A Twisted Love Story(53)

“They all end the same way.”

With a lie.

On her way back into the theater, she sees a guy in the distance. He’s walking out the front door, into the parking lot, and he looks a lot like Wes.

No. Couldn’t be. Wes never goes to the movies.

Her mind is playing tricks on her. That rom-com really messed with her head.





44




Bianca doesn’t answer the call from her lawyer. Sends him straight to voicemail. It’s not that he is a bad guy. She likes him—she really does. He’s a friend of her father’s, and he wants her to sue.

“Don’t you want Siphon to be held accountable?” he keeps saying. “Don’t you want them to pay for employing someone like Tanner?”

The first thing she had wanted to do was not get arrested. Now that the police have said they won’t be pressing charges, maybe she’ll think about a lawsuit. Money doesn’t seem like enough, though. Like they can just pay her off and everything will be okay.

But that decision can wait. Money isn’t her concern right now, and it won’t be, as long as Siphon keeps paying her. Her only focus is Wes Harmon.

Because of Joey.

In a roundabout kind of way, what happened to Joey was her fault. She has been to therapy for that, too. It helped a little, because now she doesn’t believe his death is 100 percent on her. Maybe 50 percent.

She was supposed to be at the party that night. This guy Aiden had graduated a year earlier, and he was the only one they knew with his own place. A tiny little studio, cramped with video games and a futon, but still. Anyone with their own apartment was impressive. When Joey told her that Aiden was having a party on that Thursday night, she wanted to go, but she would have to be late.

One of her closest friends, Laurel, had organized a party for the same night, only hers was at Six Flags. A retro thing, as Laurel called it, given that they were sixteen and rarely went to amusement parks anymore. It was summer, no school the next day, and since she didn’t have to be home early, Bianca thought she could split the evening. Half at Six Flags, the other half with Joey at Aiden’s party. The perfect middle ground between her friends and her boyfriend.

The Ferris wheel screwed everything up.

Bianca was on the ride with Laurel, and they were near the top. A view of the whole park spread out before them, and they were talking about which ride to go on next. The abrupt halt of the wheel made their passenger car swing more than usual. Both grabbed the safety bar.

“Whoa,” Laurel said. “That was weird.”

Bianca leaned over the side and looked down. “Maybe someone fell.”

“That’s horrifying.”

“Right?”

No one had fallen. The wheel was broken. Bianca and Laurel were stuck near the top for almost three hours. By the time she was finally back on the ground, thanks to the firefighter rescue, she had a good story to tell but was too late for the party. Joey had already texted to say he was leaving.

Going home. C U tomorrow.

The downside of autocorrect was that the text looked normal: no misspellings, no errors. She couldn’t tell how drunk he was and had no idea he passed out in his car instead of driving.

The next day, she found out he was dead.

He wouldn’t have been that drunk if she had made it to the party. First, because he knew she hated it when he drank too much. Second, because he would rather have had sex than pass out.

Logically, she has always understood it wasn’t her fault the Ferris wheel broke down.

The problem was, logic didn’t help when someone was dead. Not then and not seven years later.



* * *



—

Bianca settles down with a cup of coffee and her computer. Her wallpaper is now a picture of Joey. Reminding her why she’s doing this, and reminding her the police had forgotten about him.

Strange that she is working with Karen now. But obviously they need the help. Her help.

Back to the emails.

It’s a time-consuming task to go through seven years of emails. Wes has filed them into a slew of folders, archiving an extraordinary number of messages. But Bianca is thorough. Not everyone is. Years of snooping have taught her how to find things others miss. When people have something to hide, they try to be sneaky. Most suck at it.

Attachments, for example. They aren’t always what they seem. An innocuous spreadsheet might not be a spreadsheet at all. In theory, it’s a great way to hide things. Most people won’t open every attachment to see what’s there. Bianca does.

She started from the beginning, when Wes was first hired, and read through the emails in chronological order. Exactly what she was trying to do in the office when Tanner had interrupted her.

If you want to follow the story line of someone’s career, and life, this is the way to do it. Starting in the middle doesn’t make sense. It’s like walking into a movie fifteen minutes after it starts. You miss the whole setup.

Same with Wes. The setup is in his earliest messages.

Back then, he had given the email address to friends and former coworkers, a number of whom sent their congratulations. Most came from professional email addresses; a few, from personal accounts. A lot of information to sift through.

She makes a list of the email addresses that look personal, noting the ones with actual names, for later research. Most of the messages are invitations to parties or dinners or disc golf games. She spends hours wading through them, finding nothing useful.