The Darkest Valley, page 17
“How did you know about that?” Vaughn said lowly, voice gravelly, almost growly.
She shrugged. “The interwebs.”
Gina added, “Jae saw your grant application with the National Institutes of Health.”
The professor sucked in a measured breath, color returning to his face and it softened some. He smiled now and nodded. “Ahh, that’s right. Studying the effects of social media use for Uncle Sam.”
Elijah asked, “What was it about, exactly?”
Running a hand through that mane of his, Vaughn answered, “Studying the effects of WeShare on broader psychological phenomenon.”
“And what did you find?”
“Well, for one, thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, WeShare made them feel worse. So far, the research indicates WeShare is harmful for most notably teenage girls. The platform makes the issues of body image worse for one in three teen girls. The teens also blame WeShare for increases in their anxiety and depression. In fact, among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to WeShare.”
That little tidbit seemed to jolt the entire room to attention.
“And these girls,” Elijah said, “Abby, Trish, Jessica…they were part of this program?”
“Now that I cannot divulge. Uncle Sam’s confidentiality agreements for such clinical trials are strict and exacting.”
Elijah pounded an angry fist on the man’s desk, sending the professor back against his chair.
“To hot Hades with your confidentiality agreements! Lives are at stake—”
“Explain these findings,” Gina said with interruption, putting out a staying hand.
Vaughn threw Elijah narrowed, irritated eyes—hateful, even, his cheeks going red. But he relented.
“Social comparison is heightened on WeShare because it is grounded in performance with its heavy focus on the body and lifestyle—features that appear to be most harmful to teens.”
“Suppose the tendency to share only the best moments, combined with a pressure to look perfect, can leave anyone reeling.”
“Especially sending teens spiraling into eating disorders and an unhealthy sense of their own bodies. Depression, even.”
“So, if I understand it,” Johnny said, “Aspects of WeShare exacerbate whatever’s going on inside a person, creating a perfect storm.”
Vaughn nodded.
“Sounds like what you’re saying is,” Gina said, “just as Big Tobacco should have been more truthful about the link between smoking and lung cancer back in the day, WeShare should be more upfront about links to depression among teen girls.”
“Now, now,” Vaughn said with a chuckle. “Correlation does not prove causation. So far, the trial hasn’t established any causal connection.”
Elijah scoffed. “Sure sounds like it, doc!”
Gina nodded. “What other alternative explanation can you offer for such a massive, sudden deterioration among teenage mental health during this period?”
Vaughn leaned back, bringing those tented fingers back. “WeShare will claim that while it may not be nicotine, it is closer to sugar—which is delicious and has a place in our daily nutritional life, but must be consumed in moderation.”
Elijah furrowed his brow with anger. “So, what, blame it on the victims, is that right? Just a lack of self-control?”
He went to respond when Jae intercepted: “Besides, WeShare is not like sugar, affecting only people who overindulge. When teens went from texting on flip phones to posting carefully curated photographs and awaiting comments, their social life was entirely re-wired.”
Gina added, “I have to imagine this is especially true for girls—like Abby and Trish and Jessica, whom you saw. Where the wrong photo can lead to school-wide ridicule or even national attention if it goes viral, resulting in cyberbullying from strangers, and a permanent scarlet letter.”
She cast her gaze to the floor, her chest rising with a heavy breath before a sigh.
Elijah felt for her, knowing what had happened to her own twin sister a few decades ago. The bullying, the taunting, the name-calling. That was all before these newest digital monsters chewed up and spat out unsuspecting teenagers! Back in the day, it was all face-to-face. Didn’t know which was worse, the cyberstalking from anonymous trolls or the physical kind from ghoulish, teenage brats.
He’d certainly had his own fair share of such bullying abuse. Even thought about ending it all a time or two when it got real bad, mostly in a handful of foster homes, which never lasted all that long. Was remarkable he’d endured. By the good graces and loving mercy of Yeshua Almighty, it was!
Now, looking at Gina, and imagining these suicide cases from teenagers who were similarly harassed might have triggered something inside of her—a dreadful sadness from the memories of her own sister from the familiarity of such cases—he wondered how she was doing, how she was holding up. Hadn’t thought about it until that moment. He’d have to check in on her.
“My, my. Would you look at the time.” Vaughn sat up, then stood. “Happy to have been of service, but I must get going.”
“Hold the cheese stick,” Elijah said, rising to his feet as well. “You were seeing not just teenagers but adults. Twentysomethings and even retirees.”
