Chapter SeventeenThiago
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?”
