8. Now it’s a party – Atticus
8
NOW IT’S A PARTY
ATTICUS
I navigate through the system to find the backdoor I coded in a few years back. It’s only a few clicks and keystrokes before I’m in. The application runs and a new window pops up with a cloned phone screen. Aurora’s wallpaper—a photo of her Australian shepherd with a birthday hat and a face full of mud—fills the background, and I grimace.
Tapping the key to switch from mirrored view to ghost mode, I start with the obvious suspect: social media. But she doesn’t seem to have any accounts. At least not connected to the apps on her phone. There’s no way she’s over twenty-two or twenty-three. What twenty-something girl doesn’t have social media?
Undeterred, I continue my search, looking for anything that will help me decipher who she is. Where she came from. Where she was headed when she ran into us.
After an hour, I don’t have nearly as much as I should, but it’s enough to get a general idea.
She’s twenty-three. A college dropout. Most recent employment was as a server in a steakhouse in Amherst. From what I can tell, she doesn’t have any friends or family she’s in any form of regular contact with. Less than thirty dollars in her checking account. No savings.
And Jesse is not a girl.
I don’t waste too much time on their messages. The most recent three were enough to tell me all I needed to know.
Jesse: Do you really think you can just leave like this? I own you, Aurora.
Jesse: You’re so fucking pathetic.
Jesse: You know what, maybe I’ll just release the little videos we made online. They’ll make me a killing.
Sex tapes, maybe?
The math is easy. Bruises on her neck. Driving through a rainstorm in the middle of the night with one suitcase and no money to her name.
Aurora has a shit boyfriend and I don’t think she wants him to find her.
It could work.
She could work.
Tabbing to another window, I bring up the portrait I’ve been staring at for months. Ever since he put it up online. I compare the age progression software-generated image with a photo of Aurora from her camera library.
She could definitely work.
Her cloned screen blinks with a new message.
Jesse: Tell you what, if you drop that mutt at a shelter and get back here by dark, I’ll let you make this up to me. I won’t even punish you.
Oh, he’s bargaining now.
Jesse: If you don’t, maybe I’ll finally make that call to your mommy and daddy. Show them what a bad, bad girl you’ve been…
Intrigued, I tap to open the conversation.
What did you do, Aurora?
Jesse: This is one of my favorites. Do you think Mommy and Daddy will agree?
The next message isn’t a text, it’s a video.
A muscle twitches in my jaw as I take in the image. The contrast of pale skin in a dark room is indecipherable until I hit play.
Aurora moves on the screen and my cock twitches.
She’s naked.
Her hair is a mess of gold hanging down her back as she rolls her hips in reverse cowgirl on some guy’s cock. Her ass is stained red. A fading bruise covers the lower half of her right rib cage. Her breathing is rapid and shallow as she moves.
The video jars as the one recording it slaps her ass again, so hard she flinches and whimpers.
“Who’s my dirty little slut?”
He slaps her again when she doesn’t answer fast enough.
“ I am, ” she slurs. Is she drunk?
Somewhere off camera in the dark, another male voice laughs.
Then the one filming twists his free hand in her hair until she’s forced to crane her neck back to look at him.
“Damn right you are. Come here.”
Her cheeks are stained with mascara. Her eyes are glassy and hollow.
“Who’s your daddy?”
“You are,” she slurs.
Not just drunk. She’s wasted. Possibly on drugs, too, by the way her pupils are dilated. I know the look. I picked up after my dad for ten years before I got the fuck out.
“And you’re going to do exactly what Daddy says, aren’t you?”
“Y-yes.”
“Get over here and take a spin. Aurora won’t mind.”
“Wait,” she slurs. “Jesse, I don’t?—”
My stomach turns and I think I’ve seen enough when there’s a quick rap on the door behind me. Eli pushes inside without waiting for me to answer and I’m almost not fast enough to stop the video and return the monitors to a blank desktop.
“ What? ”
“Am I interrupting something?”
Did he hear the video?
“Nope. What do you need?”
He eyes my damp workout clothes without bothering to hide the knowing smirk pulling at his mouth.