He frowned and clenched his jaw, then smiled. “Gloria Warner, yes.”
“One of the other suicide victims.”
His face fell now, and those irritated eyes returned. “Suppose so. But if I were you I would be speaking with one of my colleagues about your investigation, if causation is what you seek.”
“Who’s that?”
Vaughn opened his mouth, then snapped it shut, eyes flittering up and to the left. Like he was hiding something, or wanted to hide something. Maybe deliberating whether he should spill the tea.
Elijah knew darn straight he should.
“Spill the tea, professor,” he said, jolting the man from his upward gaze.
He hesitated, but slumped back in his chair and said, “Gretchen Dolf, that’s who.”
Elijah joined him, settling back down. “Why her?”
“Are you familiar with synesthesia?”
“Nope.”
“I am,” Gina said. “The term for a peculiar neurological phenomenon where stimulating one part of the brain activates another part.”
“More that neural pathway stimulation also stimulates a secondary, but you get the idea.”
Elijah shifted. He didn’t get it, which he didn’t like.
“Maybe you can spell it out,” Johnny said, “for us back-of-the-room kiddos.”
Gina turned to him. “It means tasting color or seeing sounds.”
“That’s a thing?” Jae asked with a start.
“There was a lot of interest in the research a century ago, and actually many autistic people experience such a phenomenon, where words can feel a certain way in their mouth, for example.”
Elijah rolled his eyes, feeling like this was a massive rabbit trail. “Can we get on with it, doc? What’s this got to do with anything?”
Vaughn frowned. “I was getting to that.” He scuttled to his desk and leaned in now, whispering, “Dolf has restarted this research, only this time using infrasonic, high-frequency sounds to stimulate certain parts of the brain.”
Now Elijah scooted to the edge of his seat. “And?”
“And…” Vaughn bit the bottom of his lip, eyes glancing to the right. More hiding, more obfuscating.
Irritation was rising, so he clapped his hands together. Once. Then: again and again.
Making everyone jump.
“And?” Elijah said, not giving a lick except for the answer.
“And,” Vaughn answered, “there was an accident.”
“What sort of accident?” asked Gina.
The professor ran a hand through that blond mane of his. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this…”
“Spill the tea, doc,” Elijah said. “What happened?”
“Well, she made a discovery that certain sound frequencies could trigger shadowy, ghostly visions.”
Gina said, “So unusual sensory manifestations, like synesthesia.”
Vaughn nodded. “That’s right. Along with odd, unpredictable behaviors—including dissociation from reality itself.”
“Dissociation? Like, what, manic, schizophrenic episodes?”
Jae added, “The kind that might drive someone to…”
She trailed off, clearly not wanting to voice the truth of the matter. Johnny finished it for her: “Driving them to kill themselves, you’re saying? To take their life?”
Vaughn licked his lips and sighed, nodding but saying nothing more.
“Oh my cheeps!” Elijah exclaimed, hope rising. “Sounds exactly like what might be happening with the others.”
Johnny nodded with a grin. “Sure does!”
Elijah stood, ready to go at this doc. “Where can we find this Dolf character?”
“I’m afraid you can’t,” Vaughn answered. “At least, not on campus.”
Gina asked, “Why, what happened?”
“She’s been put on administrative leave.”
Johnny said, “Probably at home, I’d reckon. Can’t imagine she has much to do without her teaching gig.”
Elijah pulled out a pen and notepad, flipping it open and handing both to Vaughn.
“Give us her address. Now.”
The professor hesitated, but took it and scribbled the goods.
Elijah smiled. Just the lead they needed for their inexplicitus case.
Things were finally looking up.
CHAPTER 19
Gina colada was going to give Gretchen Dolf a piece of her Ohio-bred mind. Forget any sort of good-cop method to her investigative madness.
She was going in with both guns blazing.
Experimenting on live human subjects by resurrecting early twentieth-century tech that left them crazier than a one-legged mule? Driving them crazy enough to take their lives—just like these latest victims?
What was she thinking?
Forget the noble pursuits of curing schizophrenia. Leave that up to the docs at real universities. Like her alma mater. The University of Michigan would never put up with a rogue professor trying to make a name for herself in the annals of psychological history. Not some two-bit, small-town, corn-fed-and-bred schoolmarm like Gretchen Dolf.
No way, no how!
