Chapter Twenty-Six
THE FOLLOWING EVENING, Ted gets another text.
The ping of it makes him startle, even though he realizes that part of him has been expecting it, waiting for it.
He and Jill are in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
They both hear it. They both stop what they’re doing.
He reaches for his phone on the island, and she comes over to look.
The text, from the same unrecognized number, reads: YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GET AWAY WITH IT.
Ted hears the gasp come from Jill. He glances up at her, then back down at the message.
‘Fuck,’ he mutters. He wants to throw the phone against the wall but restrains himself.
This is a problem. He’s not going to make it worse by losing his cool in front of his wife.
So, it’s not a one-off, he thinks. This is someone who is going to try to make their lives miserable.
They have to find out who it is. He must protect Jill.
‘Oh, God,’ Jill whispers, leaning back against the counter and pressing her hand to her mouth, against her closed lips. After a moment, she removes her hand and says, ‘Text him back, ask who it is.’
‘No. I told you I think it’s best that we don’t engage. Better to just ignore it.’
‘Then how will we know?’
Ted snorts. ‘As if he’s going to tell us.’ He pauses, thinking. ‘There must be a way to find out,’ he says to her. But he thinks he knows. It’s John Burnley. But how can he be sure? And what is he going to do about it?
‘Are you sure no one knows?’ Jill asks him, her eyes alarmed.
‘Of course I’m sure!’ He’s snapped at her; he didn’t mean to.
He softens his voice. ‘Jill, there’s no way anyone can know.
How could they? Whoever it is, is just trying to upset us.
You know that.’ He adds, ‘They’re probably just doing it for kicks.
I don’t know what they hope to gain.’ He runs a hand over his face.
‘Maybe they’re hoping we have a guilty conscience,’ she says, ‘and that they’ll drive us to break down and confess.’
He looks at her closely, worried. ‘But we don’t. And we won’t.’ He takes her face gently in his hands, looks down at her. ‘Jill, you’re not developing a guilty conscience, are you?’
‘No.’ She says it firmly. ‘But I am worried.’
He releases her, steps away. ‘You don’t need to be. I’ll deal with it.’
‘How?’
He takes a deep breath, lets it out. ‘I’ll find out who sent the texts.
There must be a way. I’ll find a tech person, see if they can trace it.
We won’t go to the police. We’ll find out who it is, and I’ll deal with him.
’ As he says it, he imagines confronting John Burnley.
Putting him in his place. Beating the shit out of him, if necessary. He imagines how good it will feel.
‘I’m worried about Lara,’ Jill says suddenly.
This surprises him. ‘Lara? Why?’
‘I think she suspects us.’
‘What?’
And suddenly she’s telling him in a rush, as if she’s held it in too long.
She tells him what Lara has said, and how she said it.
How she’s probed. As Ted listens, he feels increasingly uneasy.
It’s that bastard Ramirez’s fault, stirring up suspicion with his visits, his questions, his innuendos.
He’s like a fucking Iago. He says, ‘Jill, you must be careful around her.’
‘I know that!’ She folds her arms across her chest defensively. ‘I haven’t said anything to her.’
‘Of course not. You’re too smart for that.’
‘What if she’s sending the texts?’ Jill suggests.
The idea confounds him. ‘Why? Why would she do that?’ he asks.
‘Out of jealousy, maybe? Because of the money?’
‘But she’s your best friend. And they have plenty of money, don’t they?’
Jill regards him uneasily. ‘I don’t know. Maybe they don’t have enough. We didn’t.’
Ted enters a small storefront the next morning. He’d noticed the shop before, and the sign in the window: HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, SECURITY. There’s a man in his mid-twenties alone in the shop, at a large counter with laptops and cell phones strewn about.
‘Hi,’ the younger man says, looking up. ‘How can I help you?’
Ted feels embarrassed to be here. He’s not the kind of person to have this kind of problem; he doesn’t want to be here. But he’s not going to give his real name, and he doubts he’ll ever be back. ‘I don’t know much about technology,’ he confesses.
‘Then you’ve come to the right place,’ the young man says, grinning.
It makes him feel somewhat better. He swallows nervously. ‘I got a text from a number I don’t recognize,’ he says carefully. ‘I don’t want to engage. But I want to know if there’s any way to trace the number.’
‘Ah. I see this a lot,’ the young man says, ‘more all the time. And the short answer is no, at least not without law enforcement getting involved. And even then, it’s really difficult and they probably won’t do it.’
‘Fuck,’ Ted says.
‘I know,’ the younger man says. ‘There’s lots of ways of sending anonymous texts. People use apps like Hushed, Burner, or Signal. And there are websites you can use like SMS Gang, Anonymous Text, and so on. Or you can use an actual burner phone that comes with its own number.’
Ted says, feeling a bit foolish, ‘I tried Reverse Phone Lookup, but I didn’t find anything.’
The younger man shakes his head. ‘Like I said, they probably either used one of the apps or websites to hide behind, or an actual burner phone.’ He shrugs. ‘Sorry. Lots of harassment going on these days. You’re not alone.’
Ted feels his heart sink. ‘Thanks for your help. How much do I owe you?’
‘For that? Nothing. If I were you, I’d change my number and keep it very private.’
Ted returns home, frustrated, where Jill is anxiously waiting for him. ‘All you have to do is use an app or buy a cheap burner phone and you can send threatening messages to whoever you want and get away with it,’ he complains to her. He feels angry and powerless.
‘So what are we supposed to do?’ she asks.
He doesn’t like how scared she sounds. ‘I have to change my phone number and not share it with anybody. I’ll take care of it.’
He hopes that will be the end of it.
The day of the memorial arrives a couple of weeks later. It’s a Tuesday in mid-November, and the weather is grey, windy and wet. When Jill looks out the window of their bedroom at the sky it reminds her of that day on the boat. She quickly looks away.
She dresses carefully for the event. It is being held at the St Regis in Midtown. There will be plenty of refreshments there; they won’t be inviting a crowd back here to the house afterward to talk about Greg. They just want this to be over with.
She glances at Ted, getting ready. His best black suit, onyx cufflinks, the lot.
‘I’ve never liked this kind of thing,’ he tells her.
‘I know,’ she answers.
They haven’t had any more disturbing texts since Ted changed his number.
He has kept his new number very private.
Only she knows it, and Ted’s attorneys. She and Ted have discussed how he might slowly give his new number out and see if the texts start up again.
They would like to discover the identity of the texter without involving the police.
But mostly they hope that whoever it was has had their fun and has simply given up and gone away.
Jill’s putting on lipstick in front of the bathroom mirror when her cell phone on the vanity pings. She glances down carelessly. Freezes.
MURDERERS
She screams.