Predator (3 page)

“We just don’t have the staff for that.”

“You have a forum. At the very least, you could make changes to your site that will educate your members about the brutality and evil of social networking.”

“But there’s a lot of good to them too. In fact, I remember hearing on the news that you used your own GrapeVyne page to get the word out about where volunteers could go to join the search for your sister…”

“There
are
some good things, but if membership increases your chances of death, the good’s pretty much overshadowed. With or without your help, I’m going to find my sister’s killer and make sure that others aren’t killed by people like him. And if I have to take GrapeVyne down to do it, I will. Because as far as I’m concerned, you’re a predator too.”

His mouth dropped open. “Wait a minute!”

Turning, she opened the door and shot out.

Ryan drew in a long breath and opened the flyer. It was a program from Ella’s funeral.

T
hough Krista’s boss had offered her time off to mourn for her sister, Krista’s concern for the girls she counseled drew her back to the center sooner. She’d awakened this morning with a burning sense of urgency, as though she were single-handedly responsible for the safety of everyone who used online communities.

She’d gotten nowhere with Ryan Adkins, but she could still help the girls at Eagle’s Wings. She headed to the teen center, the albatrosses of fear and anger ever with her as she drove through the inner city, where gangs prowled and bullets flew to the score of sirens at all times of the day and night.

She passed the tattoo shop and the liquor store and the pawn shop on the corner, where drug dealers loitered, watching her drive by. She pulled onto the cracked concrete
of the Eagle’s Wings’ parking lot. No one was here yet, since it was only eleven. They didn’t open until noon, so she’d beaten Carla to work.

She glanced up at the sign as she went to the front door. Someone had thrown an egg at it, and it had splattered over the second line of the sign:
Where Young Women Soar.
Already, the egg smelled rank and rotten. She’d have to remember to get a ladder and clean it up.

She unlocked the glass door, stepped inside, locked the deadbolt back. She turned on the light and looked around at the front room that she and Carla had painted so meticulously, to make it look like an elegant home rather than a storefront ministry. On the wall facing the door, she’d painted the words,
Be Strong and Courageous! Joshua 1:9,
in gold script.

She walked through the sitting area to the computer room, turned on the light. Her chest tightened as she looked at the dozen computers that had been donated by local churches and businesses. They were the biggest draw of the ministry. These at-risk girls who faced a future of poverty and abuse would come here to get on GrapeVyne or do email or Twitter, and then they’d hang around for counseling services and Bible studies. The computers were the tools through which Krista and Carla built relationships with the girls.

But as she’d learned with Ella, each computer could be a gateway for evil. She had to stop it.

She went to Carla’s office, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. The cable modem and wireless router sat on a table in the corner, next to the jack in the wall that fed them the Internet. She unplugged the router, took off the cable connecting it to the modem. Then coiling the cable up, she went to her own office and shoved it into her desk.

It would knock the Internet out of commission until she could convince Carla that this part of their work needed to end.

She heard the front door open, the welcome bell chime. She stepped out of the office.

Carla was coming in with a box of supplies. “Krista, you’re back!”

“Yeah, I needed to come by and get something.”

“What, hon?”

Krista hedged. “Um…Just something I left here…”

“Then you’re not staying?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Good. You need more time.” Carla put the box down and kissed her like a mother. “You can’t give to these girls if you’re sapped for strength yourself. Give God some time to heal you. Don’t come back until you’re ready.”

“Thanks, Carla.”

Carla’s eyes misted over. “Is there anything I can do for you or your dad?”

“No, I don’t think so.” She drew in a ragged breath and suddenly felt guilty. Carla was so compassionate, such a loyal friend, that she couldn’t deceive her. Krista stepped into her office again, and got the cable. “Carla, I can’t lie to you. I really came here to do this.”

Carla frowned and stared at it. “What is that?”

“It’s the cable connecting the wireless router to the modem. I took it off to disable the Internet connection.”

Carla’s face changed. Her voice softened a degree. “Sweetie, you know that’s going to make the girls crazy. It’ll keep them from coming here. And it won’t keep them off the Internet. They’ll just go to the library to get online.”