Gina gripped the steering wheel to the Order-issued Cadillac Escalade, grateful for the baby goat that gave its life to wrap her steering wheel in its soft, black-dyed hide. She sighed and chided herself for her immaturity.
Now she was just being snooty. She knew it, and it wouldn’t help her interrogate the woman.
So she cranked a SiriusXM channel dedicated to the late Luciano Pavarotti. A little pedestrian for her tastes, but there was something about the man’s operatic lyric tenor that was able to yank her back to Earth and ground her in the moment.
Soon, she was parking their ride across from a three-story Victorian home. A far cry from her Navy Yard condo that sat just south of the U.S. Capitol Building. Was a vibrant neighborhood on the Anacostia River within walking—and hearing—distance of the Washington Nationals baseball stadium. But this…
What commoners call a “Victorian house” is actually an architectural style for a broad category of houses, looking similar but bearing varying elements depending on the architectural subcategory. Mama taught her that, the woman constantly fantasizing about escaping their Presidential Estate double-wide and buying one of those houses featured on the cover of the Victoria bimonthly women's lifestyle magazine that cycled through their mobile home.
The most common of those cover photos was what Gina was staring at now, sending her envy soaring to heights that would do nobody any good.
The Queen Anne home, with the familiar elaborate architectural features and spare-no-decorative-expense additions.
This one fit the model to a T. A generous porch with an as-generous overhang swooped across the front and wrapped around the side, appointed by white wicker chairs and rockers. Ivy wound up the supports and white and purple hydrangea bushes bent in a bow with weighted flower heads at its base. Bay windows covered in lace curtains stared out toward their position, with two turret towers running up three floors at both front corners.
A red-bricked chimney rose from the center, and Gina imagined what falls and winters were like, the woodsmoke curling upward and lacing the inside with a spicy scent. Perhaps argyle stockings trimming the mantle, with a tall, fat Christmas tree nestled in the corner, engorged by presents galore all wrapped in tasteful paper and gold ribbon.
Queen Anne homes were usually painted in bright colors, and this one was robin’s egg blue with white trim that screamed cliché.
And it made her want to puke. All of it.
Mostly because it was the home her mama had always wanted but had never been able to afford—no thanks to an Oxy habit that drove her daddy away and left her and Grace high and dry. It also symbolized a lifestyle she’d always wanted, but had remained out of her grasp. Especially since foregoing a professorial gig for the FBI, one that hadn’t materialized into much—and the ecclesial investigative one pretty well kicking all prospects of a cush life to the curb.
She grabbed for her ginger locks and started to twirl, finding a single strand of hair and plucking it—envy winding through her even as she continued winding her hair into a rope.
“You alright, Gina colada?”
Elijah’s voice startled her.
“I’m fine,” she answered in a rush, dropping her locks and reaching into her pocket.
Which was a lie. She wasn’t. Hadn’t been since this whole dang case started. The whole thing had been plucking her nerves something fierce.
And now a freakin’ Queen Anne home—bought and paid for by grant money that fiddled with peeps’ brains, thanks to Nurse Ratched?
Gina’s heart was pounding, so she pulled out her security blanket: a pack of Doublemint gum. Sliding two sticks out, she fumbled with their aluminum wrapping, then promptly popped them into her mouth.
The minty rush and pleasurable ache in her jaw from pulping up the two sticks was a heavenly grounding to her rising anxiety—about the nature of the case, yes, but also her role in solving it.
Her role in wrestling the unwieldy, unexplainable, open-ended elements of the case still flapping their kimono in the breeze to a finalizing close.
Her role in bringing a measure of justice to the women who had been driven to the brink. To their families and friends who were holding the smelly bag of crap and left wondering what they’d missed, what they’d done wrong, what they could have done right to avoid such a horrifying, gut-wrenching, finalizing and totalizing end to their loved one.
Her role in bringing a measure of justice to Grace…
Gina threw open her door and slid out, then slammed it shut.
Showtime.
Three more shutting doors and the quartet was assembling across the street.
Johnny sauntered over, eyeing the looming white house of horrors, joined by Jae. They met Gina and Elijah at their ride.
“How do you want to approach this?” the ex-priest asked.
“Both guns blazing,” Gina said, blowing a massive bubble with a pop. “Metaphorically, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I’d wager,” Jae said, “this is the connection we’ve been waiting for.”
Elijah smirked. “You think? Some shrink finds a wavelength that fiddles with people’s noggins, triggering schizoid behavior, even leading to slitting their wrists—naw, sister magister, I’d say this is definitely the connection we’ve been waiting for!”
