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

The email went on for several paragraphs, but there was no other personal information. She archived it.

After a few more, she felt like someone had poured a bucket of fire ants on her head.

Tina sat silent, watching her read them. “You okay?” she asked when Elle started topping up her glass of wine.

“I’m fine. Thanks for going through these. Are you okay?”

Her friend nodded. “Sure.” Then she shrugged. “I mean, no, not really. Like, I’m a business analyst, Elle. I didn’t exactly train to deal with these kinds of creeps. The most heated I get when writing an email is saying shit like ‘per my last email’ to my coworkers, and half the time I delete it because I sound like a bitch. I’m not going to lie, I had to smoke a joint after reading those this weekend.”

Elle licked across her lower lip, tasting the bitter tang of red wine. Her tongue was purple on the web cam. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to keep reading them if it’s too hard. I really do get it.”

Tina waved her off. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got my girlfriend here, and she likes it when I’m needy.” She winked, but her smile didn’t go all the way to her eyes.

“Thanks, Tina. Take a break if you need to, though.”

“Will do. And you . . . just, please take care of yourself, okay? You might want to consider calling Ayaan, letting her know about the threats.”

Elle nodded, but she knew that she wouldn’t. For all she knew, Ayaan’s department was still working to make sure she had nothing to do with Leo’s murder. They probably wouldn’t look kindly on a requested favor right now.

When she hung up with Tina, Elle closed out the email. There were still hundreds of unreads, but she had hit her limit on the red-flagged menaces for tonight. If she had her way, she would shut the whole thing down and go downstairs to watch a movie with Martín. But she had been avoiding this for days, and she needed to stay engaged. Her listeners did their best to give her good information; the least she could do was listen to them.

She opened her social media. Her post with the link to episode five, the one from last Thursday, had more than ten thousand comments. Elle took an extra-large gulp of wine and started weeding her way through.

@truecrimeobsess

@castillomn love your latest episode—holy shit! *mic drop*

@TCKlives

@truecrimeobsess @castillomn ikr? Can’t believe she scored that interview. That’s our girl, though. If anyone can get people to finally look at this case again, it’s Elle Castillo.

@iowafairy

@castillomn I WAS NOT PREPARED OMG. How did you find her???

Elle scrolled through, liking the encouraging and exclamatory tweets, answering questions where she could. But when she swapped over to her direct messages, she saw the Requests inbox lit up with notifications from people she didn’t follow. She took another sip of wine and clicked them open.

She should have known better. People had gotten more brazen in public comments over the years, but the private messages were always worse, and these were no exception. She’d been part of a panel discussing online harassment at last year’s CrimeCon, alongside four other women who ran high-profile investigative podcasts. The moderator had put together a slideshow of comments from their mentions with the usernames blurred out. They were hardly able to guess whether a comment was directed at them or one of the other panelists—they all saw similar fare in their own feeds every day. The only exception was the Black woman, who had to deal with both sexism and racism on her accounts.

To be a vocal woman online was to face constant abuse for the things you said and did, no matter how meaningless or innocent.

Elle started scanning the direct messages. Unlike the show’s email inbox, her social media accounts were hers alone; Tina didn’t have access, and therefore couldn’t filter anything.

It was mostly trolls, the people who thought they knew this case better than she did and were determined to discount everything she said. Most of the messages followed the same theme: she was lying about her sources; she was misleading people about the police investigation; she was fearmongering by implying that TCK was still alive when most experts had concluded that it was him in the burned-out cabin. No one was outright threatening, but there was an ominous undertone to the messages. One person had messaged simply, Careful what you wish for, and for some reason it chilled her more than any of the others. Her investigation was being closely watched, and some people weren’t impressed.

Her phone buzzed and she jumped, reaching for it with shaky hands. The police station’s number flashed on the screen.

“Hello?” she said, sounding drunker than she felt.

“Castillo, are you working my case?”

Knowing it would piss him off, Elle sat back in her chair and said, “Who is this?”

“It’s Detective Sam Hyde. I know you’re nosing around my case, and I’d like you to come in and explain yourself. This is completely unprofessional, and I could have you charged with obstructing an investigation.”

That snapped her into focus. “Detective Hyde, I’m sure you’re aware that I’ve worked closely with Minneapolis PD on a number of recent cases.” It was only one, but the red wine had loosened her tongue. “I am confident you’re not suggesting that I don’t have a right as a private citizen to go talk to other citizens about any topic I so choose.”

“You told a woman her son had been murdered.”

“I told a woman her ex-son-in-law had been murdered. Several days after the fact, I might add.”

For a moment, there was silence on the other end of the line. Then: “I’d like you to come into the station and tell me what you know. Maybe tomorrow, since you obviously shouldn’t be driving tonight. And then if you don’t mind very much, I’d like you to stay the fuck away from my case.”

Part II

The Reset

12

Elle

January 15, 2020

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