Either she or somebody in the comments have used the word “suicide,” which the algorithm spotted.
Tammy’s at her desk. Behind her is an unmade bed. Pictures of some tropical locations are on the wall. A ragged stuffed dog sits on the floor. Weeping, she says, “My mother’s out with her boyfriend all the time, like she doesn’t give a shit about me. And he tries to hug me all the time... And at school, the kids’re so mean... I’m shy. I can’t help it. It’s too fucking much! Nobody cares. I mean, nobody! I think I should just do it. I don’t know...”
The comments are rolling in.
OMG, get help now!
Do it live!
Does your mom’s boyfriend fuck you? Post pix.
Call the police!
Take ur top off.
In the chans — the underground message boards, where you can find just about everything — there are a number of lengthy forums devoted to suicide; they don’t exist to get people help. They’re how-to guides. Hundreds of thousands of pro-self-harm fans. The chans are text and still photos, a few GIFs, so they tend not to end up on ViewNow, but occasionally there’s a video post that makes its way here.
In the comments I see someone has courteously sent Tammy a hyperlink to one of the forums.
She continues, “There’s no point to anything. My boyfriend said he hates me. He called me fat.”
Tammybird begins to sob.
IM me we’ll talk, get you help!!!!
Your beautiful, you dont want to die!!
UR hot! 
You have pills?
Pills r so fucking lame. Hanging. Its the only way. IM me I’ll walk you thru it.
At ViewNow we can access the IP address of everyone who posts. I can send Tammybird’s to the cops and they can get a warrant so that the poster’s internet providers will hand over her physical address — as long as she’s not using a proxy, which she isn’t. A welfare check ensues. This can happen fast, especially in a case of looming suicide. The authorities could be at her door within the hour.
But now I have a dilemma. If I push the button to save her, my name appears on the reports the police will read. And I absolutely don’t want this to happen.
On the other hand, if Tammy takes the advice of some of the helpful commentators and does the deed and it’s discovered that I reviewed the post, questions will arise as to why I didn’t get her help.
The police again.
So?
Out of self-interest, I decide I’ll send it to our law-enforcement liaison department.
But I’m in no hurry. I tap the keys to unearth her ISP slowly, thinking, if I’m lucky they won’t get to her in time.
And, if I’m particularly lucky, she might even kill herself on the livestream.
66
The tactical team approached the door.
Quiet. Utterly quiet.
Sachs, in the lead, knew they were pros. Any metal that could clink had been wrapped in strips of cloth or electrical tape. All phones and radios were on mute.
The entire six-person team, four men, two women, plus Sachs, were even breathing silently. That’s easy — even if it appears comical — you just open your mouth wide.
The op had all come together quickly.
“Rhyme, I’ve got the results of that carpet sample in Kitt’s apartment. You’re going to want to see this.”
He’d looked over her discovery and he, Sachs and Spencer began discussing the totality of the evidence from the scenes.
Rhyme had said, “That’s our answer. Call Lon and get an ESU tac team together. Hurry. We’re out of time.”
And now here they were.
They paused and listened at the door. She nodded to an S&S officer, Search and Surveillance. The man tried to find a gap between the door and the threshold, but there wasn’t enough space through which to fish a fiber optic camera stalk. He shook his head.
Nodding, Sachs stepped close and examined the door. She thought of the subtle touch of the Locksmith. The fine tools, the delicate manipulation of the intricate mechanism inside. Sachs put an electronic stethoscope against the door and listened.
Good enough for her.
She stepped back and whispered, “Breaching team. Ready?”
You never shoot the lock out of a door, as actors do on TV and in the movies.
Amelia Sachs knew that doing so was useless at best, disastrous at worst, given that bullets ricochet or fragment on deadbolts and lock surfaces, which are, after all, made to withstand the impact of blows, including gunshots. That shrapnel will put your eye clean out.
But hinges... that’s another matter. When taking out a door, a breaching team will use special rounds, usually fired from a twelve-gauge shotgun. The slugs are made from sintered material — metal powder suspended in wax. This will blow the hinges out, tout de suite. No one has a better sense of humor than cops and within the New York City Emergency Service Unit, they were known as “Avon’s Calling” rounds, a reference to a door-to-door makeup sales business that Sachs had heard about from her mother.
She whispered to the lead breacher, “Go.”
He placed the muzzle against the bottom hinge and pulled the trigger. Sachs had turned away but felt the muzzle blast on the parts of her back that were above and below the bulletproof plate she wore. The sound was astonishingly loud in the closed area of the hallway. A second shot on the top hinge and then the coup de grace was the battering ram in the middle. The door collapsed inward and landed with what was probably a loud crash — who could tell after the stunning report of the scattergun?
Sachs, in the lead, and the other ESU officers streamed inside, dispersing to avoid the bottleneck of the door, known as the “death funnel.” They cried, “Police on a warrant! Police! Show yourself!”
There was no one in the massive open living area of Averell Whittaker’s lofty apartment, other than the body of the security guard, Alicia Roberts, whose death was not unanticipated, since she hadn’t picked up the calls from her boss, Lyle Spencer, to warn her that she might be in danger.
One ESU officer went to the body. “She’s gone.”
Sachs then noted a parlor door kicked open. She and two other officers approached.
“Police! Show yourselves! Come out, hands above your head.”
A voice behind her. “Security guard’s weapon is missing.”
Sachs called, “I want that gun on the floor now. Throw it so I can see it.”
“I’ll kill Averell!” It was Joanna’s voice. “Let us go.”
Sachs said to the S&S officer beside her, “Video in.”
He unhitched the small camera once more and turned it on, then extended the flexible lens cable. He and Sachs approached the doorway, she covering him. He fed the lens in and, on the screen, Sachs saw Joanna Whittaker, her face stained with blood, standing behind her uncle, holding a pistol toward the door. Her fiancé, Martin Kemp, gripped a knife uncertainly as he stood over a young man — Kitt Whittaker, she recognized — who was strapped in a wheelchair.
“Drop the weapon!”
“Back off! You arrest me and there’ll be trouble! You’ll regret it!”
What on earth did that mean?
Sachs turned to the woman ESU officer who’d checked on the body of the security guard. “Flash-bang. I want this over with. We’re not negotiating.”
“Okay, Detective.” She drew from her belt a stun grenade, which looked very much like a canister of pepper spray. The body of the device was cardboard and contained a powerful explosive charge. To use one, you held down the lever on the side — the “spoon” — and pulled the pin. Then you tossed it into the desired location. In three and a half seconds it exploded, with a huge flash and a report that was around 140 decibels. Being next to one when it detonated was an extremely unpleasant experience.