“Always.” Nicole grabbed her jacket and breezed out the door.
“She works at the climbing gym.” Sasha tried not to feel embarrassed about the panic attack she’d had last time she’d seen Julia and Detective Silva. “I hope you haven’t been waiting this whole time.”
Julia shook her head. “We just got here. How are you feeling?”
“Sore. It still hurts to breathe or laugh.” She picked up her mug of tea and sipped. “I’m guessing you’ve got more questions for me.”
Julia leaned closer, as if to share a secret. “He wants to ask about your love life.”
“My love life?”
Irritation flashed across Detective Silva’s face, those gray eyes hard. “When a woman is the victim of a violent crime, the person responsible is often a past or current lover, significant other, or spouse.”
Sasha started to laugh at the absurdity of this idea, but pain stopped her. “I don’t have a significant other or spouse. I’ve had a couple of boyfriends, but neither of them could have done this. Elias lives and climbs in Switzerland, and Remy works as a fishing guide in Southeast Alaska. There are no hard feelings between us. Elias is from Switzerland and wanted to live near his family. Remy loves the outdoors and lives off-grid in the wilderness. I chose to stay in Scarlet Springs.”
Detective Silva wrote this down. “So, no big arguments? No threats? Did either of them ever act violently?”
Again, Sasha was tempted to laugh. “Not at all. Any man who tried to hit me would find himself on his butt in the street.”
“Hell, yeah, he would.” Julia gave her an approving smile.
“Describe your relationship with Bren Riggs.”
“Oh. Right.” Sasha had forgotten that Detective Silva wanted to talk to him. “He’s a fellow climber. We’ve never dated or anything like that.”
“Has he asked you out?”
“Yes, but that was a few years ago. He came across as a party boy—not my type.”
“How did he take rejection?”
She had to think about it. “At first, he didn’t seem to believe I wasn’t interested. I turned him down a few times before he quit asking.”
“How long ago was this?”
Sasha had to think. “I met him at the climbing gym after my third world title, so that would be almost three years ago now. We mostly see each other at the rock gym in Boulder or out climbing somewhere like Eldorado Canyon.”
Detective Silva wrote this down then looked up from his notes. “I understand he posted graphic images on social media with your face on them. Can you tell me how you figured out that he was behind it?”
Sasha had known he’d bring this up. She took a sip of tea and started at the beginning.
Ms. Dillon had just begunto tell Darius about the pornographic images when Deputy Marcs received a call on her radio.
“Eight-sixty-five, go ahead.” She stood. “Excuse me.”
She walked outside to take the call.
Ms. Dillon went on. “I woke up one morning to a bunch of messages from other climbers and supporters with screenshots of the images. The name on the account…”
Deputy Marcs stuck her head through the door. “Multi-vehicle collision in the Canyon. I’ve got to go. Are you going to be okay, Sasha?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Darius and Marcs had driven in separate vehicles today just in case she got called away, so this wasn’t a problem. “Good luck.”
“The name on the account was fake. I flagged it and reported it. It was removed, and the account was closed. Then the next day, there were more images on another account. They were just like the others—my face on other women’s naked bodies. I reported it, and the images were deleted again.”
Darius listened as Ms. Dillon told him how she’d realized the problem wasn’t going to stop unless she did something about it.
