Girl, 11 by Amy Clarke (grave mercy TXT) 📗

Sash and Natalie left once the snow finally let up on Sunday afternoon, and Elle spent the night recording the remaining script for the week. Tina would tie everything together and make it sound flawless over the next few days. Episode six would feature their bombshell discussion with a woman Elle had tracked down just last week. She couldn’t wait to reveal their findings to the world.

After she sent the audio files to Tina, she collapsed into bed in the middle of the night and was asleep within minutes.

Monday morning dawned sharp and white through the cracks in their bedroom curtains. Martín pulled her close, slipped a warm hand under her shirt and caressed her back. Elle blinked awake and smiled up at him.

“Morning,” she murmured, throat still raw from last night’s recording.

“Hi, there,” he whispered before pressing his lips to hers. He rolled into her, covering her upper body with his. “You were up late.”

“Episode six.” She kissed his neck, inhaling the faint smell of yesterday’s cologne. “All wrapped up and sent to Tina.”

“This is the big one?” His hand slipped between her legs, and her eyes fluttered shut.

“Mm, yes. Probably still a letdown after last week’s, but it’ll be hard to top that.” Her breath caught in her throat as he stroked her. Fumbling under the sheet, she smiled when she found him already naked.

He chuckled. “If I didn’t know you better, I would swear you did that on purpose.”

She opened her eyes to study his face. “Did what?”

His other hand worked her pajamas down her legs and then they were together, skin on skin. Mouth next to her ear, he whispered as he moved, “‘It’ll be hard to top that.’”

Laughter burst from her lips, cut short by a moan as he pressed himself even closer. His body vibrated with another chuckle as he kissed her neck. And then they stopped talking altogether.

An hour later, after Martín left for work, Elle logged in to her computer to check her messages. There were several emails from her executive producer at the podcast network, exclaiming over the ratings from the episode that had dropped on Thursday. Her marketing coordinator was planning to up their radio advertising and pay for the drive-time slot to lure new Gen-X listeners who’d been teens or young adults when TCK was active. There were hundreds of unread emails, but she could see that Tina had been through thousands more and tagged them based on their filing system. The thick scattering of red was concerning.

Red was for messages that were threatening enough to consider reporting.

Not in the mood to deal with those at the moment, she flipped over to Leo’s profile on Facebook again. None of his family members had responded to her queries, although several messages had been left on read. Disappointing, but not surprising. She started going through his profile pictures, searching for a woman’s face in the year since he’d separated from his wife. He obviously wasn’t Facebook official with anyone, but he might still have a girlfriend.

No luck. Every picture was of him alone stretching back nearly three years, before she finally saw him cheek to cheek with a Latina woman wearing her thick straight hair in a high ponytail. Elle clicked on the photo and did a little victory dance in her chair when she saw the woman was tagged. Luisa Toca. This must be the ex-wife. Elle went to her profile.

Luisa’s profile picture was the Guatemalan flag, a section of white with a coat of arms surrounded on either side by strips of pure, bright blue. Her status updates oscillated between English and Spanish. One from three months before caught Elle’s eye: it announced that Luisa’s mother was moving in with her. A look through her pictures revealed the back and side views of dozens of women’s hair in various styles and colors with a downtown salon tagged in each one. Elle called the salon, but the manager said Luisa hadn’t showed up for her shifts in the last few days and wasn’t answering her phone.

Elle clicked over to the section about Luisa’s family and sent up a silent prayer of thanks—her mom’s account was basically empty, but she had one. And now Elle had a new name.

After sending Luisa a private message, Elle set about finding her address. Since starting an investigative podcast, she had learned that people had no idea how much of their private information was easily accessible online to those who know where to look. Current and former addresses, phone numbers, places of work, even social security numbers are publicly available if you go to the right site. Scrubbing the information is possible, but expensive. Eight years ago, Elle had paid a lot of money to get rid of that information about herself, but it was worth it. A new married name, a new future—no more being asked to rehash the worst time of her life. Definitely worth it.

She hit a dead end looking for Luisa’s information, but she struck gold with the mother. After an hour, Elle found Maria Alvarez’s address and got in the car, heading toward Fridley.

Most of the roads were cleared of the previous night’s snowfall, but the ground still sparkled with the fresh, gauzy layer. As much as she hated winter, there was something magical about the way a blizzard transformed the city into something brand-new. The day felt unblemished, unsullied—too pure to exist in the same universe where she had walked in to find Leo’s dead body. Whatever had happened before, this was a new start.

On the way, she fastened her microphone and headset over her stocking cap. Over the years, she had found it was always better to record a thought even if she never used it on the podcast, rather than find herself with a gap in the episode and no monologue to fill it.

“Three days ago, I received an email from someone claiming to have a tip about TCK. I went to meet