The Last Good Girl (33 page)

“Are you going to tell Cooper about this?” Wyatt asked.

“No. But maybe you should. He'd be there for you.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“By the way,” Anna said, “have you heard from him today?”

“No, why?”

“Just wondering. Thanks a lot, Wyatt.”

Anna and Sam went down to the car. As they pulled out, Sam said, “To BlueTube?”

“Yeah.”

B
lueTube's headquarters were in the Southfield Town Center, a set of four black-and-gold office towers in the middle of a suburb. Looking out the twenty-fifth-floor conference room window, there were no other buildings to block her view. Anna could see for miles: a crosshatch of streets dotted with little houses, lawns, and trees.

“Thanks for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice,” Anna said.

Sam handed her business card across the glass-topped able. “We appreciate your help.”

Tara Kennedy, the founder and CEO of BlueTube, took the card and smiled politely. “Please tell me about this ‘urgent situation.' ”

According to its website, which Anna read on the way over, BlueTube had grown from an operation out of the founder's dorm room into a company of ten employees. Tara was young enough to project the company's youthful tech image, but old enough to know what she was doing in business and politics. Anna hadn't looked, but she guessed that at some point, Tara had donated to Robert Highsmith's political coffers.

“We're investigating the disappearance of Emily Shapiro,” Anna said. “Maybe you've heard of the case?”

“Heard of it? That's been the lead on the news every day this week. What does it have to do with BlueTube?”

“Apparently, Emily posted several videos to BlueTube over the last year. They've been taken down since then. We sent a subpoena to your company four days ago. According to an employee of yours, Chandler Andrews, Emily took down the videos herself. But we have a witness who says that BlueTube employees removed the videos.”

“Are you investigating my company?” Tara asked.

“No,” Anna said, “although if there are individuals who lied to us, they might face obstruction of justice charges. But what I'm interested in today is seeing those videos. And finding out as much as I can about the young woman who posted them.”

Tara read over the letter and subpoena. Then she picked up the phone and punched in a number. “Chandler, Aubrey, please come to the conference room.”

Within seconds, two young men walked into the room. They looked slightly older than the frat boys at Beta Psi, but the jaunty swoop of their hair reminded Anna of the boys she'd seen at the frat house. They sat at the table.

“Gentlemen,” said Tara. “I understand that you are alumni of a fraternity called Beta Psi?”

“Um,” said Aubrey, glancing nervously at Anna and Sam. “Yeah, we are.”

“I've been informed that someone inside BlueTube may have taken down a series of vlog posts to help a young man who is currently a member of that fraternity. Do you know anything about this?”

Chandler bit his lip. “I'm not sure.”

“Aubrey?”

“I don't remember,” said Aubrey, looking down at his hands.

“Of course, we'll be able to figure out who did,” Tara said. “And lying about this would constitute a breach of contract, for which you'd lose your bonus. So let's try that again. Did either of you take down these vlogs?”

Aubrey and Chandler looked at each other. Aubrey looked back down at his hands. Chandler said, “I'm not sure. We do so much here—”

“If you've been doing it so often that you can't recall if you took down these particular videos, that's a problem.”

She picked up her phone again. “Security. Please escort Mr. Wattleton and Mr. Andrews to their offices, where they may collect any personal items but may not log onto their computers or take any company property.” She set the phone down and looked at the two young men. “You're fired.”

“But—but—”

Two security officers walked in and took the young men by their elbows. As they were escorted out of the room, Aubrey started to cry. Anna almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

When Aubrey's sobbing was no longer audible, Tara turned back to Anna. “I'm so sorry for what's gone on. I'll check and see if we can recover the videos. Is there anything else?”

“Thank you,” Anna said. “If you could provide the e-mail and IP address that Emily used to set up the account, that would be helpful.”

“Absolutely. Excuse me for a moment. Feel free to help yourself to coffee while I step out.”

