Chapter Nine Piper
Chapter Nine
Piper
Late Saturday afternoon, Piper collapsed onto her sofa after surviving the second of six performances of SpongeBob: The Musical.
She’d been a green room monitor for today’s matinee performance, and the sardines would not stop talking. She’d aggressively blinked the lights in the classroom where everyone collected “backstage” between scenes, and tried to restore order.
Then a member of the sea anemone chorus lost one of her tap shoes right before the big number with Squidward. They found it in the prop bag about thirty seconds before she had to go onstage.
Piper had witnessed coups and international incidents that were less stressful than one afternoon as a children’s theater volunteer. She didn’t know how the directors and producers not only survived but rose to the occasion and volunteered to put on a new show again year after year.
She’d changed into sweatpants and settled onto the sofa with a cup of tea, preparing to enter the safe and peaceful world of the Great British Baking Show. She personally did not enjoy baking, but she loved visiting a place where tragedy consisted of a Victoria sponge with a soggy bottom.
But it took her a full five minutes to find the show using their incredibly complicated television / remote control system. Was it on BritBox? Hulu? Or Netflix? And why did they have both Disney+ and Paramount+? And what exactly was Pluto? And Roku? Did they need that too?
Just when she finally settled down to watch regular British citizens create four-layer cakes incorporating six kinds of buttercream, her daughter Caitlin hurtled into the family room with tears streaming down her face.
Piper’s stomach clenched. She clicked off the TV and reached for her daughter. “Honey? What’s wrong?”
Caitlin tossed her iPad into her mother’s lap and threw herself down on the couch beside her. “Look.”
Piper glanced down at a grainy image with the words Caitlin’s Ass superimposed over the picture.
Her heart dropped. “What is this?”
“It’s my butt,” Caitlin wailed.
Piper shook her head, trying to understand why her daughter’s butt was on the internet. “What?”
“From PE yesterday.” Caitlin’s voice trembled, thick with tears.
“We were playing volleyball. I bent over to serve, and Alex Orlov took a picture of me from behind. And then he texted it to all the boys in my class. It’s everywhere.
Someone took a screenshot and sent it to me.
People are posting it on Instagram with the caption ‘Caitlin’s Ass. ’”
Piper’s mouth dropped open. Then rage tore through her. “This is the most inappropriate, unacceptable, rotten—”
Caitlin’s beautiful tear-stained face silenced her.
She doesn’t need anger. She needs love. And protection.
She wrapped her arms around her daughter and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry this is happening, Caitlin. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right, and I am going to end it. Right now.”
Silently berating herself for not being tougher on the principal yesterday, she rose from the couch and headed for the small office she shared with her husband.
She should have done this the moment that boy started texting Caitlin. Bullies didn’t stop until you made them stop. Hadn’t she learned that lesson herself at nine years old?
She yanked open a desk drawer, pulled out the school directory, grabbed her purse, and returned to the family room.
“Where are you going?” Caitlin asked, her voice pitched high in alarm.
“To have a conversation with Alex Orlov’s parents.”
“Mom. No.”
“Caitlin.” She sat down and clasped her daughter’s hands, looking her straight in the eye. “This situation is escalating. The picture is bad enough, but at least you’re wearing long PE shorts and we can’t see your face, and no one is using your full name.”
But what if he starts posting deepfakes? What if he superimposes Caitlin’s face on a porn star’s body? What if he posts her full name and date of birth and address?
Her daughter’s future imploded before her eyes. Images like this could destroy a woman’s life. College admission, denied. Job interviews, withheld. And when she got old enough to start dating, the images would repel decent men and attract sick ones.
“We need this to stop now,” Piper said firmly.
Tears streamed down Caitlin’s face. Finally, she nodded. “Okay.”
Piper pinched the bridge of her nose, forcing herself to stop reacting and start thinking.
Should she call? Or show up unannounced on their doorstep and have this conversation in person?
Knowledge was power, and she needed to know more about these people.
Did they have a Toyota in the driveway or a Maserati?
A modest home or a mansion? Maybe they were hardworking immigrants.
Or conscientious federal employees like her and her husband and almost everyone else she knew here in the DC suburbs.
Maybe they were Hill staffers or lobbyists or lawyers.
Or maybe they were something else.
Piper rose from the couch and headed for the mudroom. “You’re in charge of your sisters until I get back,” she called to Caitlin as she pulled on her shoes. “Text me with your iPad if you need anything. Or call on the landline. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
If only she knew her neighbors better. At age thirteen, Caitlin was old enough to babysit other people’s kids, but it still didn’t feel right to leave the girls alone right now.
Especially after what she’d found last night when they got home from the opening night performance of SpongeBob.
She tried to push the image out of her mind as she grabbed the school directory and got in the car.
But it lingered. A piece of notebook paper smeared with what looked like blood, nailed to the trunk of a tree in front of the house.
I know where you live written in block letters with a black marker.
She’d taken a picture and texted it to Mike Rodriquez.
Wearing gloves, she’d zipped it into a plastic bag.
He asked her to bring it into the office on Monday.
Disgusting. Deliberate. And just out of range of the Ring camera.
Hawkeye Slaughter’s most recent threat echoed in her mind.
I can’t wait to kill you slowly and watch you die.
Shuddering, she slammed the car door. She only had the bandwidth for one crisis at a time.
Her stomach twisted in a knot as she squinted down at the address in the directory: 783 Potomac Shores.
An exclusive neighborhood, overlooking the river. She’d heard the governor lived near here, in a huge house with his wife, Ainsley, and their kids.
The former owner of the Washington Commanders had a home down there too. It was on the market for something like $35 million. She and her husband had joked about putting in an offer before they bought their house on Beaverbrook Lane four years ago.
She swallowed a sigh. If only he were here right now. Brendan’s height and build were average, but he had presence, and he radiated quiet intimidation when necessary.
Like on their flight to Orlando for that Disney trip last spring.
The obnoxious man sitting across the aisle made the flight attendant cry.
When the drink cart passed, Brendan stood, put a hand on the man’s shoulder, and whispered a few words into his ear.
The man turned pale and did not speak another word for the rest of the flight.
Of course, none of this mattered because Brendan wasn’t here. As usual. Leaving her to handle yet another domestic drama alone.
She punched the address into the GPS and tossed the directory into the passenger seat.
Then she squared her shoulders. She could handle this. She’d once negotiated with a mad doomsday prophet in Idaho and gotten him to release the twenty-three women and children locked inside his compound, unharmed. She’d protected diplomats from terrorists in war zones.
But she’d also brought the entire DC metro area to a standstill. All because she chose to believe the schizophrenic man who said his white panel van was filled with explosives when he parked it next to the Lincoln Memorial and refused to move.
She’d looked at the information, made a determination of threat, and been wrong.
And maybe she was wrong again now.
Maybe Alex Orlov’s parents were lovely, responsible people who had no idea what their son was doing.
Maybe they’d understand, even be grateful she was bringing the issue to their attention.
Thus armed with a positive attitude instead of her service weapon, she headed for the big houses overlooking the Potomac.