Color begins to splotch Rachel’s pale face.
“Don’t yell at her!” Lily reprimands me as she pulls Rachel in for a hug. “She’s been traumatized.”
“And she could have not been traumatized if she would have planned this better. She knew he was going to be here and didn’t do anything to stop it,” I continue. And while I’m irritated at how Rachel handled this, more than anything I’m angry that this man, even though he said he wouldn’t hurt her, clearly has.
“The hotel is upping security,” Melanie says as she enters backstage. “I forwarded them the photos and videos of the man, and they are aware of what happened today.”
I watch as Rachel nods her head.
“His username is KillerPlotTwist,” I say, showing the phone to Melanie. “I’ve got a guy that can do a reverse trace on the account. It might take a little time, but if he used a VPN sloppily or slipped up with metadata, we might get something.”
Lily is looking at me like all the bubblegum I swallowed as a kid just sprouted a bubblegum tree from my ears. Something I used to tell her all the time, even though it only made her swallow every piece I gave her because she thought it was a way she could make sure we never ran out of bubblegum.
“What?” I ask her.
“Since when do you talk in computer?” she questions.
“Book Eight,Midnight Confession,” I reply. “Remember?”
Lily rolls her eyes, but Rachel actually perks up a little, like she remembers, and I know she does.Midnight Confessionis the book where Barrett Steele goes undercover in a dark web chatroom to track a serial blackmailer targeting politicians. The twist, of course, was that the blackmailer turned out to be someone Barrett trusted, and the climax involved a race against time to stop a live streamed confession-turned-murder. I spent weeks researching cybersecurity and digital forensics for that book, which is the only reason I know how to talk like a guy in a hoodie hunched over a laptop in a thriller movie.
And the reason I know Rachel remembers is because I read her fanfiction that highlighted that specific case. She just added a woman named Serendipity Blaze and glitter. Rachel is obsessed with sparkle.
But as I focus on Rachel more, I realize mascara has dried down her cheeks. My jaw clenches. She’s been crying.
“Send me his contact,” Melanie says to me with a curt nod. “I’ll coordinate with our legal team and see how far we can take it. Cyberstalking is a federal offense. Has he sent any other messages in the past, Rachel?”
“Um,” she mutters. “I’m not sure. I get thousands of comments and several messages a day. I don’t read them all. Sometimes Mal does.”
“Who is Mal?” Melanie asks.
“Her roommate,” I answer for her, but my brain snags on Rachel saying,“I don’t read them all.”
Just a couple weeks ago I blamed her for loving the attention, for writing for the opinions of others, andshe doesn’t even read them all.
“Do you mind if we contact her?” Melanie questions. “I’d like to be thorough.”
Rachel nods her head and then says, “I’ll call her and let her know, so it isn’t a surprise.”
But her words are shaky, like they are tiptoeing across a tightline.
“We’ll try to keep this out of the press as long as possible,” Melanie continues. “But we’ll want to say something soon. We want to control the narrative before it leaks. For now, we’ll say there was an overenthusiastic fan who crossed a boundary, and security took care of it.”
I’m watching Rachel as Melanie says the words and see her wince at the wordfan. I wonder if she’s replaying all the times she’s called herself one, using the label like a shield or a badge of honor, and now it’s been weaponized.
“I don’t want to be scared of my readers,” she says quietly. “That’s not what this is supposed to be.”
For a sliver of a second, the fire in me dies down just a little. I see Rachel beneath her sunshine, beneath her frilly orange tulle, beneath everything that dresses her up in a way that makes you believe everything is fine—and I see her. And I wonder who hashurt her before. Who she talked about on that stage. Someone that made her fear a man.
But then there’s a notification on her phone that is still in my hand. A notification that shows the name KillerPlotTwist.
I click on it without asking, snagged by the snare someone else’s words can be.
Rachel Perry. 30 years old. From Magnolia Creek. Works at The New York Standard. Single. Loves sunsets, Rice Krispies, stargazing, and I will love all these things with you.
See you soon.
KillerPlotTwist
