Page 40 of She Didn’t See It Coming

A new post to the Facebook group features side-by-side photos of Derek Gardner and Sam Frost, along with the bold question:

Are you Team Derek or Team Sam?

Lizzie quickly scans the comments. There’s a long stream of Team Sams and Team Dereks.

It looks about neck and neck. She’s not sure if Team Sam means you think Sam killed Bryden or you think he’s innocent.

She reads more closely, and it becomes clear that if you’re Team Sam it means you think Sam is a murderer.

Anonymous member

It might not be either of them. You shouldn’t leap to conclusions about people. It destroys lives.

Brittany Clement

Can’t decide. Might be either. They both look like killers to me.

Lizzie feels she has to reply.

Emma Porter

Brittany Clement I don’t know how you can tell that from a photo. You don’t even know them.

Brittany Clement

Emma Porter Seriously? Look at their eyes. You can see it if you pay attention.

Lizzie thinks about that. Can you? If you know what you’re looking for, is it possible to tell if someone is a killer by looking at their eyes? Surely not, or the police would catch them every time. What BS.

Brittany Clement makes a new post.

Maybe one of these guys has killed before. I hope the police check their backgrounds thoroughly.

Farah Spence

Of course they will. That’s their job.

Chris Belliveau

I’ve been looking into both of them and haven’t found anything, and I’m pretty good.

Deep Diver

I live near that building, and I’ve been looking online almost nonstop for anyone who lives there that might be suspicious. So far, I’ve found two possibles. One guy likes kiddie porn. I let the authorities know.

Farah Spence

Deep Diver Good for you!

Lots of likes on that one.

Lizzie sits back in her chair and thinks about Clara, living in an apartment in the same building as a man who likes kiddie porn. She hopes they arrest him. She’s grateful to Deep Diver. It’s awful what you find when you start turning over rocks and looking underneath.

Deep Diver

And even more intriguing, there’s another guy, who lives on the same floor as Bryden Frost, who was arrested for false imprisonment and rape a couple of years ago, but never charged, for lack of evidence.

Hello!!! I can’t give his name or unit number on here.

Wonder what the police are doing about him?

Lizzie can’t resist.

Emma Porter

Deep Diver The police have dismissed him as a suspect. He has an alibi.

Deep Diver

Emma Porter Well I hope they know what they’re doing. And how do you know?

She ignores Deep Diver’s question. Lizzie enjoys being the one who knows something that the others don’t know.

Impulsively, she posts a close-up of her sister’s face from her phone; one that is recognizable as Bryden but that no one else has ever seen. Accompanying the photo, she writes:

I know how she died.

A whole string of how s quickly shows up on her screen. She savors it for a moment.

She hovers over her keyboard and begins another new post; this time she goes back to her standard photo of the front of the building.

She was asphyxiated. A plastic bag was held over her face.

Karen Hennin

How do you know that? And where did you get that photo of her?

Emma Porter

Karen Hennin I know someone in the police. I hear things.

Brittany Clement

Emma Porter What else have you heard?

Then there’s a whole chorus of replies from others demanding to know more too.

Lizzie feels a surge of excitement. Why didn’t she think of this before? She can hide behind this lie, pretend she knows someone in the police. It’s believable. Of course there could be leaks. She makes another post.

There was no sexual assault.

Brittany Clement

Tell us more.

Farah Spence

Then why was she naked? The police said that her clothes are missing. They’re looking for them.

Lizzie posts again.

She had bra and panties on. Just her yoga pants and sweatshirt are missing.

Brittany Clement

That’s what I heard too, she was in bra and panties.

Emma Porter

Brittany Clement How did you hear it?

Brittany Clement

Emma Porter I know people too.

That gives Lizzie pause. Who could this be?

A journalist maybe, snooping around the police for information, snooping here too?

Or someone from the police? She wonders again whether the police check out these groups.

She shouldn’t have posted that photo of Bryden from her phone.

Lizzie picks up her cell phone, searches for the photo, and deletes it.

She looks at Brittany Clement’s profile but there’s no information about her at all. Just a blank. She taps out a new post.

The lack of sexual assault makes them think it’s more likely that it wasn’t a stranger. But I don’t agree. I don’t think it was someone she knew.

Karen Hennin

You seem VERY worried that they might think it was someone she knew. Are you one of those people?

Lizzie feels her heart begin to pound. She will stick to her story of having a friend in the police. She just has to brazen it out.

Emma Porter

Karen Hennin No. I didn’t know her.

Brittany Clement

Emma Porter Maybe I did.

Lizzie stares at the words on her screen. Who the fuck is this? Is someone playing with her?

Emma Porter

Brittany Clement Did you know her or not? And if so, tell us how.

But Brittany Clement doesn’t answer.

Lizzie sits for a moment, perfectly still, waiting for Brittany Clement.

But it becomes clear that she’s not going to reply.

Plenty of other people want to interact with her, however.

Lizzie spends more time discussing the case online with the people in the group.

She thinks she’s become someone they are turning to, as an authority on this case that they’re all so engrossed in.

It’s because they think she’s got a friend in the police.

Lizzie has never felt so important, so noticed , even though she is anonymous. She glows inside. She posts again.

I might even be responsible, in an indirect way, for finding her.

They’d already searched the building thoroughly on the day she disappeared but couldn’t find her.

I suggested to my police friend that they bring in a cadaver dog, and they finally did.

It was the dog that found her in the storage locker.

Well, she did suggest it to the detective.

Lizzie takes a deep breath, finds herself trembling.

Has she gone too far? She’s going out on a limb now, but she can’t help it.

It’s addictive, this sharing. This belonging.

And when it’s anonymous, it feels safe somehow, even if maybe it isn’t. It’s intoxicating.

That last post gets a lot of reaction. She’s so absorbed in what she’s doing that she’s completely startled by the knocking on her bedroom door.

She hears her mother calling, “Lizzie, it’s time for supper. What are you doing in there?”