“Then let’s do this,” Gina said. “Before the next shoe drops.”
“Or body…” he added grimly.
Or that.
On her way toward the front door, she pulled out her phone, flipping to the WeShare app for a look-see. Had become a bad habit, a mindless one she went to as a default when things got hairy. A sort of adult pacifier, as well as a new tick she’d added to her arsenal when the anxiety rose and overwhelm threatened to overtake.
Which was odd, because all the scrolling never actually relieved her of anything—and actually ratcheted the anxiety higher. The pithy comments showcasing someone’s humor and intelligence; air-brushed, coiffed images of perfect bodies; the proud moments and braggadocios accomplishments—all of it played on her insecurities that she didn’t measure up. That she had no pithy, intelligent bone in her body; that the mole on her upper lip was an eyesore, not a Cindy Crawford beauty mark; that she’d done nothing noteworthy, had no accomplishments to her name, leaving her high and dry at the twentieth reunion dinner table with nothing more to talk about than her cats and Honda Odyssey minivan.
But she couldn’t take her eyes off of the screen. Scrolling, then scrolling some more, until—
She scrolled upon a curious advertisement…
A pastoral scene with gently waving switchgrass and doves flying through a beautiful sunset, the horizon blazing orange. The Fields of Elysium, it was, the ancient Roman afterlife. A woman dressed in a white smock, smile wide with an outstretched hand waving her toward a path running through the tall grass, offered a curious invitation:
“On your own terms, Gina…”
Should’ve startled at the mention of her name, but something about the woman’s lulling, powerful tone kept that part of her brain at bay. Figured it was some WeShare algorithm on their ad platform. What’s the saying? If a product is free, you’re the product? Pretty much the case for all of social media, the entire WeNet platform slicing and dicing her data to serve up ready-made ads for consumption.
But this…
Couldn’t help but be intrigued.
Stepping over a curb, Gina jabbed her thumb at the image. It took her to an online checkout page. A fuchsia box (her favorite color; not purple, fuchsia) greeted her with a smile, literally. On it was a bag with a drawstring and a smiley face was on its face, along with a tube labeled HeN2.
“An exit kit…”
“What was that?” Elijah asked.
She shrugged. “The interwebs.”
Gina added, “Jae saw your grant application with the National Institutes of Health.”
The professor sucked in a measured breath, color returning to his face and it softened some. He smiled now and nodded. “Ahh, that’s right. Studying the effects of social media use for Uncle Sam.”
Elijah asked, “What was it about, exactly?”
Running a hand through that mane of his, Vaughn answered, “Studying the effects of WeShare on broader psychological phenomenon.”
“And what did you find?”
“Well, for one, thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, WeShare made them feel worse. So far, the research indicates WeShare is harmful for most notably teenage girls. The platform makes the issues of body image worse for one in three teen girls. The teens also blame WeShare for increases in their anxiety and depression. In fact, among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to WeShare.”
That little tidbit seemed to jolt the entire room to attention.
“And these girls,” Elijah said, “Abby, Trish, Jessica…they were part of this program?”
“Now that I cannot divulge. Uncle Sam’s confidentiality agreements for such clinical trials are strict and exacting.”
Elijah pounded an angry fist on the man’s desk, sending the professor back against his chair.
“To hot Hades with your confidentiality agreements! Lives are at stake—”
“Explain these findings,” Gina said with interruption, putting out a staying hand.
Vaughn threw Elijah narrowed, irritated eyes—hateful, even, his cheeks going red. But he relented.
“Social comparison is heightened on WeShare because it is grounded in performance with its heavy focus on the body and lifestyle—features that appear to be most harmful to teens.”
“Suppose the tendency to share only the best moments, combined with a pressure to look perfect, can leave anyone reeling.”
“Especially sending teens spiraling into eating disorders and an unhealthy sense of their own bodies. Depression, even.”
“So, if I understand it,” Johnny said, “Aspects of WeShare exacerbate whatever’s going on inside a person, creating a perfect storm.”
Vaughn nodded.
“Sounds like what you’re saying is,” Gina said, “just as Big Tobacco should have been more truthful about the link between smoking and lung cancer back in the day, WeShare should be more upfront about links to depression among teen girls.”
“Now, now,” Vaughn said with a chuckle. “Correlation does not prove causation. So far, the trial hasn’t established any causal connection.”