Krista blinked back her tears. “Maybe not. Maybe they’ll still come.”

“Hon, I know what you’re thinking. You think that Ella would still be here if it wasn’t for the Internet.”

“She would be, Carla. It’s not just what I think. It’s a fact.”

“But there are good uses of the Internet. The girls are learning important skills. They’re learning how to write to express themselves, how to read better. They’re making friends who have higher ambitions than anyone they know. On GrapeVyne, everyone is equal. There’s not an upper class and a lower class. They can have relationships with people who would never give them the time of day. They’re communicating, which is something some of them couldn’t do before. And they’re on
your
GrapeVyne page and mine every single day, reading the Bible studies we post, interacting with us about Christianity. It’s too useful a tool to do without.”

“They don’t understand how dangerous it is,” Krista said. “At least let me disable it until I have time to talk to them about predators and what happened to Ella.”

“They all know what happened to Ella. And Krista, some of these girls are prostitutes. They live in horrible danger every day, from people in their neighborhoods…or their own homes.”

“But they haven’t been stalked by murderers, or they wouldn’t still be here. What if we got them off the streets into this safe, comfortable, caring place…only to be exposed to predators…maybe even the same one who killed my sister?”

“We educate them so that they won’t be.”

“But can’t we just let the computers be about taking GED prep classes and Bible studies?”

“We can, Krista, but I don’t want to. We can’t throw out all the good with the bad. They come because of the computers. What we’re doing here is working.”

Krista’s face twisted, and pain throbbed through a vein on her temple. “But it won’t matter if they’re dead!”

Carla wiped her own tears and took the cable from Krista. “All right, how does this sound? What if we just keep it shut down until you have the chance to talk to them about the dangers? Then we connect it again. At least what they’re doing can be monitored here. We can guide them, just like we’re doing in all the other dangerous areas of their lives.”

Krista shrugged. “Okay, if that’s all you’ll agree to. Guess it’ll have to do.”

“So when do you want to talk to them?”

She sighed. “This afternoon, I guess. As soon as possible, before they have the chance to go get online at the library.”

Carla took Krista’s hands and studied her face. “Are you sure you’re up to that so soon?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not about me, it’s about them.”

Carla nodded with resignation. “Then you’ll tell them. And they’ll know.”

Krista knew what Carla was thinking. They would tell the girls how to stay safe on the Internet, but then they’d walk home on streets filled with drug dealers, rapists, and every other kind of predator. Some would come to the center with black eyes and broken noses tomorrow; others would come with wounds so deep that there was no emotion in their eyes.

She couldn’t be everywhere with all of them. She couldn’t save them from all the dangers and terrors in their lives. But if it was at all within her power, she would protect them from
this
evil.

It was the only way she’d ever be able to sleep again.

T
he Geico meeting dragged on too long. Ryan was glad his advertising director drove the conversation, because his mind kept going back to Krista Carmichael’s words.

He’d been called a lot of things in the last few years. But “predator” wasn’t one of them.

He told himself she was still grieving, that he needed to extend some grace to the woman who must still be in shock over her sister’s death. But shocked or not, she was angry enough to make trouble. He could feel it. Already the press had gone wild over her note to her sister’s killer. If she wanted to, she could go on every major news program and run GrapeVyne into the ground. It would be a PR nightmare. Parents across the country would shut down their kids’ accounts. He would have to get creative, be proactive.

“Our data is irrefutable, because we can measure results in numbers of hits on these ads,” Larry was saying. “The average ad on our sidebar gets three million hits.”

The Geico man shifted in his seat. “But is this the right demographic for us? Teens aren’t interested in insurance.”

“Teens are about sixty percent of our demographic,” Ryan said. “Adults between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-five make up about forty percent of our members.”

“And of course, we can target the ads to those clients,” Larry added. “That’s the beauty of our service. We scan the profiles of the members to learn their interests and passions, and only shoot the ads to the ones who are most likely to buy that product.”

