Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper

Author:Jordan Harper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2023-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chris

Sixth Street

She walks back into the living room—he can see this poison cloud hanging around her.

“Everything okay?”

“Life is a glorious cycle of song. A medley of extemporanea.”

“Huh?”

She waves him away like never mind.

“I called the place Nevaeh was staying,” he says. “The twentysomething in charge, Missy. It sounded like a teenage rampage behind her. That shrieking noise teenage girls do. Anyway, get this. She told me Nevaeh lived there all right. Left about two months ago. To go back home to her grandmother.”

“It’s the slumber-party trick,” Mae says. “You know, you tell your mom you’re spending the night with me, I tell my mom I’m spending the night with you. It means the girl is in on it, at least a little.”

“Mae—are we gonna talk about this out loud, or you just gonna hold it inside until you pop?”

She gives him this sick smile.

“She’s the bloody glove.”

He remembers her using that phrase before—but not what it means. She must see it on his face, because she says, “It’s the one solid thing that makes a story true. The thing you can point to, something that is undeniable. Nevaeh is fourteen years old. If the father is an adult—”

“She’s carrying around DNA evidence of statutory rape in her belly.”

“Just call it rape,” Mae says. “It’s quicker and just as accurate.”

He nods like got it.

“So the father is an adult,” she says. “Somebody with money. Somebody with power. Then the baby in her belly is undeniable proof positive. That girl is walking blackmail.”

Something in Mae’s voice causes Mandy to pad over to her and lean against her leg. Mae gives her a pat before going on.

“So this girl comes out to LA, fourteen years old, set loose in this place with no parents and no rules. And all these terrible powerful men. And then something awful happens to her. And a little while later Nevaeh realizes she is pregnant. She’s scared out of her mind. She can’t tell her grandma. She doesn’t want to tell the other girls—who knows what’s going on in her head? So she goes to Katherine.”

“Her dance teacher? That’s who she goes to for help?”

“You ought to see how the girls look at her. They worship her—that’s exactly who she’d go to,” Mae says. “So just follow me here—she goes to Katherine, after class or something. She tells her she’s pregnant. My guess is, she tells her everything.”

“So what’s Katherine do?”

“Well, here’s what she didn’t do—she didn’t go to the authorities. My guess is Katherine sees dollar signs. Her and her roommates put together a plan. And then they bring in Dan, her sometimes boyfriend. Maybe they need bankroll, maybe they need a middleman. Either way, Dan likes what he hears enough to get in.”

“That means the man behind it is big-time,” Chris says. “Dan had to be thinking this is worth millions, right? That means somebody with deep pockets. Figure the target is rich. Figure he’s powerful.”

“Or,” she says, “figure he’s rich but not powerful.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Not at a certain level, not all the time,” she says.

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