At least this means he hasn’t found Aurora yet. With any luck, she’ll have the whole fucking studio done before he can stop her.
Eli looks down the hall, his brow furrowing as he shakes his head at something I can’t see.
I hear Seven’s music long before I see him.
“What’s this? Party in Atty’s office? Did my invite get lost in the mail?” Sev leans against the doorframe behind Eli, pulling his headphones off. “What’s up?”
Jesus Christ.
“Nothing is up. Eli, did you need something?”
“No, just wondering if you know where Aurora went. I thought she might have been outside somewhere with Eleven, but?—”
“Do you need her for something?”
“No, I just wanted?—”
My phone rings atop my desk and I lift the screen to check the caller.
“It’s Jack,” I tell them before picking up.
“What’s the damage?” I ask our mechanic before he can speak.
Having Aurora’s car towed off the road was more for us than her. If we left it there, it would be like leaving a billboard on the side of the road with a giant red arrow pointing into the woods. The last thing we need is the local PD investigating the area. I’ve called in enough favors with their chief in the last few months. I don’t need to add another one.
This is what I get for agreeing to a less-than-perfect cleanup after the mess Seven made in Jonesville.
“Hey, Atticus. It’s Jack.”
As if I don’t have caller ID.
“I know.”
“Right, well, I had a look over the car. It’s like you said—a total write-off. Your lady friend would be lucky to get a couple hundred bucks for it at the scrapyard.”
Not surprised.
“Just get rid of it, would you?”
“Normal get rid of or special get rid of.”
I think about it.
“Just scrap it.”
“All right. Oh! Almost forgot. Do you know if she wants the tracker back?”
“What?”
“Yeah, I thought it was weird, too. I don’t know why she’d bother putting a LoJack on it in the first place. The system is probably worth more than the whole damn car.”
I pull the phone from my ear and put Jack on speaker. “Say that again.”
“ Uh . The LoJack system is probably worth more than the car?”
“Hold a sec.”
I mute him.
“There was a LoJack on her car?” Seven asks, his eyes darkening.
Eli bites his lip. “I don’t think it was her who put it there.”
“Who then?” Seven asks.
Great. The new cleaning lady comes with a free douchebag.
“I think I might have an idea.”
I whirl back to the monitors and bring Aurora’s cloned phone back up on the screen.
The guys come around to look, placing themselves behind each shoulder.
“Seriously, Atticus?” Eli complains behind me, but he falls silent as I bring up the message thread with ‘Jesse’ and he leans over my shoulder to read.
The vibe in the room shifts as they read all the messages on the screen. The threats from this Jesse.
“What’s the video?” Seven asks in a detached tone. The kind that usually precedes the breaking of bones.
“One no woman would ever want anyone to see, never mind her parents.”
Sev takes the phone from my hand. “Seven, what are you?—”
“Hey, Jack, it’s Seven.”
Jack chokes on a reply as Sev brings the phone closer to his mouth. He never really got over seeing Sev covered in someone else’s blood and gore that one time we had to drop off two sedans for him to ‘special’ get rid of.
I can’t really blame him. I told Sev the wood chipper was going to be too messy, but he insisted he’d always wanted to see if it would actually work.
Spoiler alert: it did. But the cleanup was fucking atrocious.
“If anyone comes looking for the car or the girl,” Sev hisses down the line. “You send them to us.”
“Wait, like, to your house? I thought you said never to give out your address to?—”
“If anyone comes,” Sev repeats in a threatening tone. “You send them up. Got it?”
“Yeah. Whatever you say, Seven.”
The line disconnects and Sev drops the phone into my lap.
“Real fucking smart, Sev,” I call after him as he storms away. “Why don’t we just invite the whole state of Virginia over? Then it’ll be a real party.”
Eli gives me a look.
“ What? ”
“Nothing. I just hope you know what you’re doing with this girl.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“She seems like a good person,” he says, and then indicates the still-frame video and the crude messages still on my computer monitor. “And she’s clearly been through enough.”
What he’s not saying is written all over his face.
Don’t put her through any more.