Never Tell

Chapter Twenty-Seven

But my neighbor is taking me to Small Claims Court. He claims that Peanut scratched up his front door, but Peanut is innocent. Who is going to represent me? Who is going to represent Peanut?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but the district attorney’s office does not defend either individuals or dogs in private, civil matters. Wait. What’s that in your bag? Is that Peanut? You can’t be having a dog in here, sir.”

The receptionist on the fifteenth floor of the courthouse clearly had her hands full. She waved Ellie and Rogan back to Max’s office.

“Hey, you.” He stood to give her a kiss, but she turned her cheek. Even if only in front of Rogan, it seemed inappropriate to share PDA with an assistant district attorney in his office.

Rogan apparently noticed the exchange. “Damn, Hatcher. You’re cold.”

Max offered Rogan a handshake. “About time someone took my side. Turns out it’s your lucky day, guys. Social Circle was pretty cooperative, as far as these Web companies go. We weren’t gonna get the IP addresses for every comment posted without a fight, but we settled on the ones that were obviously threatening.”

All Rogan had to hear was the word fight, followed by settled, to protest. “That’s some bullshit—”

So much for the male bonding. “Rogan, do you currently know anything about the origin of the other threats on the website? And do you actually need information about the other comments? Because, you know, if tracking down the identity of the Illinois housewife who posted ‘You go, girl’ three weeks ago is essential to the investigation, then by all means, I’ll drag Social Circle into court.”

Rogan brushed a nonexistent piece of lint from his suit lapel and looked directly at Ellie. “I do believe someone has picked up on your tone.”

Ellie flashed a proud smile. “I think that means we’ll take what we can get for now.”

“That’s what I figured. Here’s the deal: the blog’s been up for about seven months. Pretty typical traffic initially for an amateur blog—meaning, zilch. But she kept at it, and apparently people started to find her and to comment. Other bloggers started to cross-link to her site. That all leads more people to the blog. Anyway, she was up to more than ten thousand hits after five months. Twenty thousand as of last week.”

Ellie couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to read someone else’s self-analysis. “Seriously? Reading all that therapy-lite garbage made my head hurt.”

“But get this: since that first threat was posted Saturday night, traffic has skyrocketed. Yesterday, she had seventy thousand hits. The commenters talk more about the threats than her actual posts.”

“Adrienne gave us some mumbo jumbo about wanting her readers to see how people try to silence survivors. She never mentioned it had also been good for business.”

“Very good, in fact. But now let’s get down to brass tacks. Where did these posts come from? We already suspected that the post on Saturday night came from Julia’s laptop. Sure enough, the IP info for that comment comes back to her computer, just as we expected.”

“And the rest?” Ellie asked.

“That’s where things get pretty interesting. The other comments all originated from Manhattan, but not from Julia’s computer. We’ve got a couple that came from Equinox gym by Union Square. Another gym on the Upper West Side. Apple Store in the Meatpacking District. Whoever’s doing this hides their tracks pretty well.”

Rogan sighed. “We can take the times of the posts at each place and see if we get lucky with video.”

“But to what end?” Ellie asked. “We still don’t even know that Julia Whitmire was murdered, and we certainly don’t know there’s any connection between her death and these comments. After getting a feel for the kinds of kids who go to Casden, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those brats somehow found out about Adrienne’s website and decided to screw with their friend’s mom. Julia might not have even known that someone used her computer.”

Rogan’s phone buzzed at his waist. He held up a finger and excused himself to the hallway.

Ellie plopped down in Max’s chair and stretched her legs out. “Seriously, Max, you should’ve seen this Casden School.” Like her, Max was strictly a public school kid. “Creepy headmaster more concerned with secrecy than education. Spoiled sociopaths drugged up by parents too busy to notice their kids are little monsters.”

“Tell me how you really feel.”

“Trust me, it’s worse than I can even make it sound. After a day on the Upper East Side, even Bill Whitmire doesn’t look so bad. Thank God I’ll never have to deal with any of that stuff.”

“Public schools for the next generation, too, huh?”

“More like the miracle of birth control.”

“Ah, for now, but what about when that biological clock starts ticking?”

“For now and forever. Or I guess until menopause. Then it’s hot flashes, a hairy upper lip, and—oh yeah—still no kids.”

“That’s not funny, Ellie.”

“I’m not trying to be funny. Okay, maybe a little, with the hair thing, but—”

“But someday—”

“No. No someday. No clock. Clock never ticked, never will tick.” She heard Rogan’s voice in the hallway, and then lowered her own. “I mean, you have met me, right?”

Max let out a huff. “Are you kidding me with this?”

“Of course not. You knew that.”

“Um, I think that’s the kind of thing I would have noticed. We’ve been dating for a year.”

“Plus two and a half weeks,” she corrected. She remembered the timing of their first date, because one night later she killed a man. She and Max had celebrated their one-year anniversary by going back to the same restaurant of that first meal.

“And this is how you tell me you’re not interested in children? When you’re venting about yet another run-in you’ve had with people you’ve deemed not quite as morally good as you? Really nice, Ellie.”

“Now who’s the one not being so nice?”

“Isn’t this the kind of thing normal people work out together? Don’t normal people talk about these things and negotiate?”

She swiveled in his chair, fiddling with the documents from Social Circle. “Fine, then, I’m not normal, because, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to negotiate. It’s not like there’s a split of opinion about one kid or three, like we’d meet in the middle at two or something. I can’t have half a baby. It’s a totally different life, and one I’m not at all interested in.”

“You could have told me that.”

“And you could have told me you were all into the idea of babies and diapers and playdates and the exhaustion of having a whole other human being need every ounce of your energy every single day. I just assumed we were on the same page on this.”

“Well, we’re not.”

She heard Rogan saying goodbye to whoever was on the phone. “Can we please talk about this later?” she said.

Max nodded, but in that moment it was clear something had shifted. Since their very first conversation, she had wanted to see only what they shared: commitment to the job, dark humor, and a certain matter-of-factness about life. She had been so proud of herself that, for once, she was in a relationship in which she emphasized only those attributes she should cherish.

But now, with this one grudging nod, an agreement to postpone this conversation, Max was focusing on what separated them—him, so close to his devoted and adorable parents; her, with the dead dad and screwed-up mom. He was looking at her and feeling the yawning absence of the next Donovan generation.

She reached for his hand, but then Rogan walked in, slamming the door shut behind him. “Tracking down our cyber-stalker is going to have to wait.”

“What’s up?” she asked.

“So we knew a fat reward offer from Julia’s parents would bring out the crazies?”

She looked at her watch. “Don’t tell me we’re already being inundated.”

“I wouldn’t say inundated. Not yet, at least. But I just got a call from Tucker.” Their lieutenant didn’t make a habit of tracking them down when they were out in the field. “Bill Whitmire called the commissioner himself. He’s got a witness at their house.”

“Who?”

“No clue, but he told the commissioner she’s already getting squirrely. The Lou said we better get there before she bails, unless we want the wrath of the Whitmires crashing down on us.”

“So the witness is there right now?”

“Yes, now. Damn,” he said, looking at Max. “I swear, sometimes she intentionally doesn’t listen to anything she doesn’t want to hear.”

Max didn’t meet Ellie’s eye as she walked out the door.