Page 20 of Wicked Games

“I can try, but just because she trusted me doesn’t mean she trusted me. Are you going to try to figure out who killed her? That’s a long shot. She had enemies all over the city.”

“The police aren’t doing anything.”

“The police aren’t doing anything on the Lockwood case either. I heard they’re winding down. No leads. Nothing on CCTV. The fucker ran into a construction site and didn’t come out the other side. He vanished into thin air.”

“Yeah. Seth told me they kept the ransom money. Five million bucks.”

“He had it insured, but that’s a hell of a thing. I better let you go. Thanks for calling me back, and I’m glad you’re okay. If Lockwood’s going to be an asshole, stay away from him. He’s got his own shit going on, and you don’t want to be his rebound. He’ll fuck around with you all summer and leave you high and dry when he goes back to the city. You don’t need that, Avery.”

I didn’t consider that. He’s still hurting over Brooke leaving him, and the last thing I need is to be his emotional punching bag. He’s already proven that scenario could be a very real possibility.

“Thanks for the reminder. He doesn’t need to be mine, either. Go back to work, Bill. You need to do something with your time.”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it. Have a good night.”

“You too.”

My phone beeps and I set it next to Seth’s business card.

Bill and Hattie had dinner at Rowan Vale’s house with Brooke. How long was she seeing the guy? It sounds like years, and Seth never had a clue. Maybe she never loved him at all, but if that’s really true, then I feel sorry for him, whether he’s an asshole or not. No one deserves that.

I fill my mug again and sit at the table. Opening my laptop, I flick a quick glance toward Seth’s house. He’ll see I’m sitting here, the glow of my laptop’s screen hard to miss, but I doubt he’ll try to talk to me again.

Hattie’s website didn’t log me out, and I click into her comments. There are hundreds since I posted my goodbye, and carefully, I skim through them all. Hattie never deleted any, keeping even the most vile for her readers to see. She told me it’s all part of the wickedly delicious game, but people telling me that I was a sorry excuse for a human being doesn’t sound fun to me. Still, I keep with how she did things, and I don’t delete the ones that said she deserved to die in an alley full of garbage.

I’m glad she’s dead. Now we can stop reading that filth she printed. Like anyone was forcing you to, lady.

Maybe if she wouldn’t have stuck her nose into other people’s business, she’d still be alive.

I miss her so much. Hattie was so kind and a good friend. May she be in a better place.

Reply: Better place? Fuck that. She’s in hell where she belongs.

Hattie was a brilliant writer and her blog will be missed. Thank you, Miss McKay, for helping us say goodbye.

She’s the reason why Theo Lockwood’s dead. Open your eyes. He’d still be alive if it hadn’t been for her snooping around.

I loved this blog and her interviews. Such a terrible thing, what happened⁠—

Wait. What? I stop scrolling and go back to the comment before.

She’s the reason why Theo Lockwood’s dead. Open your eyes. He’d still be alive if it hadn’t been for her snooping around.

The comment was written by an anonymous person, hiding behind a blue, faceless avatar. I click on User Information and write down the internet IP address. There’s nothing else identifying the commenter since Hattie hadn’t required much if someone wanted to comment. She said it kept people from saying what they really thought, and that kind of engagement was what made her blog popular. That wasn’t all it was, but every algorithm known to man loves engagement and the more negative the better.

I type the address into a free IP location finder, but it doesn’t tell me what I couldn’t have guessed. It’s an Ashfield internet service, but it’s not the company I use. I bite my lip. Should I leave it up? Unapprove it? Delete it? Well, Bill said Detective Crane’s looking through these, too, and he can tell me what to do with it, if anything. I keep scrolling, but they all start to sound the same. People miss her or hate her, not a lot of in-between, and because of the ability to leave anonymous comments, the people who hate her the most have probably shown up on her blog and we’ll never know to connect them.

It’s been a while since I’ve checked my own website. I don’t blog as much as my sister, keeping my content for Bloomscene and another book I’d like to try to shop around. Because of my divorce and Hattie’s death, I could possibly turn it into more of a memoir, but that’s a thought for another day.

Even though I don’t post regularly, I still get my share of comments, and the blog post I wrote saying I was spending the summer in Lakehaven Falls to come to terms with the direction my life is going in has quite a few. People telling me to hang in there and that they support me. Others telling me to stop whining in public and get a therapist. I hide the nasty ones, my website meant to lift readers up, not tear them down. I’m not the only one going through things like this, but I suppose it makes me seem egotistical, that I think my experiences are worth spilling all over the internet.

I don’t have a paywall, just a Buy Me a Coffee link that I discreetly add to the bottoms of my posts. I check that balance. I have twenty bucks. That would buy me a couple of coffees, and because of what I write, it’s all I expect at any given time. Seth probably makes twenty bucks a second. Whatever. He just helps the rich get richer, but a bank vault is a cold place to sleep.

I close my laptop and move my sheets from the washer to the dryer. I forgot they were in there, but I’m not tired and I don’t need to go to bed anytime soon. In fact, I’m not sure what to do. I have a self-help book a publisher asked me to blurb that I could start reading, if I was feeling productive, which, even after half a pot of coffee, I am not. I could return calls and texts, but talking to Bill and reading Hattie’s comments drained me.

I was supposed to find peace in this little town, but all I found was a billionaire more broken than me.

While my sheets dry, I curl up on the couch with the last of my coffee and my notebook. I turn a lamp on. Let Seth watch me write all night. I hope he’s drowning in remorse. He said fear ruined something good.