Page 3 of Cruel Pleasures
I’m the only one who seems to actually care she’s gone.
Not her roommate she’s had for almost three years. Not her coworkers at any of her jobs. Not any casual friends we’ve had. Damn sure not a single member of her fucked up family.
Can I really blame her for going ghost?
Yes. Because she left you. You love her like a sister, and she abandoned you without any thought.
I squash down my dissenting bitterness and cross the threshold into the apartment Lyra shared with Taviar. He’s still on the phone as he guides me through.
“She had no will,” he says in between our conversation and the conversation on his phone. “And since the police are done collecting what they need, whatever you want is yours. Take everything for all I care. Otherwise, I’m Goodwilling it.”
He abandons me at the doorway to her bedroom, carrying on with his phone conversation without missing a beat.
I hover for a second at the doorway of Lyra’s room and let nostalgia wash over me.
It’s all so… Lyra. Every single inch of the room. Even with the broken police tape sprawled across the carpet.
The unmade bed. The life inspo moodboards. The duct-taped laptop on her desk. The piles and piles of clothes scattered throughout.
The whole room lives and breathes Lyra in every way.
Strangely enough, it’s comforting at a time where it seems the world wants to move on. At a time where it seems like the city’s satisfied to label her some serial killer’s victim and carry on about their business.
For a while, I wander the small, cramped space. I explore the belongings of my best friend, picking up the books she had jammed onto a crooked bookcase and smiling at the sweater of mine she borrowed and never returned. The mess of it all is so… her.
So her I can’t help but laugh for what’s the first time in probably weeks.
I tear my gaze away from a photo collage she taped to the wall—many featuring photos of us from our college days where we’d get drunk as hell at nightclubs then go out for the greasiest pizza and smile sloppily for the camera as we scarfed it down—and I move toward her desk.
It’s as I reach for the leather cat mask next to her laptop that I’m struck with an idea. Lyra had an account on Cyber Fans that she used a few times a month to generate extra income. She never shared much about her Cyber Fans activity, but I know she was chatting with a few different men who claimed to be of means.
A smile ghosts across my lips as I prop open her laptop and log on. Her password protection is disabled—Lyra hated having to remember too many passwords and pin numbers. All of her accounts have been selected to save her info and auto log her in.
A jolt of adrenaline rushes me. My fingers peck at the keyboard in a blur as I quickly type www.cyberfans.com. The homepage loads and then takes me to Lyra’s account profile.
Offline for fifty-two days.
I click on her private messages.
She has many. Most unanswered from pervy subscribers trying to hit on her in private or from bots filling up her inbox with spam messages. I search through the mess for the last seemingly legitimate message she received.
It’s from a man named Francesco Gigante.
Opening up the exchange, the last message is from him months ago. He invited her to a party at the Winchester.
That damn party Lyra attended where everything seemed to have snowballed from. She met Kaden, and he became more unhinged the more time they spent together…
I pause for half a second thinking up what I want to do, then my fingers sweep across the keyboard as I opt to type him a new message.
hi francesco,
you don’t know me… but my name’s imani. i’m lyra’s best friend. not sure if you’ve heard about what’s happened to her. it’s been all over the city papers. i’m reaching out to you because it all started with your invitation to the party at the winchester. are you able to talk at all???
i would like to know more about everything that happened that night. i understand if you can’t say on here… but maybe in person? please let me know
imani
I press send expecting it’ll take several hours, if not days before I hear back.
