I nod curtly. “Can you ask Kace to come in? I’d like to make an appointment with him as well.” So I can find out more about her.
“Sure. What we say here is private, right?”
“Yes, I won’t tell him anything. But I do have some homework for you. First, finish the sticky reminders and keep logging the smiles.”
She drops her hand to the table to grab her notes. “Anything else?”
“Write a letter to Kace … a suicide note.”
5
Interviewing
Eleanor Devero
Kace stops at the drive-thru of the coffee joint and orders both of us black coffee. As we wait to move ahead in the crowded lane, we sit and busy ourselves with our own things. I stare out the window of the passenger side, squinting behind my dark glasses. The sun shines too bright for someone who prefers to sleep most of the day. Kace fiddles on his phone, checking the weather and his messages. Neither of us looks at each other.
If I want to analyze the space between us and the alignments of our bodies, I’d easily come up with a preliminary conclusion on our status, but the first rule about reading body language is not to ask questions you don’t want answers to.
I don’t want to address the fact we’re supposed to be over, not getting better. Nolan’s stupid idea to write a suicide note to Kace turned into lots of tears and me rushing into his arms for a hug.
What the fuck did Nolan not understand about me trying to distance Kace? The sticky notes, the smiling, the imagining Kace reading my death note—they’re tearing through me and making me second-guess this whole finding the Bullet Man thing. I’ve gone from hating Kace to convincing myself the love I feel for him isn’t love, but fear of being completely alone—fear of what I’ll do in the solitude.
It’s all bullshit.
Putting things on paper solidifies my thoughts—it makes them real and turns them into evidence. Conspiracy to act is hard to prove, but evidence is rock-solid. Most of the smiles on my stupid log are because of Kace, and most of the sticky notes are of things that remind of Kace. In the letter, I pleaded with him not to blame himself because I loved him.
So I ripped the numbered page out and shoved it between the couch cushions until I had a moment to burn it. I didn’t want him to see it, nor did I want to reread it and feel the need to cling to Kace, like my own damn life depends on him.
“The app this person used was called ‘BlackBoard,’ used by college students and high school students mostly.” Kace draws me out of my mild panic attack and waits for the woman to take his order. The attack plan starts with interviewing the couriers to see what we can drum up from them.
I swivel my head toward him and glance down at the application. “How many applications for this type of thing are there?”
“For jobs? Thousands.”
Instead of the grouchy woman, a young, peppy girl welcomes him and takes our order.
I scroll through the phone. “For shady jobs mostly.” I click on one of the jobs, and obviously, it’s for prostitution. “Looking for a garage to store my car. Clean, no cobwebs, no security-protection preferred.” I crinkle my nose at Kace. “Security-protection?”
“No pimps.”
“This is gross.” I click on another one. No pictures are on these postings, just contact information. “Looking for a babysitter.”
“Guy who prefers jailbait. A lot of high school girls get money from things like this.”
“A lot of young girls probably get killed for things like this.” I hold my phone up in the air and wiggle it between us. “Why are these applications legal?”
“Elle, this stuff is all over the newspaper, on job boards, social media—apps just make it easier to find.” He pulls forward to the window and hands his debit card over. “If it makes you feel better, they get shut down quick.”
“It does.”
The woman greets him and exchanges his card for our breakfast. He hands me a bag; the smell of melted butter hits my nostrils the second I open it. Once the woman gives him the receipt and the card back, he shuts the window and pulls out onto the street, heading in the direction of the precinct.
“The precursor to this one was called ‘WhiteBoard’ and before that ‘DryErase.’ It’s a group of creators who do it, and they always register under different names. They comply when we ask, and within a week, it’s shut down. Then a new one pops up.”
I hand him his plain donut. He has the same thing for breakfast every morning: a plain donut and a bagel with egg, ham, and cheese.
“Wait!” I shout before he takes a bite.
“Hell no! Don’t you mess my donut up by putting glue on it.” He switches it over to his left hand, out of my reach.
“Glue is edible,” I counter, holding the yellow piece with the number sixty on it. “It’ll be the first time you eat glue-glazed donuts.”
“Not even for that first, Elle.”
“Fine.” I reach into the back and unwrap his bagel, plopping the sticky note between the top and the ham. “Sixty.” After my session with Nolan, I managed to get rid of a few more sticky reminders.
He stops at a red light and presses a kiss to my temple.
My heart stops again. With all these skipped beats, I should be dead by now.
“Anyway, we haven’t figured out why the apps even comply with us, but I guess it’s to prove they aren’t involved or responsible for their users’ intents.”
“They should be.”
“No. I mean, how many people use social media to stalk and murder their victims?”
I curl my lip in his direction. “Only if you want to kill someone. Normal people don’t run around stalking people.”
“Normal people don’t run around setting people on fire and pretending like they’re strapped with enough explosives to take down a city.”
“He deserved it.”
“What?”
Shit. “The guy burned his son alive and shot him twenty-six times while he watched, all because he was jealous. Sorry, but I don’t feel bad for the dead, charred murderer. I do feel bad for the dad, though.”
“For the murderer?”
“For the man who has been suffering. Have you never thought about hurting the person who killed Tyler?”
“Have you?” The condescending tone in his voice warns off the truth, sitting right at the tip of my tongue. He would never understand.
“I’d like to land a few punches, yeah.”
He cracks a smile. “You had me worried there, babe.”
Yep. This will never end well. “So you were saying about the Internet?”
“Right. The Internet isn’t to blame because it offers motive and opportunity. You can’t charge it with accessory to murder either.”
We both harrumph at the thought, and I dig into my toast.
“I guess you’ve got a point. It’s hard to keep up with things if they keep giving people opportunities like this.” I wash my mouthful down with coffee. “I feel like we’re outdated, and we were teens not that long ago.”
He shrugs and smirks in my direction. “Working the corner is considered old-school.”