This Is War - Chapter 15 – Apology Nudies
I searched high and low on PicStock for information about the picture of Rosalie - who took it, when it was taken, where it was taken - but I couldn’t find a thing.
Come on! Shutterstock at least gave the username of the photographer that posted the photos on their site. But of course this stupid site that Mr. Frost demanded we use wasn’t nearly as helpful.
“Maybe try their customer service chat?” suggested Chastity.
I went to the contact us tab. But they didn’t have a chat option either. Stupid trash site! “Gah, they only have a phone number.”
“I’ll call,” said Chastity.
And that was why she was the best. She totally understood that I hated calling people.
She put her phone on speaker and placed it on the desk between us.
“Thank you for calling PicStock. We’re currently experiencing a higher-than-usual call volume, but a representative will be with you shortly.”
Twenty minutes later, someone finally answered.
“Hello, this is Olivia with PicStock,” said a man with a very thick Indian accent. “For quality assurance purposes, we are recording this call. How may I help you?”
For starters you could stop lying about your name, Olivia the Indian man.
“Hey, Olivia,” said Chastity. “I was just looking on your site and I found an image I really like. I’d love to hire the photographer to do more photos for me, but I can’t find their name on the site. Can you possibly give me their name?”
“What photo is this in reference to?” asked Olivia.
“Uh…” Chastity looked at the screen. “ID# 751495.”
“Thank you. One moment please.” Olivia treated us to five minutes of elevator music before returning. “Hello?”
“I’m here,” said Chastity.
“Wonderful. I regret to inform you that I am not able to share the name of the photographer with you.”
“Why not?”
“We sign nondisclosure agreements with all of our photographers.”
Chastity glared at Olivia through the phone. “But I’m trying to hire this photographer,” she lied. “Why would he not want that?”
“I’m sorry, but it is company policy to keep all photographer and model names confidential.”
Chastity kept trying different angles to get the information, but Olivia was a stone wall. Even when she flirted with him. I was pretty sure it was the first time I’d ever seen Chastity’s flirting fail. Eventually she told him that Olivia was a girl’s name and then hung up.
“I’m sorry, Ash. I tried,” she said.
“That was amazing. It’s not your fault Olivia is a total ass.”
Chastity said she’d try to call again in hopes of talking to someone other than Olivia. Meanwhile I tried searching for more information about PicStock. They were privately held. The CEO was a guy named Vance Williams. They were founded in 2014 as a division of Odegaard, LLC. Wait, what?
I read that last sentence again. I must not have been reading it right. Odegaard was Tanner’s fashion label. What were they doing selling stock photos? Honestly, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that Tanner probably had access to the photographer’s name.
There was just one problem: he was a total idiot and I never wanted to talk to his stupid face again.
I tapped Chastity on the shoulder. “Check this out.”
“Tanner owns PicStock?”
“Apparently so.”
“Well that’s amazing! Call him and get all the info. And while you’re at it, tell him to fire Olivia.”
“Can you call him for me?” I asked.
“Why? He’s your boy toy.” She looked confused for a second before nodding. “Oh right, you told him to stay out of your life forever.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he’s more likely to answer you,” said Chastity. “Just text him a nudie and apologize.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Not even to find Rosalie?”
Damn it! She was right. A few awkward minutes were totally worth it if it led me to finding out what happened to Rosalie. “Fine.”
“Thatta girl.” She grabbed my phone and pointed it at my chest. “Pull a boob out and let’s do this.”
“What? No!” I wasn’t going to pull out my boob in the middle of the office! “I meant I’d call him.”
“With no apology nudie?” She shook her head. “As your wing woman, I strongly advise against that.”
“Noted.” I took my phone and dialed Tanner’s number. The faster I got it over with, the sooner I’d stop sweating.
“Hello?” said Tanner.
“Tanner. Hey. It’s Ash.”
“What’s up?” His voice was unreadable. Was he excited to be talking to me? Or did he hate my guts?
“Listen, I’m really sorry about the other night. I’d had a lot to drink and…it had been a long day.”
There was a long pause. “I’m sorry too. I had no business telling you what to do. You’re a grown woman.”