Elijah scoffed. “Sure sounds like it, doc!”
Gina nodded. “What other alternative explanation can you offer for such a massive, sudden deterioration among teenage mental health during this period?”
Vaughn leaned back, bringing those tented fingers back. “WeShare will claim that while it may not be nicotine, it is closer to sugar—which is delicious and has a place in our daily nutritional life, but must be consumed in moderation.”
Elijah furrowed his brow with anger. “So, what, blame it on the victims, is that right? Just a lack of self-control?”
He went to respond when Jae intercepted: “Besides, WeShare is not like sugar, affecting only people who overindulge. When teens went from texting on flip phones to posting carefully curated photographs and awaiting comments, their social life was entirely re-wired.”
Gina added, “I have to imagine this is especially true for girls—like Abby and Trish and Jessica, whom you saw. Where the wrong photo can lead to school-wide ridicule or even national attention if it goes viral, resulting in cyberbullying from strangers, and a permanent scarlet letter.”
She cast her gaze to the floor, her chest rising with a heavy breath before a sigh.
Elijah felt for her, knowing what had happened to her own twin sister a few decades ago. The bullying, the taunting, the name-calling. That was all before these newest digital monsters chewed up and spat out unsuspecting teenagers! Back in the day, it was all face-to-face. Didn’t know which was worse, the cyberstalking from anonymous trolls or the physical kind from ghoulish, teenage brats.
He’d certainly had his own fair share of such bullying abuse. Even thought about ending it all a time or two when it got real bad, mostly in a handful of foster homes, which never lasted all that long. Was remarkable he’d endured. By the good graces and loving mercy of Yeshua Almighty, it was!
Now, looking at Gina, and imagining these suicide cases from teenagers who were similarly harassed might have triggered something inside of her—a dreadful sadness from the memories of her own sister from the familiarity of such cases—he wondered how she was doing, how she was holding up. Hadn’t thought about it until that moment. He’d have to check in on her.
“My, my. Would you look at the time.” Vaughn sat up, then stood. “Happy to have been of service, but I must get going.”
“Hold the cheese stick,” Elijah said, rising to his feet as well. “You were seeing not just teenagers but adults. Twentysomethings and even retirees.”
He frowned and clenched his jaw, then smiled. “Gloria Warner, yes.”
“One of the other suicide victims.”
His face fell now, and those irritated eyes returned. “Suppose so. But if I were you I would be speaking with one of my colleagues about your investigation, if causation is what you seek.”
“Who’s that?”
Vaughn opened his mouth, then snapped it shut, eyes flittering up and to the left. Like he was hiding something, or wanted to hide something. Maybe deliberating whether he should spill the tea.
Elijah knew darn straight he should.
“Spill the tea, professor,” he said, jolting the man from his upward gaze.
He hesitated, but slumped back in his chair and said, “Gretchen Dolf, that’s who.”
Elijah joined him, settling back down. “Why her?”
“Are you familiar with synesthesia?”
“Nope.”
“I am,” Gina said. “The term for a peculiar neurological phenomenon where stimulating one part of the brain activates another part.”
“More that neural pathway stimulation also stimulates a secondary, but you get the idea.”
Elijah shifted. He didn’t get it, which he didn’t like.
“Maybe you can spell it out,” Johnny said, “for us back-of-the-room kiddos.”
Gina turned to him. “It means tasting color or seeing sounds.”
“That’s a thing?” Jae asked with a start.
“There was a lot of interest in the research a century ago, and actually many autistic people experience such a phenomenon, where words can feel a certain way in their mouth, for example.”
Elijah rolled his eyes, feeling like this was a massive rabbit trail. “Can we get on with it, doc? What’s this got to do with anything?”
Vaughn frowned. “I was getting to that.” He scuttled to his desk and leaned in now, whispering, “Dolf has restarted this research, only this time using infrasonic, high-frequency sounds to stimulate certain parts of the brain.”
Now Elijah scooted to the edge of his seat. “And?”
“And…” Vaughn bit the bottom of his lip, eyes glancing to the right. More hiding, more obfuscating.
Irritation was rising, so he clapped his hands together. Once. Then: again and again.
Making everyone jump.
“And?” Elijah said, not giving a lick except for the answer.
“And,” Vaughn answered, “there was an accident.”
“What sort of accident?” asked Gina.
The professor ran a hand through that blond mane of his. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this…”
“Spill the tea, doc,” Elijah said. “What happened?”