• • •

Twenty minutes later, Tara returned holding a large manila envelope. “Emily Shapiro uploaded several videos, starting in September of 2014 and going to March of 2015. She had her privacy settings on ‘private,' so no one else could view them. On March 19, 2015, she changed the privacy settings to ‘public,' essentially publishing her videos for the first time. They were all taken down by BlueTube employees—Chandler and Aubrey—within hours of her posting them. But they're still on the server. I was able to recover them, and I had them burned onto thumb drives for you. The e-mail and IP address are written down. I made a couple copies, one for each of you. I hope that works.”

“Thank you so much.” Anna swallowed back a lump in her throat.

Tara said, “I have a teenage daughter. I can't imagine what these parents must be going through.”

When Sam and Anna got back into the car, they powered up the laptop and immediately slid the thumb drive into it. Emily's happy face appeared on the screen. They started with the vlog entry dated September 1, 2014, and watched them all the way through to one week ago.

I feel numb.

Nothing.

No. Maybe what I'm feeling is: I should've known. I have known it, in a sense, my whole life. But in spite of everything, I still somehow hoped that he cared about me more than his college.

Oh God.

Breathe, Emily.

Breathe.

I got the paperwork. They didn't want to give it to me. They said there were privacy interests. I threatened to get Heide Herrmann and her Title IX protesters involved; I threatened to tweet. They finally turned it over.

The decision passed through a bunch of red tape and administrators. They decided expulsion was too harsh. I mean, poor Dylan, right? So they overturned it. He could just do community service. He could come back and finish off his time at Tower, and graduate along with his class. They turned a slap on the wrist into a pat on the back.

And the signature at the bottom of it all?

President Barney Shapiro.

My dad decided to let my rapist go.

I feel like a wrecking ball hit my chest. Maybe I'm having a heart attack. Do eighteen-year-old girls have heart attacks? I haven't been able to get a real breath of air since I read that.

It's funny, because I think the committee only found Dylan responsible in the first place because I'm the president's daughter. And then he overruled them.

He chose his college over me.

I thought it was bad, getting spit at. Threatened. I thought it was bad when Whitney wouldn't talk to me. I thought sitting next to Dylan at the committee hearing was bad.

But this. This is the worst.

I hate everyone. Myself included.

And I just don't care. Fuck Dylan. Fuck my dad. Fuck everyone.

I'm publishing these vlogs. I'm gonna talk to Heide Herrmann and find out what we can do to make sure the world knows this story. I'm gonna write about it in the school paper. I'm gonna call the
New York Times
, and scream it from the rooftops. So Dylan will finally get the justice he deserves. So this will never happen to another girl. So my dad can rot in his own corruption.

S
he never got to do those things,” Sam said. “The
New York Times
. The editorial. Her disappearance was very convenient for Dylan. And her father.”

“Or not,” Anna said. “A lot of people are paying attention now that she's gone.”

“True.”

They were still sitting in the car at BlueTube's office building. The sun was setting outside the parking structure. It had taken over an hour to watch all of Emily's videos. As Anna watched, a theory began to take shape.

“Emily said she was going to talk to the Title Nine folks,” Anna said. “Maybe we should have another talk with them ourselves.”

“Let's do it.” Sam started the car.

Fifteen minutes later, they were at the home of Heide Herrmann. She lived in a garden apartment on the scrappy outskirts of Tower. When they knocked, a dog barked at them. After a moment, Heide peeked through the chain, then opened the door.

“Hi! Come on in.”

Anna and Sam walked into Heide's apartment, which also served as her activist headquarters. Her walls were covered in corkboard pinned with leaflets, flyers, and charts of different grassroots organizations with which she was coordinating. A big “Yes Means Yes” poster covered the only wall that didn't have corkboard. CNN played silently on the TV. A laptop was set up on her kitchen table.

Heide shooed away a calico cat so Anna and Sam could sit on her couch. “What's going on?” Heide asked. “Do you have news about Emily?”

