I’d love to talk with you more about this if you’re so inclined. If not, I understand. Just know that I’m on your side.
I read over the message twice—once for grammar and typos, once for “Do I have any right to say these things to a stranger?” And then, without thinking too long about it, I hold my breath and tap send. It feels like pulling a trigger, and after I do, I stare at the screen, my heart pounding when the little check appears in the chat window: Rachel Ruley has read the message.
Then come the pulsing ellipses at the bottom of the window. I watch and wait. . . .
The ellipses stop. Start again. Stop.
“What are you typing?” I whisper. But no words appear. The ellipses stop.
It’s six thirty, so I put a frozen meal in the microwave. I eat it slowly and in silence, thinking about Rachel Ruley, how it must have felt to read the news stories. Her son’s murderer, dead by his own murderous hand.
Once I’m done eating and I’ve washed the dishes, I open my laptop again, head back to Facebook, and open the message. There is still no reply from Rachel Ruley. She has nothing to say to me, and that’s fine.
I go back to my design files—the Vassar professor’s website, the specs I recently sent to Glynne. After I finish all the updates, I upload them and go to my website email and send them to my client. Once I’m done, though, I notice that my website has received two new emails: one from Glynne titled These look great!
They’d better. They’re free. When I open it up, though, she says she has “just a few thoughts” and suggests meeting for coffee tomorrow morning to discuss them. I debate asking her if she’s paying for the coffee at least, but instead I just type, Sure, adding an exclamation point to show how truly accommodating I am.
The second email is from what looks like a meaningless series of numbers. Spam, I think. But then I notice the subject line: Justice.
Coincidental spam? I open it anyway. How can I not?
The message contains one word, and then a link to a site: a random-looking series of numbers followed not by .com or .net but by .onion.
I try clicking on it, but nothing happens. I copy it onto my search bar, but all I get is the blank screen and the note about being unable to access the site. I’m feeling a little panicky, as though I’ve been treading water for hours, and this strange numbered site is an island—a mysterious, looming thing that could save my life if I just find my way there. I pick up my phone, go to my recent calls, and click on Matt’s number. It rings just once, and then he answers. “You again.” He says it gently.
“Hey, listen. I have a computer question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“Can you tell me what dot onion means after a website?”
“Well . . . yeah. But why are you asking?”
I stare at the one word on my screen and the lie comes to me fast. “A client. She . . . um. She wants to show me a website as an example, but the link doesn’t seem to work.”
“Yeah? Well, tbh, I wouldn’t bother with that client.”
I sigh. Second time he’s used the expression tbh in two separate phone calls. I suppose that when you hang out with a twenty-five-year-old all day long, text-speak finds its way into your lexicon. “Why not?”
“Websites that end in onion are on the dark web. You can’t reach the site because you don’t have an unencrypted server.”
“The dark web? Really?”
“Yep.”
“How . . . strange . . .”
“You doing websites for hit men, now?”
I force out a laugh. “I guess I should vet my clients better. Thanks for the info.”