“About what?” the girl stammered.
“Are your parents home?” Rainy asked.
“My mom’s here. She’s with her bridge club.”
“Maybe it’s better if we talk together,” Wendy said.
Lindsey opened the door wider and motioned for the agents to follow. They passed through a bright foyer and into a high-ceiling kitchen with dark cabinets and even darker granite countertops. Fruit magnets on the stainless steel refrigerator held pictures of Lindsey, Lindsey and her friends, and Lindsey and her mother.
The kitchen opened up into a large family room, with a television big enough to watch while cooking. A group of four women sat around a foldout table, playing cards.
A woman who looked like Lindsey would in thirty years stood and approached. “Hello. Can I help you?”
“Mom, they’re with the FBI,” Lindsey said.
Rainy noticed how the girl’s legs were trembling. The mother’s coloring went from summer kissed to pale. Her fingers touched her lips as her eyes grew wide. She came into the kitchen with quick, hurried steps.
“Is everything all right?”
“We’re here to speak with your daughter about something that should be discussed in private,” Rainy said. “Is there a place we can talk?”
The woman introduced herself as Cathleen Wells, glanced at the agent’s identification, and led the women into a first-floor office. Once there, they stood in a close cluster.
Wendy spoke first. “I want to start by saying we’re not here to arrest anybody. Nobody is in trouble with the law. We’re here to help.”
Wendy tried to sound reassuring, but Lindsey didn’t look convinced. Her coloring hovered near translucent. Rainy continued by explaining her role with the FBI’s cyber crimes squad and, more specifically, crimes against children.
Lindsey’s eyes betrayed her, making a connection. “So what does this have to do with me?”
Cathleen Wells nodded vigorously. “Yes, what does all this have to do with my daughter?”
Rainy opened her case file, took out an envelope, and handed it to Lindsey. In that envelope were the pictures she believed were of Lindsey. The images were sanitized, so they didn’t show anything revealing. Lindsey flipped through the short stack of photo printouts.
“We found these pictures on the computer of a suspected child pornographer.”
Lindsey put her hand to her mouth, perhaps even stifling a cry. “H-h-how… ?”
“Well, that’s what I was hoping you could tell me. Did you send these pictures to anybody?”
Lindsey shook her head vigorously, giving her most emphatic “No way” nonverbal response. Rainy called that the “liar’s reaction.” She’d seen it dozens of times, whenever suspects were confronted with their actions. Perhaps they believed the extra exuberance would miraculously negate the truth.
“Do you know a James Mann? Is that name familiar to you?” Rainy asked.
Again a shake no, but this time with far less conviction. Rainy believed that answer to be true.
“You’re not in trouble for this, Lindsey, if that’s your concern,” Wendy said. “But we need to know some things if you can help us.”
“Like… like what?”
“Like when you took these pictures,” Wendy said. “And where.”
“I was just playing around with my cell phone,” Lindsey said, tears filling her eyes. “It was a bunch of months ago.”
“From here?” Rainy asked.
Lindsey nodded. “Yeah, why?”
“It just helps us,” said Rainy.
Lindsey sucked in her lower lip, pushed it out, and sucked it in again.
“Wendy will help you through this, Lindsey. Okay? You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Are these on the Internet? Can my friends see them?” Lindsey asked.
“I can’t answer that at this time,” Rainy replied. “Once your images are out there, there’s nothing we can do to get them back. You have to prepare yourself. They might show up again one day. You have to be ready for that possibility. We don’t know everybody who has downloaded these pictures, and I can’t promise that we’ll ever find out.”
Lindsey nodded slowly, as though she was inching her way into this new reality.
“I’m going to help you through this,” Wendy said, setting a comforting hand on Lindsey’s shoulder. “I promise everything is going to be okay.”
Cathleen’s expression showed pure disgust as she looked through the pictures of Lindsey. “We are going to have a long talk about this, young lady,” she snapped.
A woman from the bridge club made a trepid entrance into the office. Cathleen introduced her as Adriana Boyd.
“Is everything all right?” Adriana asked.
Cathleen flashed Adriana an upset look. “No,” Cathleen said. “I’d say things are not all right. Not in the least. Just be glad you have a son and not a daughter.” Lindsey grimaced as though in pain.
“What’s going on?” Adriana asked.
“These people are with the FBI,” Cathleen said to Adriana. “Apparently, they found pictures of Lindsey… compromising pictures… during some child porn bust.”
Rainy was surprised and a little dismayed by Cathleen’s candor. Cathleen perhaps sensed she’d crossed a line, because she said to Rainy, “Oh, don’t worry. Adriana is one of my closest friends. She’s like family to us. Especially since my divorce.”
“Is Lindsey in any trouble?” Adriana asked in a way that a concerned aunt might speak.
Rainy assured her that she was not, then went on to explain the situation and her role with the FBI.
When Rainy had finished, Adriana appeared as distraught as Cathleen and Lindsey. “Oh my,” she said. “What happens next?”
Rainy’s lips tightened as she tried to temper her officiousness with a softer tone. She wasn’t a mother herself, but she could certainly empathize with a mother’s concern. “Well, I have other images from our investigation, but for reasons of privacy, I’ll show them only to the school superintendent. We’ll try to make other victim identifications. Wendy’s here to help Lindsey through the witness process. If Lindsey wants, she can make a victim impact statement. It’ll be read aloud in court if the accused is found guilty of the crime.”
“Then what?” Cathleen asked.
“Then we’re going to try to figure out how the guy we arrested came to possess pictures of your daughter. We’re going to track down his source, or sources, and try to shut them down.”
“Can you do that?” Cathleen asked.
“Well, it would speed things along if Lindsey would be honest about who she sent these pictures to.”
“Mom, I swear I didn’t send them to anybody! I swear. Somebody either got my cell phone or hacked into my account or something.”
Cathleen frowned at her daughter.
“What happens to the person who did this?” Adriana asked. “The person who sent these around, I mean.”
“He’ll be charged with interstate trafficking of child pornography.”
“What does that mean?” Cathleen asked.
“It means whoever did this will spend a long, long time in jail.”
Chapter 20
