Page 8 of All the Broken Pieces: Vol. 3

Chapter 8

When Aleigha walks through the doorway to my classroom, I’m ecstatic. The class pours through the doors and continues their drawings. Once the bell rings and they settle down, I call her over to my desk.

Aleigha has a deer in the headlights look, as if she thinks she’s going to get slammed with something bad. “Yes, Ms. Abby?”

“You mentioned you could help me yesterday? With a picture?”

Her tight expression fades as she nods. “Yeah, of course. Show me the picture and I can pull the metadata for you.”

“Right.” Nerves feel like fingers around my throat.

This is stupid, but I need to know. I pull my phone from my pocket and place it on the long wooden counter that I use as my teacher’s desk, and open my photos.

Sliding the phone toward her, I say, “This one.”

Her dark eyebrows lift, amused. “You took a picture of a picture on your computer screen?”

I nod. “Yeah, why?”

The delight on her face disappears. “I can’t track it this way. The data will show when you took the picture, not when the original photograph was taken.” Her gaze narrows as she points to a spot on the image. “And, this is an ad.”

“What?” That shocks me. I lean in closer to see where she’s pointing. “How do you know?”

“See that spot? It says SPONSORED. That means someone paid for this like an advertisement. That’s weird though, because there’s no product.” Aleigha explains how she runs social media ads for her parent’s business, so she’s certain what she’s saying is accurate.

“It’s an ad?” My jaw drops. I don’t understand why, or how, I’d even see it. “Did everyone see this picture?”

Aleigha shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s really weird. This is your late husband, right?” I nod. She sighs and adds, “It’s almost like someone is messing with you.”

That catches my attention. K’Teal said the same thing yesterday. The strangeness of the suggestion is too weird. I look her full in the face. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if I wanted to, I could make an ad to serve one person—if I knew how to do it—and I do.” She smiles and shifts her weight to her other Mary Jane clad foot before pressing her hip to the desk. “It’s not that hard. This popped up yesterday, too, right?” I nod. “And then it disappeared?”

“Yeah.” I gawk at her. “How’d you know that?”

She breaks eye contact for a moment. “You looked really weird yesterday. Like something spooked you.” Neither of us says anything for a moment, then she continues, glancing at me through her curtain of inky hair. “I’m guessing it’s an ad set to show once a day. Once you’ve seen it, the picture won’t show again that day.”

“But I saw it last night, too.”

She shrugs. “It could be the way they allocated the ad spend. Or it could be that it was past midnight—right?”

“Yeah, it was.” I stare at the phone, wondering why someone would do this to me. “Could it be automated? Like a robotic ad?”

Aleigha thinks for a moment and then shakes her head. “No, not this one.”

“What makes you say that?” The students are getting restless. I pause our conversation to address the students.

“It’s finals week, guys. And no one has turned in a damn thing yet. Grab whatever you need, but you better have your final project on my desk by Friday morning.” They blink at me, cell phones still clutched tightly, taking selfies or texting. “Go!”

Aleigha looks up from under her dark brows. “The ad had to be placed and paid for, which means someone manually entered all this stuff and targeted you. Is the rest of his family getting this picture too? Any friends?”

“No. Just me.”

“Someone is screwing with you, Ms. Abby. I know this guy’s your dead husband, so whoever is doing it is a really sick bastard. Next time it pops up, report it as harassment.” Aleigha grabs her laptop and shows me how to report the ad, but the pit of my stomach is dropping.

This is excessively cruel. Why would someone do this to me? Who? The first person that comes to mind is Zach’s mom, Tara, but she couldn’t orchestrate this. I can barely understand it. Tim? But why would he do it? There is no one else.

I need Zara. Zara is gone.