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While Detective Sparks was tucked up in bed, the principal of Briar Reef High was doing his best to calm down the latest situation on his hands. It had only been a day since the news broke of the coach soliciting one of his students, something he knew could have a great backlash for them if not handled correctly, and now here a day later, there were salacious rumors of the accuser being passed around the school.
The poor man didn’t know if to cry or hide out in his office until this latest uproar died down. He knew that any second now that Bishop woman would be in his office demanding answers that he didn’t have, and calling the cops was not an option. He’d rather handle this mess in house in hopes that it would die a quiet death, but with most of the senior year kids up in arms, he wasn’t sure it could be contained.
Marissa had dreaded coming to school today, but she’d had no idea that things would be this bad. At first, she accepted the whispers and dirty looks, thinking that it was about the situation with the coach until Annabelle dragged her into the bathroom and showed her the text that was going around. It was a screenshot of a conversation between her and someone on the Internet.
Marissa’s tummy started to churn when she recognized the words. It had been a while since she’d seen them, almost three years in fact. “That…who…where did they get that?” She snatched Annabelle’s phone from her hand and looked down at the screen in disbelief. “It was a joke; you know that you were there.”
The conversation taking place had been a lark. She and some friends, including Annabelle, had decided to catfish someone they all knew one night at a sleepover. He was the dad of someone they knew and disliked, but nothing ever came of it. Now, as she looked back at what her fourteen-year-old self had said and done that night, she felt the cold fingers of dread overcome her.
Marissa sat down hard on the toilet in the stall, wondering who could’ve found and posted that conversation. She hadn’t even thought of it in a long time, and that night had been the one and only time she’d done that, and then she’d only done it because of peer pressure.
The truth is, the dad in question hadn’t taken the bait, so it hadn’t gone anywhere, but anyone reading things from her end would get the wrong idea. She knew her friends would vouch for her that it was a joke, at least she hoped so, but more than half of them were already giving her the cold shoulder because of what she’d done to coach.
Still, she couldn’t figure out how anyone had got their hands on those messages. It’s true that she hardly ever erased anything from her phone, but her phone is always with her, and no one else has access. Surely a three-year-old conversation wouldn’t still be on her phone, and besides, she’d changed phones twice since then.
Marissa rushed back to her class, where she’d left her bag sitting on her chair. Although phones weren’t allowed in class, everyone still brought theirs as long as they were turned off. She grabbed her bag and dug out her phone, knowing she had at least five minutes before the teacher showed up for the first class of the day.
She unlocked the phone with haste, all the while hiding the screen as she punched in the passcode, paranoid by what was happening. Her heart sank when she went through messages. There were thousands of them going back years, which meant that each time she updated her phone, those messages followed.
She wasn’t surprised when the call to the principal’s office came. The looks on her peers’ faces were enough to make her want to vomit, and she regretted not for the first time ever telling anyone about the message she’d gotten from coach.
Officer Pete Bailey was glad for the respite his partner had offered, but his mind refused to shut down for more than a couple of hours. That was all the time he needed anyway to catch his second wind. It was about the time he’d usually be starting to wind down on a good day before all the murders and whatnot when he headed back to the station house.
He was honest enough with himself to admit that had Ryan not been involved, he wouldn’t be this gung-ho to get back to work, but from the second they put the cuffs on him, he hasn’t been at ease. As a cop, he knows he can’t overlook anyone or ignore evidence once produced, but he was willing to go to bat for this guy. He refused to accept that someone could’ve changed this much. The guy he knew in high school had integrity, and a sense of honor that he would’ve sworn could not be broken.
