This Story Might Save Your Life(93)

“Thanks to Benny,” Sarah says, pointedly, “it looks like she’s gonna be okay.”

Keller nods down at the table. “I’m glad to hear it. Very glad.” She turns, like she’s about to leave, but then stops. “One thing.”

I exchange a wary glance with Sarah.

“My team was able to geotag those social media posts. From your number-one fan.”

My head snaps back. “Could you have done this all along? When we first started complaining?”

“That’s the thing,” Keller says. “There were no complaints in the system. Not one.”

“What are you talking about? Xander filed multiple times. Online and in person.”

“Did he ever show you proof?”

The blood slows in my veins. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, most of those geotags match Joy and Xander’s house.”

Sarah connects the dots first. “It was Xander?”

“But—” I shake my head. “He was in some of the photos.”

“He was,” Keller says. “And he paid for those. We found transactions linking him to three separate paparazzi. Turns out he had the same very specific instructions for all of them: to not be seen, and to make sure he was occasionally photographed alongside her. He told them it was to drum up interest for a project you were working on.” Noting our slack jaws, Keller adds, “He took quite a few as well. We’ve traced those to his phone and browsing history. He didn’t do much to conceal his actions beyond hitting the delete button.”

“Oh my god.” I don’t want to believe it, even as I absolutely believe it. “Was Ted one of the paps he paid? Or Emil?”

Keller shakes her head. “Apart from the video Ted posted in August, we’ve got nothing tying either of them to any published images of Joy prior to her disappearance. Ted even claims he saw Xander sneaking a few photos in the supermarket once. Says they showed up online later that day.”

My eye twitches at the memory of my neighbor trying to tell me this. “But—but what about the hug?”

“The what?”

I remind her about the picture outside my Zen Den, the picture Joy wrote about in her memoir.

“Ah. Right. Not Ted,” Keller says. “Xander paid a pretty penny for that one too.”

“But—” I refuse to accept it. “Then what was Quinn talking about?”

Keller doesn’t follow, so Sarah quickly recounts our conversation with Quinn at the bakery. That shit with Ted and Emil. “We thought it meant…” She grabs my arm. “When did those Shake Awake illnesses make the news?”

It takes me a second. “August.”

“So around the same time Ted took the viral video?”

“Just before,” I confirm with a nod. And then, recalling Ted’s adamant claim that he’d never met Emil before, I see where Sarah’s going with this. “That shit with Ted and that shit with Emil. The viral video and the Shake Awake scandal. Two separate things that happened around the same time.”

“Huh.” Sarah rests her chin on her palm.

“I can see why you were confused,” Keller says with a sigh.

It feels like a peace offering, this comment, this information, but I’m still angry with her, and I know she’s not done with us yet. “Is that all?”

She studies me for a second. Nods. “I’m glad you found your girl,” she says. And then leaves before I can respond.

Sarah drives me home when visiting hours are over. The cameramen have thinned in the fading twilight, but based on their questions it’s clear the news hasn’t reached them yet. A part of me wants to shout at the top of my lungs to the purple sky, “She’s alive! Joy’s alive!” But then I see Ted. Even knowing what I know now, my feelings are still complicated. I decide they don’t deserve the scoop.

“You’re eventually going to have to make things right with him, you know,” my sister says, dishing out Mexican takeout.

“Maybe I’ll move.”

“Or maybe you can just buy him a new camera.”

“Maybe.” I unwrap my burrito and take a bite. For the first time in days I can taste what I’m eating.





Joy Moore


Day Eight

The older detective, the one with weathered skin who calls herself Keller, is very thorough. “So you told him you were leaving him, and then what?” she prompts.

My doctors kept the detectives out for a full twenty-four hours due to my drug-induced haze. I still feel as though I’ve been run over by a traveling circus, but they need answers, and apparently my original responses weren’t good enough because Keller wants me to repeat everything in case I forgot something the first time.

“Then,” I say, “he hit me. A few times. And then I kneed him in the balls.”

Like last time, her eyes briefly flash with respect. “And then?”

“He lost his balance and hit his head on the recording table. It knocked him out for a minute. That’s how I got away.”

“And how did you get to the shelter?”

“I flagged down the first car I saw.” There’s a tickle in my throat, and I fight against it, but the cough wins. I hold my stomach in pain.