of person wants to marry someone who did time? Besides, you'll be too old by the time you get out to have kids. We're not talking about doing a stint in jail—we're talking about the entire rest of your life.”

“But what about Simone's life?”

“She's dead. Nothing you do now is going to bring her back.”

“I don't know,” I hedged.

“Then listen to me. I do know. You forget we ever had this conversation. You forget it ever happened at all.”

I searched her face. “Do you promise you won't tell?”

She met my gaze and didn't look away. “I promise.”

If Anna told the media about this, they'd pay her. I didn't know how much, but I was willing to bet it would be a lot for that kind of exclusive. The police might even pay her; there could be a reward for proof I was involved in the crime.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I'm your friend.” She gestured around the room. “Because we had this together.”

It was a kitchen. Simone and I were making sandwiches. Side by side. Partners in culinary crime. I was slicing tomatoes. The knife piercing the flesh, sliding through effortlessly, a smear of juice and clots of seeds left behind on the counter.

We were talking about prom. We were going to go with a group of friends, no guys. Girls gone wild.

“We should think about getting dresses here. I feel sorry for every other girl at the dance, because we're going to look amazing,” Simone said.

“It doesn't have to be a competition,” I said. “Women should support one another, not tear one another down.”

“Spare me the feminist lecture,” Simone said. “The only women who avoid competition with other women are the ones who know they'll lose. And that's not us—we're going to look great.” She pulled some bottles of water out of the tiny fridge and added them to the cooler. “Do you think we'll have enough if we bring one bottle a person, or should we bring a few extras?”

Her words bounced around in my head. That was the last comment my troll ever left on my blog.
The only women who avoid competition with other women are the ones who know they'll lose.
I'd read it and been so frustrated. The troll never stopped, and I hadn't been strong enough to keep fighting. I gave in. I deleted my blog. Just like that. The realization it was Simone fell into place with almost an audible click in my head.

“You left that message,” I said, putting together the facts. The truth of the statement seemed obvious now that I'd said it aloud. I felt almost lightheaded, my nerves prickling up and down my spine. Simone knew me better than anyone. Each barbed comment had hit home because Simone knew where to strike. Why is it they say that you always hurt the ones you love? Because you know exactly how to do it.

Simone opened her mouth to argue, but she couldn't. She seemed to shrink as if her bones were deflating. Her eyes darted around the small kitchen—she wanted to escape, but I blocked the door.

“Why?” I croaked.

She stuck out her chin, defiant. “I didn't leave the first couple of comments,” Simone said. “That was someone else. But they said what I was thinking, so then I started and I just kept doing it.”

“You couldn't tell me to my face?” I asked her, my voice rising. “If you thought what I said was that stupid, then you should have said something. You didn't have to hide behind a fake name.”

“I tried to tell you what I thought,” Simone said.

I shook my head. “No, you didn't. Not really. Sure, you said a few times that you didn't get why I liked it, that you found blogs boring, but you wrote those things to hurt me.”

“You had no business writing about all that stuff,” Simone said.

“Excuse me?”

Who the hell did she think she was? Maybe she would have been okay if I'd asked her permission before I hit Publish. She thought everything I did had to have her personal seal of approval.

“What the hell do you know about hardship?” Simone fired back. “Armed with your daddy's credit card in your nice house and your plans to go off to Yale. People like you love to take up this cause or that cause.” Simone chucked an apple into the cooler. “It's all such bullshit. A way to feel like you're doing something without having to make any real effort. I made those comments to knock you down a peg. You only act like you care because it lets you feel like you're a good person.”