noticed she was rocking in her chair more aggressively. “I thought about deleting them, but then I figured, if some crazy person wants to attack me, I’ll let my readers see it for what it is. Speaking the ugly truth is a sacrifice. There are people who think survivors should all shut up and keep it to themselves. And that’s why it’s all the more important for survivors to have their voices be heard.”
“Don’t you wonder who’s posting the comments?”
“Of course I do. But I’ve read enough in the newspaper to know I really can’t do anything about it. Words are only words, right?”
Her impression of the law was accurate. If Adrienne had called the police about the threats on her blog, her call would have been transferred to ten different departments until someone finally explained to her that problems of jurisdiction, anonymity, freedom of speech, and antiquated penal laws all conspired to leave only one option: suck it up.
It was time to drop the other shoe. “We have uncovered evidence that Julia Whitmire posted one of those comments.”
Adrienne’s face was initially unchanged, but then the truth must have registered. She looked like she’d been slapped.
“I don’t understand. How can you know that? Julia’s dead.”
Ellie gave her the truncated, nontechnical version of the information they’d pulled from Julia’s laptop. She left out the part where they wouldn’t be a hundred percent certain until Max subpoenaed the Internet protocol addresses from the blog’s hosting site. She had called Max before leaving for the Upper East Side, and he was working on it at that very minute. But Ellie knew what she knew, even without the records. The timing revealed by Julia’s Internet history was good enough evidence for now.
“That doesn’t mean Julia wrote it,” Adrienne protested. “Anyone could have used her laptop.”
“True, the author wasn’t necessarily Julia, but not just anyone would have access to her computer. It stands to reason that Julia had something to do with that original post, and someone else has continued making similar threats since she died. Maybe a friend of hers?”
“I know where you’re going with this. Absolutely not. Ramona would never. We’re very close. You just said she was the one to call you, for goodness’ sake.”
Once they obtained the IP addresses linked to the other posts, they’d know for certain whether Ramona could have been involved, but Ellie shared Adrienne’s assumption that the girl wouldn’t have called them if she’d been the one responsible.
“You said yourself that Julia and Ramona were extremely close. We’ve seen cases where teenagers lash out at their friends’ parents, without the victims’ own kids even knowing about it. You’re Ramona’s stepmother, if I’m not mistaken?” Ellie was on a roll now, so Rogan was letting her lead the questioning uninterrupted.
Adrienne’s eyes drifted upward and she shook her head in frustration. “Unbelievable. I’ve raised that girl since she was seven years old. She calls me Mom.”
“So you’ve legally adopted her?”
“No. It was never-it wasn’t necessary. It isn’t necessary. She’s my daughter. We have a good relationship. She wouldn’t do something like that. We are very open with each other.”
“And yet you had a secret in your past. And you had a blog. And she even learned about that blog and that secret. But neither of you spoke to the other about what you knew.”
“That doesn’t mean-”
“And yet you don’t want to believe that Julia would have posted those comments, either, but we’re telling you-she did.”
She took a deep breath before answering. “Julia was a wonderful and generous girl, but she was also reckless. She had a darkness within her.”
“Dark enough to post such horrible threats on your website?”
“I don’t know what to think. In a way, it would be nice to know that whoever is writing those comments isn’t actually dangerous. But I have a really hard time believing Julia would do this.”
“You don’t seem all that troubled by either prospect. We’ve seen the comments posted on your site.” He should have choked you harder. That was from Monday morning. Then Monday afternoon: You were a good lay. Wonder what you’re like now. Is that ass still tight? I might have to find out. Monday evening: I will show you damage. This morning: I’m still here. I touch myself when I read your words. I’m thinking about you. Ellie had worked her share of stalker cases but couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for a rape survivor to find those words waiting for her when she turned on her computer.
“I’ve spent a long time getting past the things that happened to me when I was younger. Writing about it has been the best form of healing, after all of these years. I put it all out on the table-maybe not with Ramona, because, however misguided this may seem, I want to preserve her innocence. But on a page, in words, I’m laying it all out there. And I’ve resolved not to let some idiot with a keyboard and the shelter of the Internet get to me. All I can tell you is that I would bet my life that my daughter had nothing to do with those vile comments. And I’m nearly as sure that empty threats on my silly website have absolutely no relation to whatever happened to Julia Whitmire. You can’t seriously think I did something to her? I was at a fundraising dinner for breast cancer research out in Sag Harbor that night, if you need to check on my whereabouts.”
“I wasn’t accusing you of anything, Mrs. Langston. And I’m sorry if it sounded like I was questioning your relationship with Ramona. But for now, we’re treating Julia’s death as a homicide. And when we find out that a homicide victim was holding on to a secret, that secret often sends us down the road to a killer.”
“It makes me very sad to say this, Detective, but my guess is that you’ll find that Julia Langston was carrying around more than one secret.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nelson the doorman had just finished putting an elderly woman and her pocketbook-size dachshund into a cab.
“You were right, Nelson. The Langstons seem like a very nice family.”
He smiled politely. “Have a nice day, ma’am.”
“Ramona seems to get along with Mrs. Langston?” Unless Julia Whitmire had a reason of her own to threaten Adrienne, the most obvious explanation was that she was doing it on Ramona’s behalf, and that someone else was now continuing the pattern. “I’m sure at that age it must be typical for a teenaged girl to fight with her parents.”
“I just watch the door.”
Outside on Park Avenue, Rogan shook his head. “Seriously? You thought he was suddenly going to tell you all he knows? Like, some magic doorman interrogation code, where all you have to do is ask three times?”
She was too busy reading a text on her phone to bother with a comeback. “It’s from Max. He’s working on the subpoena for Social Circle.”
“Good. Maybe the IP addresses will tell us something.”
“In the meantime, was it just me, or is that woman in serious denial about those threats? She’s trying to convince herself they’re only words, but I could tell that part of her was terrified. She’s working so hard not to be scared that she refused to focus on whether Julia might have had some motive for posting a comment like that on her blog.”
“You’re not thinking of her for the perp, are you?”
“No, I don’t get that vibe. Plus, she said she was at a party in the Hamptons Sunday night. Easy enough to check that out. Add it to the to-do list.”
“Maybe she honestly doesn’t know,” Rogan said. “If she and Julia had some kind of beef, presumably she’d just tell us, especially if she’s got a rock-solid alibi.”
“Unless the beef somehow involved Ramona. She seems pretty protective over that girl. If Julia was lashing out at Adrienne on behalf of her friend, Adrienne might not want to admit there’s a rift in her perfect stepmother- stepdaughter relationship.”
“So let’s go talk to Little Miss Truant again.”
