Someone in the computer room coughed and everyone winced, then immediately turned accusatory, eyes darting around as if they wanted to burn the culprit at the stake.
Callie made sure her mask was in place. Junkies always ended up on the wrong end of the pointing finger. She used her left hand to reach for the mouse. For a change, her right hand had decided to go completely numb this morning. Her entire body was sore from her long crawl through the attic space. She was so disgustingly weak. The most strenuous thing Callie had done in the last few months was arm-wrestle Dr. Jerry for animal crackers. The competition usually ended in a draw. Neither of them wanted the other to lose.
She pulled the keyboard close. She highlighted the search bar, but she didn’t type anything in. Her eyes scanned the monitor. The Fulton County Tax Assessor’s office revealed that the Tenants still owned the Canyon Road house.
Callie should tell Leigh. She should text her the information. She should call.
She tapped her finger on the mouse. She glanced around. There was a camera in the corner, its black eye silently watching. The DeKalb County system was more on top of its security than the City of Atlanta. Callie had promised Leigh that she would go to the downtown library, but Leigh had promised Callie twenty-three years ago that they would never have to think about Buddy Waleski ever again.
She opened Facebook on the computer. She typed in Sidney Winslow Atlanta.
Only one page came back, which was surprising because girls these days seemed to all be named variations of the same. It wasn’t like when Callie was growing up and people teased her about not being able to correctly pronounce her own name.
Sidney’s banner photo showed the outside of what used to be called Grady High School. The most recent post was from 2012, a picture of eight teenage girls crammed together at a concert inside the Georgia Dome. Judging by their conservative attire and the number of crosses in the background, Callie assumed Passion 2012 was not her kind of scene.
Just as Facebook would no longer be Sidney Winslow’s scene. Andrew’s fiancée did not fall into the Facebook demographic, where a twenty-something might run into an embarrassing photo their parents had posted back in the mid-aughts.
Callie went to TikTok and hit the Sidney Winslow jackpot. She felt her eyebrows arch at the volume of videos. She supposed this was what it was like to be a youngster these days. Sidney’s social media was practically a part-time job. Her profile photo showed a close-up of a pierced lip that had been generously smeared with purple lipstick, a clear indicator that the religious fervor had been a passing phase.
There were thousands of videos listed, though Callie couldn’t play them because the library didn’t allow you to use sound without headphones. From the descriptions under the stills, she quickly sussed out that Sidney Winslow was a twenty-five-year-old student seeking an incredibly practical doctorate of psychiatry at Emory University.
“Well,” Callie said, because she finally understood why Leigh’s tone dropped to a register of disgust every time she said Sidney Winslow’s name.
When Sidney was on campus or waxing poetic behind the wheel of her car, she kept her hair pulled back, make-up just so, a colorful hat on her head or jaunty scarf around her neck. Nights out called for a very different look. The girl basically transformed into an updated version of Phil’s geriatric goth. Her tight shirts and leather pants were offset by an impressive number of piercings. Heavy make-up. Pouty lips. Shirt collar low enough to offer an enticing glimpse of her breasts.
Callie had to admit that her breasts were fantastic.
But she also had to wonder why Andrew Tenant was not part of Sidney’s well-documented life. She kept scrolling through the stills, finding not even a passing mention of Andrew, which was strange considering they were about to be married. She checked who was following Sidney and found many Sidney-like clonegirls along with a smattering of young men who seemed to prefer to be photographed shirtless. And fair enough, because they looked damn good shirtless.
She clicked to see who Sidney was following. Dua Lipa, Janelle Monáe , Halsey, Bruno Mars, countless #bromiesexuals, but no Andrew.
Callie switched to Instagram and, after clicking enough times to put a cramp in her finger, finally found a photo of them both together. Two years ago. Backyard barbecue. Sidney was beaming at the camera. Andrew looked reluctant, his head down, his lips pressed into a thin, white, I am humoring you but hurry line. Callie had to think if you were a rapist and murderer, you wanted to avoid social media.
He’d picked the wrong girl for the task. There were thousands of posts across the platforms, almost always accompanied by a generously poured container of alcohol. Drinking wine at parties. Drinking beer at bars. Drinking martinis on a deck. Drinking mojitos at the beach. Drinking slim cans of rock and rye in a car. Callie shook her head, because the young woman’s life was a train wreck. And Callie said this as someone whose life was a train wreck inside of a crashing airplane inside of the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb.