Chapter 24: Don't Mess With Her, Just Don't
Dallas Local News — Channel 8
"Are police treating this as a homicide?"
"The investigation is ongoing."
"Reports indicate the victim's home contained a large volume of disturbing material involving minors. Is law enforcement prepared to confirm the victim was a pedophile?"
"The victim was a professional photographer. Whether he can be classified as a pedophile will be determined by the ongoing investigation."
"There are rumors this was a targeted act of revenge. Several missing girls appear in the material recovered from the victim's home — including a girl named Donna Morris. Can you confirm any connection?"
"We cannot yet confirm whether this was a suicide or homicide. What we can confirm is that material depicting several missing minors, including Donna, was recovered from the premises. The relationship between the victim and these girls is under active investigation."
Ever since Juno had started disappearing for stretches of time, Adam had developed a quiet habit of checking the news every morning. Local, regional, anything that might carry a familiar scent.
A few days ago, something on a Dallas affiliate had caught his attention.
He'd gone to the school library to dig deeper. Sure enough, the story had already spread online, and the forums were doing what forums always did — picking it apart from every angle.
The victim's name was Jeff Korey. Thirty-two years old. Single. A photographer with a modest regional reputation. The first person to contact police had been his ex-girlfriend, Sandra, who had shown up at his apartment and found him hanging from the roof ledge.
Adam read through the comment threads carefully.
"Good riddance. Guy was a predator."
"That hasn't been officially confirmed."
"Look at the photos they found in his apartment and tell me it needs more confirmation."
"He's a photographer. Artistic expression exists in a gray area. Even if what he did was wrong, due process exists for a reason—"
"You going to say that to the families of those missing girls? Seriously?"
"Reported that last comment. This is exactly the kind of apologist reasoning that—"
"Can we talk about the girl though? Because that's the actually interesting part of this story."
"What girl?"
"My neighbor's cousin works near the precinct. Word is the neighbors saw a teenage girl entering the building — supposedly the victim's niece. There were sounds from inside the apartment. Neighbors got suspicious because this guy had a known thing for inviting young girls over under various pretexts. They checked on her. She seemed completely fine. Calm, actually."
"And then?"
"Then the ex-girlfriend showed up. And then the victim jumped from the roof. Landed almost directly in front of her. Witnesses say his expression was — people are using words like 'tormented.' Eyes open. Tears on his face."
"That's horrifying."
"Police found evidence of restraint and struggle inside. No fingerprints. No trace evidence of the girl beyond the neighbor's eyewitness account. The scene had been cleaned thoroughly. Professionally, according to the report."
"A teenage girl cleaned a crime scene professionally?"
"Allegedly. The profiler's assessment is that this wasn't impulsive. Everything about it — the rope length, the timing, the ex-girlfriend being called — was calculated."
"Wait, the rope length?"
"According to the analysis, the rope was measured so the victim's feet wouldn't quite reach the ground. Maximum psychological impact, minimum immediate lethality. The ex-girlfriend arriving when she did — that wasn't coincidental. She was called. The suspect wanted the victim to be seen by the one person whose opinion mattered most to him, in the worst possible condition, at the worst possible moment."
"That's not just revenge. That's architecture."
"The profiler used the phrase 'psychological execution before physical death.' The victim knew what was happening to his reputation in real time. He could see his ex-girlfriend's face. Whatever he chose after that was his own decision."
"So she didn't actually kill him."
"Technically, no. He jumped."
"Then even if they find her — and I genuinely don't think they will — what are they charging her with? She's a minor. The victim was a documented predator. Any jury in the country looks at those photos from his apartment and the case against her falls apart in the first hour."
"The portrait the police released is basically useless. Generic description, composite sketch that could be half the teenage girls in the state."
"Honestly? I don't want her caught. And I don't think I'm alone in that."
"You're not."
"Someone should make a movie about this."
Adam closed the browser window and sat back.
He looked at the composite sketch the police had released based on the neighbor's description. Vague features, approximate age range, nothing that would make anyone look twice at a girl in a red hoodie walking down a suburban street.
He exhaled slowly.
The 0.005 daily intelligence points were safe. That was the first thing his brain had checked for, which he found slightly embarrassing.
The second thing was the larger picture.
He'd seen Hard Candy. He understood what had happened in that apartment at a level of detail the forum commenters were only approximating through guesswork and profiler analysis. The psychological architecture of what Juno had put that man through — the precision of it, the patience of it, the fact that she'd built the entire thing around his greatest vulnerability and executed it without leaving a recoverable trace — was something the keyboard warriors were treating as impressive speculation.
Adam knew it was understatement.
The pedophile photographer had believed he was the wolf. He'd seen a girl in a red hoodie and read Little Red Riding Hood. He'd had no idea he was inviting in something considerably more dangerous than himself.
And now Juno was back at school, laughing at Emmett's jokes during band practice, helping Sheldon with his homework, walking down the hallway like someone who had a normal week.
Adam watched her from across the lunch table and thought, very clearly and very sincerely:
I am never, under any circumstances, going to make an enemy of that person.
End of Chapter 24
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