“Well, she made a discovery that certain sound frequencies could trigger shadowy, ghostly visions.”
Gina said, “So unusual sensory manifestations, like synesthesia.”
Vaughn nodded. “That’s right. Along with odd, unpredictable behaviors—including dissociation from reality itself.”
“Dissociation? Like, what, manic, schizophrenic episodes?”
Jae added, “The kind that might drive someone to…”
She trailed off, clearly not wanting to voice the truth of the matter. Johnny finished it for her: “Driving them to kill themselves, you’re saying? To take their life?”
Vaughn licked his lips and sighed, nodding but saying nothing more.
“Oh my cheeps!” Elijah exclaimed, hope rising. “Sounds exactly like what might be happening with the others.”
Johnny nodded with a grin. “Sure does!”
Elijah stood, ready to go at this doc. “Where can we find this Dolf character?”
“I’m afraid you can’t,” Vaughn answered. “At least, not on campus.”
Gina asked, “Why, what happened?”
“She’s been put on administrative leave.”
Johnny said, “Probably at home, I’d reckon. Can’t imagine she has much to do without her teaching gig.”
Elijah pulled out a pen and notepad, flipping it open and handing both to Vaughn.
“Give us her address. Now.”
The professor hesitated, but took it and scribbled the goods.
Elijah smiled. Just the lead they needed for their inexplicitus case.
Things were finally looking up.
CHAPTER 19
Gina colada was going to give Gretchen Dolf a piece of her Ohio-bred mind. Forget any sort of good-cop method to her investigative madness.
She was going in with both guns blazing.
Experimenting on live human subjects by resurrecting early twentieth-century tech that left them crazier than a one-legged mule? Driving them crazy enough to take their lives—just like these latest victims?
What was she thinking?
Forget the noble pursuits of curing schizophrenia. Leave that up to the docs at real universities. Like her alma mater. The University of Michigan would never put up with a rogue professor trying to make a name for herself in the annals of psychological history. Not some two-bit, small-town, corn-fed-and-bred schoolmarm like Gretchen Dolf.
No way, no how!
Gina gripped the steering wheel to the Order-issued Cadillac Escalade, grateful for the baby goat that gave its life to wrap her steering wheel in its soft, black-dyed hide. She sighed and chided herself for her immaturity.
Now she was just being snooty. She knew it, and it wouldn’t help her interrogate the woman.
So she cranked a SiriusXM channel dedicated to the late Luciano Pavarotti. A little pedestrian for her tastes, but there was something about the man’s operatic lyric tenor that was able to yank her back to Earth and ground her in the moment.
Soon, she was parking their ride across from a three-story Victorian home. A far cry from her Navy Yard condo that sat just south of the U.S. Capitol Building. Was a vibrant neighborhood on the Anacostia River within walking—and hearing—distance of the Washington Nationals baseball stadium. But this…
What commoners call a “Victorian house” is actually an architectural style for a broad category of houses, looking similar but bearing varying elements depending on the architectural subcategory. Mama taught her that, the woman constantly fantasizing about escaping their Presidential Estate double-wide and buying one of those houses featured on the cover of the Victoria bimonthly women's lifestyle magazine that cycled through their mobile home.
The most common of those cover photos was what Gina was staring at now, sending her envy soaring to heights that would do nobody any good.
The Queen Anne home, with the familiar elaborate architectural features and spare-no-decorative-expense additions.
This one fit the model to a T. A generous porch with an as-generous overhang swooped across the front and wrapped around the side, appointed by white wicker chairs and rockers. Ivy wound up the supports and white and purple hydrangea bushes bent in a bow with weighted flower heads at its base. Bay windows covered in lace curtains stared out toward their position, with two turret towers running up three floors at both front corners.
A red-bricked chimney rose from the center, and Gina imagined what falls and winters were like, the woodsmoke curling upward and lacing the inside with a spicy scent. Perhaps argyle stockings trimming the mantle, with a tall, fat Christmas tree nestled in the corner, engorged by presents galore all wrapped in tasteful paper and gold ribbon.
Queen Anne homes were usually painted in bright colors, and this one was robin’s egg blue with white trim that screamed cliché.
And it made her want to puke. All of it.
Mostly because it was the home her mama had always wanted but had never been able to afford—no thanks to an Oxy habit that drove her daddy away and left her and Grace high and dry. It also symbolized a lifestyle she’d always wanted, but had remained out of her grasp. Especially since foregoing a professorial gig for the FBI, one that hadn’t materialized into much—and the ecclesial investigative one pretty well kicking all prospects of a cush life to the curb.