“You can do that?”

Ryan nodded. “That’s what Willow Entertainment’s Internet Division brought to the table. They have amazing resources collecting that data. Before they bought us, our ads were hit and miss, based on educated guesses. Now we have hard data to support our decision making. After the first month of advertising with us, we’ll have numbers on how many people click on your ads. If the results are bad, you’ll have the option to pull your advertising. But you guys have to think outside the box these days. TV commercials don’t cut it anymore, because so many people are TiVoing and fast-forwarding past them. But a lot of our clients spend hours a day staring at their computer screens. Putting the Geico gecco on the page they’re staring at is a sure way to sell more insurance.”

By the end of the hour, they’d convinced Geico to give it a try. Since most of the revenue of GrapeVyne came from their ads, Ryan breathed a sigh of relief. His job could be terminated if GrapeVyne ever ran in the red. As long as they had big clients like this, they’d all be fine.

Ryan checked his phone’s calendar as he headed back to
his office. What was next? He had half an hour before he was due in a meeting with Financial. He needed some caffeine before that.

He told Betty to hold his calls, then slipped back into his office. He took another Excedrin for his headache, then turned on his computer. Curiosity compelled him to go to Ella Carmichael’s GrapeVyne page.

The pretty, young face came up on the screen. He looked under her picture and saw the number of GrapeVyne Friends she had. There were 1143.

Krista’s message to the killer was at the top of the page, followed by hundreds of condolences from readers. Had the sicko who killed Ella seen the message? Even if he hadn’t logged in lately, he most certainly would have seen it on the news. He might have even responded to it here, just to get his kicks.

He scanned the messages, looking for something inappropriate, something that raised a red flag, but saw nothing. He clicked on Friends, and rows of pictures came up. They all looked like teenagers. Had another kid committed this horrible crime? Or was it someone masquerading as one?

He went back to her home page, read through the Thought Bubbles for the last few days of her life. Krista was right. Ella was amazingly detailed. She started first thing in the morning, telling what kind of cereal she was eating, what she intended to wear that day. Sometimes she even took pictures of herself in different outfits and let people vote on them.

She posted via her phone every class she was in, what her teacher was saying, what her friends had quipped. Where she was going after school, who she saw, what stores she shopped in, where she was sitting at ball games, when she went to bed.

Nothing in her day was sacred.

He read back over Krista’s note again, and remembered the heaviness of pain and despair and that steely resolve he’d seen in her eyes. Then he typed in Krista’s name, and her personal GrapeVyne page came up. She was twenty-five, and most of the blogs she’d written on her site were Bible studies. He scrolled down her Vyne and saw that dozens of teenaged girls engaged with her about living the Christian life. As he checked out some of those girls’ pages, he discovered that many of them were minorities from the inner city. There were pictures of them with Krista, and he could see that she had earned their respect.

She was impressive…gutsy and determined. Yes, she was going to be trouble.

He picked up the phone and buzzed his secretary. “Hey, Betty, make a note to remind me to issue a press release with some new security measures we plan to implement to protect our members.”

“Sure, Ryan,” she said.

“Also remind me to come up with some.”

She laughed, and he hung up, checking his watch. Time for the next meeting. Maybe he’d think of something to give to the press between now and the end of his meeting, something that would hold off her smear campaign and make them appear responsible, without admitting responsibility.

It would be a tough balancing act, but he knew he could pull it off.

T
uesday afternoon, dozens of the girls who frequented the Eagle’s Wings center came to hear Krista’s talk, and they wept with her as she told them how Ella’s killer had found her. By the end, she hoped she had them scared to death. She stayed afterward, hugging the girls and listening to their awkward condolences, trying to be a bastion of Christian courage and peace.

Their Internet access restored, some of the girls got online to check their profiles for any dangerous information they may have given out. Krista noticed one girl who hadn’t rushed to the computers. She sat in the corner, staring out the window. Krista crossed the room and sat down beside her.

“Jesse, what’s the matter?”