“Don’t worry about it.” How could I segue into asking about Rosalie? I decided to just go for it. “You own PicStock, right?”
“Yes.” He sounded very confused by the sudden change of topic. “Why?”
“So you know how I told you that my sister went missing a few years ago? Well…I just came across a picture of her on PicStock. I was hoping you could give me some info about the photo. Like when it was taken. And who the photographer was.”
“Are you serious? That’s amazing! Of course I can get that info. What’s the photo ID?”
“751495.”
“Great. I’ll see what I can find.” The line went dead.
I smiled at the phone. I tried not to get my hopes up too much.
But with this new lead and Tanner helping…
it felt like I might actually have a shot at finding out what had happened to Rosalie.
Afterall…Tanner was a better stalker than I was.
Since technically he was the one who’d been stalking me, not the other way around.
“Well that sounded like it went surprisingly well,” said Chastity. “Imagine how well it would have gone if you had sent a nudie first, though.”
I tapped my fingers on the desk while I waited for him to call back. It was probably only about 5 minutes, but it felt like an eternity.
When he finally called, I picked up on the first ring.
“Are you at work?” he asked.
Weird greeting. “Yeah. Why?”
“Good. Go wait out front. I’ll pick you up in ten.” And then he hung up.
I looked at the phone as if the screen would magically give me more information about whatever the hell had just happened.
“What’d he find?” asked Chastity.
“He didn’t say. He just told me to wait outside. And that he’s going to pick me up in ten minutes.”
“Ooh la la. I bet he’s going to take you to Club Onyx to punish you for talking back to him the other night.”
“What does that have to do with the picture of Rosalie?”
“No idea. But I bet you’re gonna have a wild night.”
“Wild night?” asked Madison.
I jumped at the sound of her voice. How long had she been creeping on us?
“Yeah,” said Chastity. “Tanner is picking Ash up in ten minutes.”
“For what?”
Chastity’s eyes lit up. “We aren’t sure. All we know is that it involves handcuffs, a bed, and a whip. Oh, and lots of spectators.” She said it loud enough for all of our coworkers to hear.
Kill me now. “We definitely do not know that. He just said he was coming to pick me up in ten.”
“Right. But the subtext…”
“There was no subtext!”
“Sounds to me like he’s gonna murder you,” Madison said. “You should probably just stay in. We can watch baseball. It’ll be amazing.”
“No thanks.”
“But it’s Friday night,” said Madison. “Doesn’t Chastity have some weird rule about that? Single Girl Rule #14: Fridays in September are reserved for baseball with your bitches.”
Chastity looked horrified. “Wow. No. Rule #14 is: If a girl forgets her purse, she must attempt to pay with her body.”
Madison made a gagging noise. “Your rules are disgusting.”
“They’re not my rules. They’re the Single Girl Rules. They belong to all single girls.”
“Whatever.” Madison turned to me. “Are you seriously gonna get into Tanner’s car?”
“Of course,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Um…aren’t you even a little worried that he’s the one who murdered Rosalie? And now he knows you’re onto him. What if he’s going to drive you to a remote location and cut you up into little bits and eat you?”
“Well I wasn’t worried about that before. But now I kind of am.” Tanner’s not a killer, right? “I have to go, though. I’ll keep my phone on and text you guys every 20 minutes. If you don’t hear from me, use Find My Phone.” I gave Chastity my password and headed to the elevator.
It was exactly 5 o’clock, so I had the displeasure of sharing the elevator with Mr. Frost.
“Leaving so early?” he asked.
Really? How dare he have the nerve to ask me about leaving at 5 when he did it every single day. “Thanks to your very thoughtful and detailed instructions, I was able to budget my time effectively and finish my work right on schedule.” I tried to say it nicely, but it came out super sarcastic.
“So you hate the binder that much, huh? Good to know. I’ll come up with something better for next week.”
Is that a threat? It really sounded like a threat. Oh God. What had I gotten myself into? I was pretty sure Mr. Frost was going to do everything in his power to make next week a living hell. But honestly, I didn’t care. All I could think about was that I was about to find Rosalie.