“Okay. Let me think about it. We’ll figure out what to do. I’ll call you back soon.”
Lindsey didn’t call back. She biked over to Jill’s house and text messaged her friend to meet her in the backyard and bring the flash drive. Jill snuck downstairs without her father noticing and met Lindsey outside.
“Why do you want this?” Jill had asked.
“I just need to check it out for myself,” Lindsey had said. “I’ll give it back to you tomorrow. And don’t worry. I won’t do anything stupid.”
“Text me after you look at them,” Jill said.
“I will.”
Lindsey never did text Jill. She rode home and looked at those pictures. Jill had tried to call her every ten minutes since, it seemed. Sent a bunch of texts, too. But Lindsey couldn’t talk to her friend until after she did what had to be done.
Tanner gave Mitchell the pictures that she’d sent to him. That was all Lindsey could think about. Did Tanner do this to other girls? He’d certainly had enough girlfriends. Maybe he’d done it to some, if not all. But Jill had said there were lots of girls and lots of pictures.
Lindsey didn’t care about the other girls. There was only one possible route her pictures could have traveled to get to Mitchell Boyd’s computer.
Tanner Farnsworth.
Lindsey didn’t even know she had a temper until Tanner Farnsworth answered her call. She didn’t cry once during their twenty-minute conversation. Her voice never lacked confidence. She liked standing up for herself. Powerful when enraged. Combative when wronged. Perhaps one day she’d be a lawyer, as her father often predicted.
“You tell Mitchell Boyd that the only life that’s going to be ruined is his! You tell him to leave Jill alone!” she shouted into the phone.
“Lindsey, you sound hysterical,” Tanner said.
“I swear, I’m so done with people picking on me. I don’t care if you plaster my picture on every Web site in the world. Go ahead! But I’m bringing you down with me. Do you hear me, Tanner? I have the images. Jill copied them, and I have them.”
That outburst met only silence.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tanner said.
“Oh, that’s bullshit, and you know it. You can do better than that, Tanner,” Lindsey said.
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll call that FBI lady and get her to arrest you.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Tanner protested. “You’re acting all hysterical, and I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lin. I never sent your pictures to anybody. I swear.”
“Then figure out how Mitchell Boyd got my pictures, because if you don’t come back with something that makes sense, you know where this goes from here.” Lindsey hung up without giving Tanner a chance to respond. For months she had been studying for the SAT; the word virile came to mind when she reflected on how surprisingly strong she’d sounded. Jill didn’t have to worry about Mitchell Boyd’s threats anymore, she assured herself. Tanner would make certain of that.
Lindsey texted Jill that everything was cool, and Jill quickly replied with an all-cap THANK YOU. They agreed to talk in the morning.
Lindsey knew Jill had understood “cool” to mean that she wouldn’t say or do anything about Mitchell Boyd. She felt bad for being deceitful, but hadn’t Jill been through enough?
Tanner called Lindsey a few hours later.
“I know what happened,” he said. “Mitchell took the pictures off my phone without my knowing. Can we meet?”
“Why?”
“Because I love you and I want to fix things between us.”
Lindsey closed her eyes tight and tried to wish away what he’d just said, but couldn’t. I love you.
“Okay. Where?”
“The park by your house. Two hours. You’ve got to bring the pictures. I’ll bring my laptop. I’ll show you how Mitchell was able to steal them.”
“Mom, I’m going out,” Lindsey said on her way out the door, knowing her mother was passed out on the sofa. Her mother’s drunken snores completed Lindsey’s private joke.
Lindsey continued to swing. She checked the time on her cell phone. Tanner was late. Maybe he’d bailed. She wasn’t about to call, begging him to come. Forget that. She thought about Mitchell Boyd getting off to pictures of her and Jill, and it churned her stomach.
Whatever Tanner’s explanation was would have to wait. She wasn’t going to stick around to hear it. She felt angry at herself for even agreeing to meet him.
“I love you,” she said aloud, mocking the words’ now apparent stupidity.
Lindsey was about to leave when she heard rustling in the bushes behind her. Her heart leapt into her throat. She remembered a path to the park through the woods, which Tanner must have taken.
She looked toward the road and didn’t see any headlights. Tanner must have parked on the dead-end street and used the back path to get to her. Maybe he was trying to sneak up and scare her. He’s too stupid to even do that right, she thought.
She leapt off the swing and spun around in the direction of the noise.
“Very funny, Tanner. Don’t be a jerk.”
The bushes concealing the path parted, but nobody emerged from the dark.
“Tanner, don’t be an ass,” Lindsey said. “I know it’s just you trying to scare me. It’s not going to work.”
Lindsey took a tentative step onto the path. She didn’t cry out when someone stepped out from the bushes and onto the path. She’d been expecting it. A tingle of panic ran through her when she realized it wasn’t Tanner standing in front of her. Her panic quickly escalated as the shadowy figure lunged at her, and grew into terror when she felt hands wrap around her neck.
She didn’t know she was going to die. Not then, anyway. That came soon enough, when she realized that despite the humid night, her attacker wore leather gloves. He felt around her legs and pulled the flash drive from the front pocket of her jeans. She felt his hands squeeze tighter around her neck.
Lindsey closed her eyes. She wanted this to be a nightmare. She wanted to wake up. At that moment, what she wanted most of all was her mother.
Chapter 59
Tom struggled through his headache and bum knee to finish his morning workout, which consisted of 150 push-ups, 500 sit-ups, a six-mile run, followed by thirty minutes of strength and flexibility exercises. He showered and made breakfast. He set the table for two. He covered Jill’s plate with another plate so that the food beneath could remain hot. He also wanted Jill to be surprised when she saw what he had prepared. He poured two glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice and decorated each with a drink umbrella.
Long past the hour he predicted Jill would rise, his daughter ambled into the kitchen. She moved about sleepily. She was dressed and ready for school, with her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She carried a blue nylon backpack, which was slung across one shoulder. Earbuds were planted in both ears, and without concentrating Tom could hear the drone of whatever music blasted from her iPod.
She marched by the kitchen table, unaware that the table was set for breakfast, and headed straight to the refrigerator, where she extracted a yogurt container from the recently replenished supplies. She grabbed a spoon from the nearby drawer, peeled back the yogurt top, and began to eat.
It was only then that she looked up and saw Tom standing before the mountain of dirty dishes that overflowed the kitchen sink. She popped out her earbuds, muted the iPod, and smiled at her father.
“Mornin’, Dad,” she said.
“Morning,” Tom replied. He tilted his head in the direction of the kitchen table, encouraging Jill to look.
“Oh, Dad,” Jill said once she saw the spread. “What are you doing?”