Chapter Seventeen Thiago
Chapter Seventeen
Thiago
I let her go.
I’d said what I had to say. She chose him over me, no matter how much I wished it were the other way around.
Even though I was pissed and hurt, that didn’t stop me from answering the phone a few minutes after Kam walked out of my room. It was Perez. And he didn’t have good news.
“What’s goin’ on, man,” he said, sounding wired, as if he’d been up all night. And knowing him, that was likely—he’d either been up playing video games or looking into what I’d asked him about the night before.
“Hey, man. Did you find anything out?” I asked, sitting down on the swivel chair at my desk and looking through the window to be sure Kam made it home safe and sound.
After a second, her light came on and I was able to relax.
I didn’t like the way things were going at school, not to mention that repugnant video Danny Walker had put on the internet…
“Yeah, that’s why I’m calling. So the name Julian Murphy was basically a dead end. A couple of social media accounts, none of them more than a few months old. Jules Murphy, though, that’s a different story.” He sounded serious.
“What’d you find?” I sat up and paid close attention.
“I got his school records. It’s weird, though—he never stays anywhere for long. Two years, tops. He was at one place in Brooklyn. His grades suck, his disciplinary record is shit too, he’s been kicked out of a few places for fighting. He’s been changing schools like that since he was fourteen.”
“Getting expelled?” I asked.
“No, he left of his own accord. So I kept investigating. I checked the records of different police departments around New York, and you wouldn’t believe…”
“What…?” I started to get a really bad feeling.
“He’s been arrested a bunch of times. But it never came to anything. They always decide to drop the charges.”
“What kind of charges are we talking?”
In the second of silence afterward, I looked back over at Kam’s window.
“Stalking,” Perez said calmly.
“Stalking?” I asked. And things suddenly started making sense, even if I didn’t like where they were leading me.
“And that’s not all.” Now I was getting really nervous. “I found this page where he uploads all this weird shit about gay people.”
“Yeah, he’s gay,” I said, remembering that detail.
Perez laughed. “I don’t think so, man. It’s all batshit homophobic stuff.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Can you send me the link?”
The message came through immediately, and I clicked on it. It was dark shit for real, with all kinds of nasty stuff—thumbnails and videos of people beating up and tormenting gay kids. And there was a banner at the top of the page that said: Homosexuality is an abomination and must be punished.
Everything I saw there was so backward and disgusting, I had to close it after just a few seconds.
“I don’t get something, though,” I told Perez. “If this dude’s so homophobic, why does he go around telling everyone he’s gay?”
“He’s sick in the head, man. It’s impossible to tell what people like that are thinking, but looking at his arrest record, the way he’s stalked people in the past, my guess is he’s faking it to try to look harmless so he can get close to someone.”
I thought of Kam. Fuck, that goddamn psychopath was crazy about her.
“Perez, man. I owe you. Seriously,” I said, with a sinking feeling inside.
I didn’t like what I’d just learned, and I was starting to ask myself if Julian wasn’t behind all the weird stuff that had been happening at school. “If you find anything else…”
“What I can’t help but wonder, though, is why all those girls dropped the charges,” Perez said to himself out loud.
“Is there a way to find out?”
“Not unless you ask them directly.”
“Have you got any names?”
“Gimme a sec.” I could hear the clicking of Perez’s keyboard. “I’ll need some time, but I might be able to get you something.”
“I’ve got my phone on me twenty-four seven. Just call.”
“I’ll do that. Oh, and tell your brother I’m still trying to find out who hacked his girl’s phone.”
I looked back out the window. “She thinks it’s her ex, a guy named Danny Walker.”
“Danny Walker?” Perez said. “I’m just writing that down because Tay didn’t mention him. He goes to the same school, right?”
“Yeah.”
“A name always helps, you know. Maybe I can find other traces of him online. I told your brother whoever did this isn’t stupid, they know what they’re doing.”
That didn’t add up. Danny Walker, a computer genius?
I couldn’t see it. There was something fishy about this whole story, and I was starting to doubt whether Danny had anything to do with that video.
“Perez,” I said, “do you think Jules could be involved in that too?” I was starting to feel sick to my stomach.
“Dude… That video was made in a bedroom.… If what you’re telling me is true and Julian or Jules—or whatever his name—is just friends with that girl… Are he and Walker friends? Maybe they’re in it together?”
But Julian had stepped into a fight to defend Kam from Danny. It just didn’t make sense.
“I don’t think so,” I said, but I wasn’t sure. “I don’t know whether to connect Julian’s history as a stalker with all the stuff that’s been happening to Kam… He might be a sicko, but they seem to actually be friends. He’s always treated her nicely.”
“It’s high school, man, who can say. Bullying, revenge porn, that’s the kind of thing that goes on nowadays.”
“Yeah. It’s fucked up. I’m going to get to the bottom of it, though.”
“Cool, man, well, I’ll be in touch with whatever I find,” Perez said and hung up.
I didn’t like this.
I didn’t like it one bit.
I took a shower, my head so full of confusion I thought it might explode. My intuition told me this wasn’t over and Kam wasn’t safe. And I wasn’t going to stand back and let something happen to her.
I went downstairs and made some coffee just as my mother was coming home from the night shift.
As soon as she saw me, she knew something wasn’t right.
“What’s going on?” she asked, sitting down across from me.
Her green eyes were just like mine, but lined with deep circles that looked almost purple on her white skin from the endless hours she was working at the hospital to keep us on our feet.
“I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, that’s all,” I said as Taylor came in.
“You always wake up on the wrong side of the bed,” he said in a tone that sounded almost taunting.
“Are you trying to be a smartass?” I asked. I wasn’t in the mood for this shit, and after knowing Kami had spent the night in his room, I was doing my best not to kill him.
“Hey!” my mother said, grabbing my hand and seeing something I wish she hadn’t seen. I drew it back under the table, but it was too late.
“Thiago Di Bianco, let me see that hand right now unless you want me to actually get angry,” she said.
Fuck.
I brought my hand out and laid it on the table.
“What is this about?” she said. “Are you getting in fights again?”
“Mom, it’s nothing,” I said, trying to calm her down. I wasn’t in the mood to have to apologize to anyone.
“What do you mean, it’s nothing? Your knuckles are raw! Who did you hit, Thiago?”
“Danny Walker,” Taylor said, pouring coffee into an ugly pink mug. God, I hated Mom’s taste sometimes.
“The mayor’s son?” my mother exclaimed. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Everything’s under control, believe me.” I got up and set my cup in the sink. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to her.
“They’ll fire you over this!”
“They’re not firing anybody. You know why? Because if he even thinks of mentioning any of this, I’ll fucking kill him.”
My mother looked shocked, and she turned to my brother for some kind of explanation. But Taylor told her coolly, “And if he doesn’t, I will.”
“What in heaven’s name!” My mother stood. She was furious, and the combination of her anger and her tiny frame might have been funny in a different context, but not right now. “Tell me right now what’s going on!” she said.
My brother gave her the short version, as I felt myself getting more and more angry. I couldn’t stand to hear it again, how half the town had seen Kam naked, how she’d been recorded without her consent…
Kam hadn’t wanted to press charges.
But if she wasn’t going to do something, I was.
Danny Walker’s days at Carsville High were numbered. I was sure about that.