I Knew These Voices
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Previously: The team sums up their evidence and makes a plan.
11:35 AM - Wednesday, November 5, 2014
US Park Police Office, Ft Winfield Scott, The Presidio
“Woah — Jeannie? Come check this out.” Raj’s eyes were following his computer screen and barely glanced up.
“What is it?” Jeannie left her computer and crossed the room to sit next to him. Paco and Amanda had retreated down to the lab while Steph and Owen had taken over the small conference room. The Pr3pSF site was on the screen where a new post had just been added. “Who posted it?”
“It looks like it’s Alexa’s account again.”
“No one ever asked me where I went that night. A house full of people and I disappeared and no one came looking for me. The vision of Jen bobbing on my boyfriend’s dick while Dash got in my face — it was all confusing and hazy and then razor sharp and clear. And then Tripp in the corner laughing at all of it. I remember the way Dash’s breath smelled like Fireball and his body reeked of sweat and the whole room smelled like pot smoke and something else that was sour and wrong but I don’t know what. I got out of there and ran and ran, the clear mountain air — it was so clear out there. The dark water and the stars. I could hear another neighbor’s party somewhere nearby and but not near enough. If it was close I would have gone there. I remember my body was shaking, my teeth chattering but it wasn’t cold. I wanted to find Carolina or MJ but it would get crazy drama and that wouldn’t help. And we were all here alone — what could anybody do? I knew I had to hide. I knew Dash or Seb would come out and try to find me.
I went along the beach path a little past the bunk house — that was where the boys were supposed to stay. There was another little house further down. It was a guest house, but we weren’t supposed to go in there. Tripp said it was only for his parents’ friends and not the kids. It was little like a cottage. It was so dark. I went up the little stairs to the door and when I tried it, it opened. I went inside and locked the door. I almost couldn’t turn the lock I was shaking so much. I didn’t turn on the lights at all but it looked like I was in a little kitchen, and then there was a living room. It was warm in there and smelled musty. I slid open the window all the way so I’d get some air, and crashed on the sofa. I was crying but almost couldn’t because of the shaking. I just laid there for a while, certain someone had followed me and they’d be pounding on the door any minute.
At first I was wide awake on that sofa staring out the window at the stars through the treetops. Then I must have fallen asleep a little bit, but then I woke up when I heard footsteps outside — like a branch snapped? The window faced the water and there was a little beach. I heard a girl laugh a little. Then there was a guy talking, low and kind of quiet but he started to laugh a little too.
“Guess no one won the bet.” That was the boy, the voice was nearby but not super close. I was so afraid they’d try the door or look closer in the window.
“Guess not — but sounds like you gave it a good try.” I knew both of these voices.
“So, Seb’s perfect princess slipped the net. I’m sure he’s disappointed.”
“He will be when the drugs wear off — in the meantime he’ll be kept happy.”
“From Jen or Tripp…or both?” This made both of them laugh.
“Aw man…where the fuck did she go? She’s not in any bedroom — did she fall asleep in somebody’s car? What the fuck?”
“I doubt it. She’s probably curled up in a bathtub someplace.”
“What’s the deal anyway? What’s your angle in all this — what do you care who Seb fucks?”
“It isn’t that. She’s an outsider. I just thought she should know she was out of her depth.”
“I mean, I’m all about fun and games, you know — “ It sounded like the two of them may have been kissing? I don’t know, they got quiet. I barely breathed. “You know, taking down some girl because you don’t like her...what’s the point.”
“I don’t like her? But everyone LOVES her.” More laughing.
“I think you’re jealous. She’s eastern and smart and pretty and nice. She’s everything you’re not.”
“Fuck you!”
“You just think — you just think she’s taking over. She’s not though.”
“What do you mean? How do YOU know?”
“Alexa? She’s not the kind of girl to care about that kind of thing. She’s not impressed with any of us. She’s not even excited about Seb..and EVERYONE’S excited about Seb. All your effort — none of this matters to her. It only matters to you.”
I knew these voices.
Jeannie stared at the screen in awe, mouth dry. Raj kept glancing at the trace working on the alternate laptop. “What the fuck is this?” She finally whispered, reading it through a second time. “What do you think this is, some kind of warning?”