“Not really,” Anna said. “We were hoping to ask you some follow-up questions.”

“Sure.”

“Did Emily come to you in the weeks before she disappeared?”

“Yeah. She was really frustrated by the university's response to her case. She wanted to know how she could be heard.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said that it's a struggle we've all faced, and we all find our own way. I suggested an editorial in the papers, or a press release. She mentioned a video log she'd kept. I told her if she was courageous enough, she could publicize those.”

“Hm,” Anna said. She looked at a pamphlet on the wall, announcing the mattress-carrying protest a few nights ago. Heide was listed as the organizer. “That seems pretty tame, from the woman who organized the mattress uprising.”

“Ha. Thanks, I guess.”

A scratching sound came from behind a closed interior door. “Is that your bedroom?” Anna asked, pointing to the door.

“Um, yeah,” Heide said.

“Is someone in there?”

“No, I—what do you mean?”

“I heard some scratching. From inside that room.”

Sam stood up and walked to the door.

“Oh,” Heide said quickly, standing too. “That's just my dog. He doesn't always like visitors, so—”

Sam put her hand on her gun, turned the knob, and threw the door open. In the bright bedroom stood a big yellow mutt. He walked up to Sam, licked her hand, and then gave her a big doggy smile—just like the doggy smile Emily described in her vlogs.

“Fenwick?” Anna said.

The dog turned to the sound of his name. He trotted over to Anna, sniffed her feet, and let her pet him, smiling at her the whole time. He looked healthy, well nourished, and happy.

“You don't mind if I look around the rest of your place, right?” Sam asked.

Heide's eyes got big, but she shook her head. Sam searched through the closet, under the bed, in the bathroom, anywhere a person could hide. There was no one.

“Um.” Heide held a pamphlet and tore little rips across the border. “Am I in trouble for having the dog?”

“Tell me why you think you'd be in trouble,” Anna said.

“Okay, well. I don't think he's officially supposed to be out of the vet clinic. But Emily brought him to my house, said he needed a place to stay and be safe. So uh . . . yeah.”

“When was that?”

“I guess . . . a few days before she disappeared. Maybe the day before.”

Anna's eyes rested on the slim laptop that sat open on Heide's table. It was bright and shiny, without a mark on it. Anna had just had to do a little computer shopping herself, after her own computer was destroyed in Jody's house fire.

“The new MacBook Pro right?” Anna asked.

“Mm-hmm.”

“You must've just gotten it. It was released a few weeks ago.”

“Yeah, you're up on your tech.”

“I just got a new Mac myself. How do you like it?”

“Good. It's got a lot of bells and whistles.”

“I know, right?” Anna said. “What was your old computer?”

“A Mac too.”

“Brand loyalty. So what'd you do with the old one when you were done?”

Heide paused and bit her lip. “Actually, I lent it to Emily.”

“When?”

“I'm not sure. Like, mid-March.”

“A few days before she disappeared.”

“Right.”

“Did she give it back to you?”

“No.”

“So you haven't seen your old Mac since you lent it to her.”

“I guess that's right.”

“Did you report it missing?”

“I'm not gonna report a dead girl for stealing my Mac.”

Anna gave her a long look.

“Do you know what happened to Emily, Heide?”

“Honestly, I have no idea.” Her eyes opened so wide that the whites above her irises were visible. FBI interrogators said this body language was a sign of stress, and often, that someone was lying.

“Well,” Anna said. “I think we might have a lead. All we need is the receipt for your computer.”

“Um. I don't know if I can find that.”

“No problem.” Anna went over to Heide's Mac. “You don't mind, right?” Anna lifted up the computer and looked at the FCC ID number on the back. She pointed it out to Sam, who took a picture of it.

“Thanks, Heide. Please let us know if you have any more information.”

Back in the car, Sam said, “You think Heide hurt Emily?”

“ ‘Hurt' is a broad word. I'm not sure what she did. But I'm sure she's hiding something.”