Chapter 4

The night before the evidence hearing, Loretta blew the whole thing wide open.

She went live. The background was a wall scrubbed too clean, and she'd draped herself in an oversized white shirt, hair a deliberate mess.

In her hands she held up the ultrasound from the city women's and children's hospital, and that stack of forged chat records.

The viewer count hit a hundred thousand in no time.

She kept her head down.

"This baby has no father now."

"All the evidence is in that wicked woman's hands. She has money, she has power. I can't win against her."

"Tomorrow I'm going to the police station. If I don't come back, please remember my name."

The moment the crying started, the comment stream filled up with demands to punish the vicious best friend.

At the same time, someone splashed red paint all over my parents' security door.

The blood-red paint dripped down through the seams, and across the door, scrawled crooked, was the word INSTIGATOR.

I got there to find my mother sitting on the couch, clutching her blood-pressure medication, twisting at the cap she couldn't get open no matter how long she tried.

My father paced back and forth beside her, nothing left in him but sighs.

"Ellie, maybe we should just give her the money."

"There's no living like this."

I went over, took the bottle, shook out two pills, and held them to my mother's lips.

"Dad. Mom."

"Paying her is the same as admitting guilt."

"Trust me. After tomorrow, I'll make them lick that paint off the door themselves."

My phone buzzed in my bag. The dance studio's official termination letter.

The reasons were dressed up nicely. Serious violation of teaching ethics, severe negative social impact, no compensation to be paid.

Narelle had updated her feed too.

Saw through her rotten heart a long time ago. Good thing I cut ties early.

The likes underneath were already past a thousand.

Nine the next morning, the verification room at the police station.

Loretta and Jean walked in dressed head to toe in plain white.

Jean was dragging a huge suitcase, and she started shouting the second she was through the door.

"Officer, the evidence is all right here!"

"You have to arrest this pimp today!"

Dana Perry trailed in behind them.

"Officer, I'll testify!"

"I was the one who took Etta home that night!"

"Her clothes were torn, she cried the whole way. That blind-date guy did it!"

He raised his hand and pointed at me.

"Eleanor, you have a black heart!"

The false-testimony piece was now in place.

Loretta struck while the iron was hot, eyes red as she turned to the officer.

"She's already admitted it herself. What's the point of checking any dashcam?"

"Why aren't you arresting her?"

"Did she pay you off?"

Jean wailed right along beside her.

"There's no justice in this world!"

"Bullying a widow and her fatherless girl!"

The room dissolved into shouting, the water cups on the table trembling faintly with it.

The officer frowned and brought his hand down hard on the tabletop.

"Quiet!"

"This is a police station, not a street market!"

He picked up the clear evidence bag from the edge of the table. Inside sat a tiny SD card.

"This was lawfully obtained by the police. It's the dashcam memory card from the Uber Loretta rode in on the night of the fifteenth last month."

The card went into the reader, and the projection screen came slowly down.

The lights went off. Loretta stood off to the side with her arms crossed, a cold smile still hanging at the corner of her mouth.

"Play it, then."

"Let's see what tricks she can pull."

The screen lit. The timestamp read 23:07 on the fifteenth of last month.

The footage opened on the entrance of the Blue Harbor Restaurant on the West Side, right there in front of everyone.

Loretta stood at the curb, smiling, easing a swaying, dead-drunk Jeremy into a taxi.

Once the taxi pulled away, she turned and yanked open the back door of an Uber, quick and practiced.

She slid in and told the driver,

"East Side, please."

"Step on it. Dana's still waiting for me at the motel."

Every word was crisp and clear, clear enough to smother the breathing in the room.