“Definitely. ”I knew these voices…”, come on, that’s a clear warning. She knew who had tried to set her up and heard them talking about it.”
“Okay, but who’s sending the warning now? And where was this written? We don’t even know if it’s something Alexa wrote.”
“Okay, but think about it Jeannie — the way she behaved the next day? Going for that swim? Charlie told us about that — and that she was so upset about it she spoke to her Headmaster? It all kind of fits.”
“But if she knew who these people were — “
“What could she possibly do about it? She didn’t have any proof of anything. Who’d believe her?” Raj said it quietly, logically. Jeannie heaved a deep breath.
“So — so who put this out there?”
“I’m looking. All I can see are the IPs, but I’ve searched it and it isn’t one we’ve seen before.”
“Can you trace it to an actual address though?”
“Yup — and it’s a city account.”
“City? Like a city office?” Raj’s fingers clacked over the keyboard as he scanned his screens simultaneously.
“Mmmmm, it looks like it’s…a library. Yup. The Presidio Branch library? Do you know it?”
“Of course. So whoever just posted that, did it from the library?”
“Likely, but if they had a strong enough VPN and they were within a few blocks they could bounce their location from outside the library too. I guess we’ll have to go over there and ask.”
“Well, Academy Prep is about two blocks away from the Presidio Branch library, so there’s that.”
“Ha!” Raj almost shouted with a laugh. “That definitely makes it interesting, but why would a rich kid want to go to the public library? Doesn’t Academy have a library?”
“Well, it is lunchtime…and who said it was a kid? Maybe it’s not.”
“Okay, we found someone that has black sequins.” Steph came into the conference room, carrying a laptop. “I mean — I zoomed in, and they seem to be black, but there’s silver on top — I don’t know.” She set the laptop down to Jeannie’s left. A photo of the girls dressed as flappers filled the screen. MJ in red, Carolina in green, Tally silver, and Zizi purple. They were squeezed together showing their nearly identical dresses.
“But they all have a little bit of black sequins on their dresses.” Jeannie noted. The black sequins layered between sequins that matched the dress to set it off, with bits of black lace trim at the edges. They looked like any flapper dress you’d get at a costume shop or Amazon.
“Yeah, but look at the silver one — if you look close, they’re like metallic or they have kind of a sheen on them.” Steph magnified the photo as close as she could, but the image started to get foggy before you could see the sequins closely. “Damn, it’s not working. But — but don’t you think that silver dress looks more, I don’t know…like it’s better than the other ones? Maybe not from Spirit Halloween? I mean all of them have those chintzy elastic hairbands with the feathers too, they probably made a day of it and went to buy them together, but this girl in the silver — her headband looks like real jewelry, and the dress just looks more, I don’t know.”
“Fashion?” Raj suggested quietly on the other side of Jeannie.
“Fashion — yeah! Like, dressy — like it’s a real dress not some crap costume.”
“Well, Doug said the more layers on the sequins the better-made they seem to be, which would track with a fancy fashion dress, plus, that’s Tally Briggs who’s likely able to afford a fancy flapper dress if she wants one. Plus, I’ll double-check, but in her interview she said Alexa had helped her make her headband from a bracelet she had, so that tracks too. But is there a picture of Alexa and her together, like close enough to have the sequins get stuck in her dress?”
“Owen’s still looking, but there’s this one —” Steph’s voice got quiet as she changed the photo. This one featured Alexa in the center of the flappers, with two on each side. All of them were smiling and posed perfectly, like a line of showgirls. The strangeness of Alexa’s yellow-blonde wig, futuristic makeup, and orange butterflies all over were a stark contrast to the shimmering slinkiness of the flapper dresses.
“Oh…” Jeannie sighed. Alexa looked like she was full of fun in that moment — they all did. “What time was this photo taken?”
“Around 8:30pm? So probably at the party.” Steph answered. “Everyone still looks relatively sober and happy. They’re in the let’s take pictures part of the evening.”
“Okay, we need pictures of the messy part of the evening — this is important too, but we need to see where it all starts to go off the rails. Plus, when we put out the request for information and open the tip line, you’ll need to know what holes we need to fill. If we’re going to ask for more pictures, we’ll need to know what we’re looking for.”
“Got it.” Steph nodded. “So, what do you guys do about lunch around here?”