Jesse was a girl she’d had a hard time getting to know.
She came and sat through Bible studies with a glazed, distant look in her eyes, and rarely interacted with anyone. The fact that she’d stayed behind after the meeting was unusual.

Jesse shook her head, shrugged.

“Was it something I said?”

Jesse met Krista’s eyes. The girl had once had the potential to be pretty, but a scar that split across her eyebrow and eyelid, making that eye droop more than the other one, had robbed her of that potential. “I know what you feel like,” Jesse said. “My brother, he died too.”

Krista swallowed. “I’m sorry, Jesse. I didn’t know. When did it happen?”

“Last summer. Got shot in his head.”

Shot. The girl had been coming here for six months, and she’d never told them.

“My mama died before that. Got beat up, cracked her skull. Willie, her boyfriend, he in jail now.”

The horror of what this girl had endured washed over Krista. She put an arm around her to hug her, but the girl was stiff, unresponsive.

Jesse tilted her head. “How you still believe?”

“What do you mean?”

“In God? Why he let this happen to your sister?”

The question took Krista to a dark place, a place she’d been trying to avoid. She didn’t want to ask that question for herself, because she didn’t know how to answer it. But Jesse waited, so she dug deep and found her answer…the rote one that came naturally, because she had said it so many times.

“We live in a fallen world, Jesse. Sin messes everything up.”

“But if he is God, and made the earth and everything in it, why he didn’t stop some gangsta’s bullet from killing my
brother? Why he couldn’t stop Willie from bashing in my mama’s head? Why he couldn’t protect your sister?”

Krista cleared her throat, wiped her mouth. For a moment, her mind went blank. She groped for the answer. “He could, because he’s sovereign, Jesse. He controls everything—”

“Everything ’cept killers?”

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean he was there…he did have the power…he could have stopped it…”

“Then how can he be good if he didn’t?”

Krista closed her eyes. Her storehouse of biblical knowledge seemed empty. “He just is…He’s good.” Her words trailed off as she realized she didn’t really know what she was talking about. The things she’d always said in response to others’ suffering seemed like empty, flat platitudes now. They fit like trapezoids into little square holes.

She saw the disappointment on Jesse’s face. “At night,” Jesse said, “I hear a little girl down the hall screamin’. Her daddy beatin’ her. Her sister’s twelve and pregnant. Everybody says it’s her daddy’s. He doin’ the same to that little girl. Why don’t God see that?”

Krista dug inside her soul, rummaged around in all the dusty files she kept there, and tried to find something meaningful to say in reply. But again she found nothing. She should never have come here today. She should get up now and call Carla, and let her finish this conversation.

But Jesse hadn’t asked Carla. She had asked Krista, who had a point of reference. A dead sibling. A horrible evil that had changed her life forever.

Krista fought the tears pooling in her eyes. “Maybe…” she whispered. “Maybe it’s so you and I will find the miracle of courage, and God will use us to help those others who still have a chance. Maybe you’re talking to me because
of what happened to Ella, and someone will talk to you because of what happened to your brother and mother, and that someone will talk to that little girl…”

Jesse’s brown eyes glistened. “What will we say?”

Krista paused and thought. “We’ll tell them that this life isn’t all there is.”

It wasn’t good enough. Jesse rolled her eyes and got up. “First we got to believe that.” She pushed through the glass door, and Krista watched through the window as she walked back into enemy territory, where violence ruled and people served drugs rather than God. Where cruel fathers raped their own children.

Where evil stalked.

These girls lived in war zones where young men didn’t live past their twenties and young women were abused until they turned mean themselves.

What had made Krista think her family was favored, immune to that evil? What made her think the same God who watched over these girls would give extra care to her sister?

Why had she believed that God owed her better?

She looked through the glass, her gaze following Jesse until she turned down a street, disappearing from view. She hadn’t given her a reason to hope. She wasn’t sure she had one.

Instantly, she banished that thought from her mind. Of course there was hope. She knew it in her gut, in her heart, in her soul. It should have brought her peace.

But that rage that simmered beneath the surface was foaming over, burning her beliefs like acid. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold it in.