Lies We Bury(56)

“Em? I mean—Claire?”

“What the hell is this?” My voice mirrors hers now. I can’t tear my eyes from my own frozen image—hand raised and preparing to throw the Tru Lives reporter’s phone into traffic. “Who did this?”

Typing comes through the speaker, and Jenessa must be researching the video from her desktop. “The poster is anonymous, some dumb pseudonym with numbers after it. It was uploaded this morning, and I just saw a hashtag about it on Twitter. The good news is you can’t see your face, since it was filmed from behind.”

“But everyone already assumes it is me—that the headline is true?” My words are shaky, and I feel ashamed of how much I hope she answers no.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. But we only see your back. Hard to tell who it is from that angle.”

I click the “Play” button and watch my own antics from last week—so self-righteous, enraged. I approach the woman, lure her in with my calm appearance, then snatch the phone and heave it onto the freeway like a maniac. The number of thumbs-downs vastly outweighs the thumbs-ups in the comments section.

Run. You run away from those crime scenes and that case as fast as you can.

“I look insane,” I murmur, holding the phone at my chin. “Can we tell anything else about the poster?”

Jenessa types more through the phone. “Not that I know of. This is the only video uploaded by the account. What were you doing anyway? Who is that woman?”

“She’s a reporter. For some TV show. She caught me off guard.”

Jenessa snorts. “Is that why you threw her phone?”

I lift my eyes toward the low-hanging clouds. “I threw her phone because she was going to record me and expose me, and I didn’t want her to follow me again. And I was pissed.”

“Just like the video’s title.”

“Shit,” I moan. “Who was filming from around the corner? She mentioned she received a letter from Serena Delle with directions on where to find me.”

“Who’s Serena Delle?”

“A high school classmate. It doesn’t matter.” I lean against a steel lamppost, run a hand down my face. “Who would benefit from this video being published? A clip of me acting like a violent jackass but which clearly has some traction with people . . .”

Jenessa is silent on the other end, and the answer comes to me.

“I gotta go.”

“What? Who did it? Who do you think?”

“I’ll call you later.” I hang up, wishing I had another phone to throw.

The drive across downtown is quick and gives me just enough time to visualize all the ways I’m going to kill him.

Shia taps away on his laptop in the window of his favorite coffee shop, Stump City, the one he first suggested we meet at, where he shared he always comes to write. I park across the street, then march up the walkway. Flinging open the door earns me a hard look from the cashier. People texting on their phones—or maybe watching a certain viral video—look up at the brash jangle of the entryway’s bells. Shia remains engrossed in his screen.

Get a grip. Relax. Skewer him with words, not fists. Don’t prove the video right.

“Shia,” I say, standing over him.

He tears his head from his laptop with a start. His face melts into a smile, and he tucks hair out of his face. “Hey. We should have carpooled from Trois Croissants.”

I slide into the empty seat at his table and close his laptop. “Why did you do it?”

His eyes narrow. “Do what?”

“Record me with the reporter. Upload the video to YouTube.” I dart a glance around us to make sure no one is listening. One man catches my eye. I lean closer to Shia. “I don’t know why you used a high school classmate’s name to sign your letter, but you would have known all about Serena Delle and thought she was a good cover. You told that reporter where to find me, and who I am, so she could antagonize me. Then you recorded me smashing her phone.”

“What?” He scoffs; then the humor fades from his expression. “You think I would sell your location to someone? Why? What’s in that scenario for me—a more guarded and closed-off Claire?”

Two men enter the coffee shop, initiating the jangle of the door handle’s bells. More people to take note of our terse conversation. People who may be following me, hoping for another round of internet fodder. Coffee brews from behind the counter, and the smell is heady, filling the air, giving me the illusion of a caffeine contact high, adding to my adrenaline and nerves.

“Because it’ll help your book. Because if you drum up more interest from the public, your book will sell better when it’s released and your publisher will be even happier with you. It’s the same reason you use a police scanner to show up at crime scenes you think are relevant to my story.”

Shia stares at me without speaking. Sudden doubt punts my anger and replaces it with the feeling that I’m wrong and I am making a jackass of myself.

“You think that of me?” he asks in a low voice.

“I don’t know you,” I reply. We’ve only had four meetings so far, all of them around or under an hour and within the last week.

On a basic level, I know he tips the server 20 percent because he says he remembers how challenging the service industry can be; he stops recording our conversations whenever I want to speak off the record; he’s shared insight on my family, details I never knew; he’s shared that he grew up in the foster system and had an awful start, too. All these facts, while endearing maybe, don’t explain what truly drives him—why he’s obsessed with my story the way that he is and why he’s better than any of the other bottom dwellers out there seeking to exploit my life for their amusement.