She grabbed for her ginger locks and started to twirl, finding a single strand of hair and plucking it—envy winding through her even as she continued winding her hair into a rope.
“You alright, Gina colada?”
Elijah’s voice startled her.
“I’m fine,” she answered in a rush, dropping her locks and reaching into her pocket.
Which was a lie. She wasn’t. Hadn’t been since this whole dang case started. The whole thing had been plucking her nerves something fierce.
And now a freakin’ Queen Anne home—bought and paid for by grant money that fiddled with peeps’ brains, thanks to Nurse Ratched?
Gina’s heart was pounding, so she pulled out her security blanket: a pack of Doublemint gum. Sliding two sticks out, she fumbled with their aluminum wrapping, then promptly popped them into her mouth.
The minty rush and pleasurable ache in her jaw from pulping up the two sticks was a heavenly grounding to her rising anxiety—about the nature of the case, yes, but also her role in solving it.
Her role in wrestling the unwieldy, unexplainable, open-ended elements of the case still flapping their kimono in the breeze to a finalizing close.
Her role in bringing a measure of justice to the women who had been driven to the brink. To their families and friends who were holding the smelly bag of crap and left wondering what they’d missed, what they’d done wrong, what they could have done right to avoid such a horrifying, gut-wrenching, finalizing and totalizing end to their loved one.
Her role in bringing a measure of justice to Grace…
Gina threw open her door and slid out, then slammed it shut.
Showtime.
Three more shutting doors and the quartet was assembling across the street.
Johnny sauntered over, eyeing the looming white house of horrors, joined by Jae. They met Gina and Elijah at their ride.
“How do you want to approach this?” the ex-priest asked.
“Both guns blazing,” Gina said, blowing a massive bubble with a pop. “Metaphorically, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I’d wager,” Jae said, “this is the connection we’ve been waiting for.”
Elijah smirked. “You think? Some shrink finds a wavelength that fiddles with people’s noggins, triggering schizoid behavior, even leading to slitting their wrists—naw, sister magister, I’d say this is definitely the connection we’ve been waiting for!”
“Then let’s do this,” Gina said. “Before the next shoe drops.”
“Or body…” he added grimly.
Or that.
On her way toward the front door, she pulled out her phone, flipping to the WeShare app for a look-see. Had become a bad habit, a mindless one she went to as a default when things got hairy. A sort of adult pacifier, as well as a new tick she’d added to her arsenal when the anxiety rose and overwhelm threatened to overtake.
Which was odd, because all the scrolling never actually relieved her of anything—and actually ratcheted the anxiety higher. The pithy comments showcasing someone’s humor and intelligence; air-brushed, coiffed images of perfect bodies; the proud moments and braggadocios accomplishments—all of it played on her insecurities that she didn’t measure up. That she had no pithy, intelligent bone in her body; that the mole on her upper lip was an eyesore, not a Cindy Crawford beauty mark; that she’d done nothing noteworthy, had no accomplishments to her name, leaving her high and dry at the twentieth reunion dinner table with nothing more to talk about than her cats and Honda Odyssey minivan.
But she couldn’t take her eyes off of the screen. Scrolling, then scrolling some more, until—
She scrolled upon a curious advertisement…
A pastoral scene with gently waving switchgrass and doves flying through a beautiful sunset, the horizon blazing orange. The Fields of Elysium, it was, the ancient Roman afterlife. A woman dressed in a white smock, smile wide with an outstretched hand waving her toward a path running through the tall grass, offered a curious invitation:
“On your own terms, Gina…”
Should’ve startled at the mention of her name, but something about the woman’s lulling, powerful tone kept that part of her brain at bay. Figured it was some WeShare algorithm on their ad platform. What’s the saying? If a product is free, you’re the product? Pretty much the case for all of social media, the entire WeNet platform slicing and dicing her data to serve up ready-made ads for consumption.
But this…
Couldn’t help but be intrigued.
Stepping over a curb, Gina jabbed her thumb at the image. It took her to an online checkout page. A fuchsia box (her favorite color; not purple, fuchsia) greeted her with a smile, literally. On it was a bag with a drawstring and a smiley face was on its face, along with a tube labeled HeN2.
“An exit kit…”
“What was that?” Elijah asked.
