Page 18

Lizzie

The cops bumble their way into the ballroom. By the looks on their faces they’re bewildered by the room of well-coiffed women chucking pastries.

As one of the officers approaches the stage they step on a freshly thrown jelly donut.

Its electric red insides squirt out like a spray of blood across the ballroom’s tasteful beige carpet.

Soon the whispers all blend together to form a buzz of locusts.

More than a few women hold their phones aloft, no doubt live streaming it all to their audiences of millions.

Everything is content.

Finally, the cop makes it to the microphone. His ruby-red-jelly-donut footprints trail him the entire way. He has to bump Marsden away from the mic.

“Is Rebecca Sommers here? Mrs. Sommers.” There’s a pointed emphasis on the Mrs., or maybe I imagine it. Everyone cranes their necks to look for Bex, but I know for sure she’s not here. I’ve been searching for her the whole morning. And after a beat or two of silence the officer knows it too.

“Has anyone seen Rebecca Sommers this morning?” Disdain drips from his tone as he says her name. I looked around as eagerly as everyone else. A sense of dread flushes through me when the cop repeats his question. What do they want with Bex?

If the cops were smart, or if they had any handle on what kind of room they were walking into, maybe they would have told the hotel to shut down the Wi-Fi before busting through those doors, but they hadn’t had that foresight, and within thirty seconds, texts and emails and DMs are shooting around the country, maybe the world, searching for Rebecca Sommers.

Everyone is greedy for information and for eyeballs.

“I’d like you little ladies to sit tight,” the officer on the stage drawls as the moderator from earlier, the one in the flouncy buttery dress, swishes back onto the stage to regain a modicum of control over a situation that has gone entirely sideways.

“It won’t be that much longer,” she promises in a carefully controlled tone. “And I’m so sorry for this interruption. The MomBomb staff is diligently working with these gentlemen and we will all be able to adjourn to this morning’s breakout sessions shortly.”

I look down at my own phone, hoping for a dozen missed calls from Bex, or at the very least a text from her. Nothing. When I glance back up a cop is behind me. Had he been reading my screen?

“Miss Jackson,” he says to Olivia. “We need you to come down to the station.”

“Why?”

“We need to ask you some questions.”

“I can meet you there in an hour,” Olivia says in a smooth and practiced tone.

“We would prefer you come with us.”

“I don’t think so.” She stands and makes her way out of the ballroom, the officer trailing behind her like a puppy.

“No one leaves,” another cop says into the microphone from the stage.

I comb through Bex’s social media accounts, but she hasn’t posted since last night, when she’d made a reel of her beautifully manicured toes dangling in the infinity pool in my room, the purple mountains and orange sunset glowing in the distance.

Cursive words were sprinkled over her milky white calves: Living the Good Life and Catching Up with an Old Bestie.

Our Friends Are Our Everything . There were already thousands of comments.

Preach sister

Friends, God, children, and chocolate…also our husbands…lol

I aspire to be as calm and present as you

Thank you for your inspiration

Sexy toes!

Funny how everyone believes everything they see on social media

Where are your kids?

When can I hang out with you?

I want to be your bestie

What is your toenail color?

My dream life

The way I would love to live

The naked longing for a fantasy in most of the comments makes me intensely sad.

Because she tagged me in the reel, I’ve amassed thousands of new followers in the past twenty-four hours and the numbers keep climbing.

Much to the chagrin of the conference’s organizers, MomBomb does not continue as planned.

The breakout sessions don’t happen, and more police officers show up to keep us all penned in the ballroom even though they probably don’t have the authority to do it.

Lunch is eventually served. Waiters traipse from table to table with blue cheese iceberg salads and lukewarm salmon as if nothing were amiss.

“Holy shit,” the henfluencer finally clucks about an hour into our captivity.

We’d hardly spoken since the disruptions. No one was talking much, but I figured all the influencers were communicating on their phones. I saw nothing but bowed heads and fingers flying furiously over screens. No one touched their salmon.

“Grayson Sommers is fucking dead,” she announces. “Holy shit. Someone killed him.”

Transcript of Detective Jim Walsh Interviewing Witness Elizabeth Matthews

Det. Walsh: You haven’t seen Mrs. Sommers at all today?

E. Matthews: No. We were supposed to have breakfast this morning, but she never called or texted. So I went to her room and knocked and she wasn’t there. I got worried that she overslept.

Det. Walsh: Did you have a lot to drink last night?

E. Matthews: Define “a lot.”

Det. Walsh: I don’t like sass.

E. Matthews: It was a lot for me. I don’t normally drink more than a glass or two of wine.

Det. Walsh: Was it a lot for her? Do you think she could have driven a car after what she had to drink?

E. Matthews: I honestly don’t know. Maybe. But probably not. Like I said, I was worried that she overslept so I banged on the door and I called but there was no answer.

Det. Walsh: Did you think that was strange?

E. Matthews: I thought she had already gone downstairs, and I went down to find her.

Det. Walsh: But she wasn’t there?

E. Matthews: She wasn’t there.

Det. Walsh: When did you learn about what happened to Grayson Sommers?

E. Matthews: After the police arrived at the conference. It didn’t take long for people to start talking and chattering, even as the room got locked down. Eventually someone got ahold of the pictures…

Det. Walsh: What did you think when you saw the pictures?

E. Matthews: That whoever did that to him must have really fucking hated Gray Sommers.