Jordan eased his finger off the trigger anyway.
SEVEN
CARA
Like they say, grief is just love with nowhere to go. I am lost without my beloved Karl, but I will find my way. Grief is now part of my journey—my story still untold.
—@carasloveisgold
You shouldnt have killed him then
—@Justice0983465
Cara tried on Golden Goose sneakers every time she shopped at Nordstrom. The $500-plus price tag wasn’t a problem—or so she’d assumed—but she just couldn’t get herself to fork over that much money for shoes that came scuffed on purpose. But now, having scrambled halfway up a ridge, through bushes and brambles and around a boulder field, they were legit scraped and dirty. The pink stars were even missing a few sparkles.
#FashionVictim #AStealAtAnyPrice
Was it too much to hope that the skinny-dippers accepted her thanks and let the theft go, simply moving their campinggetaway to a safer spot? Doubtful. If she and Karl had been the victims, he’d have driven directly to the closest police station. Cara would have taken it a step further, blasting the incident all over her social media—crowdsourcing her cry for justice among the amateur sleuths who lived for murder and mayhem.
As she’d done on her own behalf.
I would never, ever hurt my husband, she posted to her followers, whose numbers had mushroomed to eleven million after her initial booking and subsequent release on a million-dollar bond.Please, I beg all of you to help me find Karl’s killer.
The Facts:
The killer knew we were staying in Ojai and that we’d hiked up to Johnson’s Point for dinner.
I was unconscious when Karl died.I heard him shout my name and saw him fighting with someone before I blacked out.
Whoever killed my husband stole his rare, vintage watch. It has not been recovered.
Cara read all of the responses that poured in. Among the DMs from amateur sleuths, finger-pointing accusers, and the occasional sympathetic believer was a note from Roy Abel—one of the three criminal attorneys she’d interviewed to represent her.
Mrs. Campbell, he wrote,I strongly advise against pleading your case on social media.
People need to know the facts, she wrote back.
Facts are far less important than appearances and public opinion.
I happen to be innocent.
Unfortunately, your online persona as a gold digger suggests otherwise. Disappear from social media until you’re exonerated and then you can talk to everyone who will listen.
Wearing her ankle monitor, she drove to his Century City office the next day to pay his retainer.
In person, Roy Abel was shorter and slighter than she’d imagined, but he exuded the confidence of an A-list celebrity. As the go-to criminal attorney for at least two cable news outlets, he sort of was. Cara’s faith in him was boosted by the fact that he had taken the time to research her online presence and didn’t seem to simply accept what was being written and said about her by others.
“I do all the talking from here on out,” he said, offering a firm handshake. “Got it?”
If the framed photographs lining the hallway to his suite were any indicator, he’d successfully defended an impressive number of clients—many of whom were hugging and even kissing him.
Cara didn’t post or respond to anything from that moment on, not even the painful taunts from her stepdaughter, Taylor, whose TikTok video described Roy Abel asthe best lawyer my father Karl Campbell’s money could buy, Cara as theMrs. Universeof Wicked Stepmothers, and the home where Cara lived asfor sale the second they put her away.
But she couldn’t bring herself to delete her accounts. She followed her own story obsessively, even listening to true crime podcasts (the host ofCalifornia Death Tripwas one of the few who believed she could be innocent) and forwarding any potentially exculpatory leads to Abel. He built the case for her defense and pleaded her cause to the media. His sophisticated showmanship and graying-at-the-temples gravitas seemed to play better with the public than her sweaty desperation and panic.
Now that she was on the lam, Abel would definitely be back on the news, communicating on her behalf.
Cara labored upward, breathing hard, wondering why she still tasted the scorched smoke of the crash in her throat when she was so far away. Then she finally reached the top of the ridge and learned the answer: plumes of light gray smoke rose in the distance. The incessant wail of sirens couldn’t only be for her.
