Page 91 of The Lake Escape
Erika and Rick declined. The drink was beside the point. Boiling water and steeping tea should give Julia time to do some research without her absence being noticed. She sat herself at thebreakfast bar, lost in her phone, barely hearing Lucas playing guitar upstairs or Rick and Erika’s faint conversation wafting in from the living room.
Julia had done a cursory exploration of Jimmy T after the Bennington trip. She ended up with little, but now she narrowed her focus. She remembered the name the bartender gave her: Jim Tracey. But because of his association with porn and crime, Mr. Tracey had done an exemplary job of keeping his face off the internet, even when she added ‘Lake Timmeny’ to her searches.
He had no social media presence, and according to the court appearances that Google indexed, no arrest record, which made it unsurprising to find no news stories written about him. Jimmy T played it clean for good reason. Low exposure made it easier to run his rackets. And if he had a couple of connections to the local police, as the bartender implied, any slipups could easily become cover-ups. That would explain why David’s failure to monitor for revenge porn had enraged him. There were some ramifications even Jimmy T couldn’t control, including the FBI investigation and the media spotlight following Bella’s death.
Julia came across others with the name “Jim Tracey” as she searched, but she doubted they weretheJimmy T. She felt stuck, and, no surprise, caved in to her compulsion to check Instagram for a distraction.
However, the thought of Instagram gave Julia another idea. Jimmy T may have kept his photo from ever landing on the internet, and Fiona’s social accounts were nonexistent. But Fiona did have a best friend who might have an active account in memoriam.
Finding Bella’s last name and the link to her Instagram page didn’t take long. Luckily, the profile wasn’t set to private. Bella, like Fiona, had been an aspiring actress and used social media to promote herself. There was no shortage of both personal and professional pics on her account, and Julia started to peruse images of this young woman’s short life.
Bella was a raven-haired beauty with caramel-colored eyes and a fresh-faced appeal that was tailor-made for show business. Her last post was from her family, announcing her passing with a headshot that Bella probably would have selected herself, if only she’d been able.
Julia kept a close eye out for photos of Fiona with her dad in the feed. Jimmy T cared enough about his daughter’s friend to allegedly toss the man who had betrayed Bella off a bridge. It seemed conceivable he could be in one or more of Bella’s pics—a group shot, most likely. If she got lucky, Julia could put a face to the name and maybe uncover something to link the notorious gangster to Lake Timmeny and Anna Olsen.
Bella’s posts were nothing extraordinary, a bunch of the usual shots—dinner with friends, out at concerts, pictures of her cocktails, Bella on the beach showing off a youthful figure. Fiona was featured in many of the posts, looking dazzling and full of vitality, but her handle, @FeistyFiona, went nowhere since her profile had evidently been deactivated at some point.
Bella, however, kept posting up until the end. There were several pics of her with a handsome young man with thick auburn hair. In one, his arm was draped around Bella as she showed off an impressive diamond on her left hand, gazing into the camera with bright eyes and a brilliant smile that spoke of a future full of promise. Julia realized, with a knot in her stomach, that this must be Bella’s beloved ex-fiancé.
She kept scrolling, losing hope as she went through years of Bella’s life in reverse chronological order, all her trips, her haircuts, sunsets, books she’d read, movies she’d seen, plays she’d performed in, and parties she’d attended.
It was disorienting to watch someone who had passed on move away from their death. Only she knew Bella’s time was short and her joy on lease. The knowledge burdened Julia in a way that infused each image with a palpable weightiness. She felt intrusive, like a macabre voyeur.
But she was glad she stuck it out, because near the end (orbeginning, actually) was a fresh-faced, very young picture of Bella broadcasting a big smile on her graduation day from SUNY Albany. And there, embracing her in a half hug, was Fiona also in cap and gown, with two men on either side of the young women who Julia assumed had to be their proud fathers.
The caption read:
Our dads didn’t think we’d pull it off! #jokesonyou #wemadeit #ontothenext #love #apprecationpost #ohtheplacesyoullgo
Bella stood next to a handsome fellow in his fifties, and, if the post was to be believed, the man next to Fiona must be her father, Jimmy T.
Julia was expecting a frightening mobster—square head and jaw, muscular and imposing—but what she saw surprised her.
Jim Tracey was the dad-next-door type. He had an average build and was fortunate to have a thick head of dark hair touched with silver. His most distinguishing characteristic was his bushy, mouse-brown mustache. It gave him an approachable air, which he augmented with a pair of tortoiseshell glasses that magnified his soft blue eyes. He was dressed for the occasion in a light gray sport coat over a white collared shirt, no tie. To Julia, he looked like a workingman, not a thug and pornographer—certainly not some gangster who might have masterminded the not-so-accidental death of Bella’s ex-boyfriend.
What struck Julia most wasn’t this man’s unpretentious demeanor and dapper style of dress. It was the shocking realization that he was currently staring at her out of two separate pictures.
Almost in a daze, Julia stood up and held her phone next to a framed photograph hanging on the kitchen wall across from her. It was an image of Cormac Gallagher taken years ago, holding a fishing rod on the dock he had built himself. His fishing companion stood beside him, grinning ear to ear—a dark-haired, handsome, mustached man Julia knew from her childhood, but who she now realized bore a striking resemblance to the much older gentleman celebrating his daughter’s graduation.
Julia’s mind went blank for a second, but soon enough restarted like a frozen computer. Fiona’s father, Jim Tracey, might be known in some circles as Jimmy T, but to Erika, he was always Uncle James.
Chapter 42
Izzy
I might feel better after talking to my mother, but I don’t know how Taylor feels after talking to hers. I return from the lake to find the door to Taylor’s house shut. I’m sure it’s unlocked, but I knock anyway. I hear a few faint barks from Nutmeg, but nobody comes to greet me, so I let myself in.
“Taylor?” I call out.
Her muffled reply drifts down from upstairs. Nutmeg greets me when I enter her bedroom, panting with excitement as I give her a satisfying scratch behind the ears. Taylor is sprawled on her bed, her eyes fixated on her phone, mindlessly scrolling through a social app. I recognize the automatic finger flick.
“How are you holding up?” I ask as Nutmeg jumps onto the bed and cuddles next to Taylor.
This is my first time up here. The room is painted light pink, and the furniture is worn and secondhand. She’s decorated the walls with a few framed prints, but there’s also a poster of Katy Perry and one of Katniss Everdeen fromThe Hunger Games.It’s a younger girl’s sanctuary, left untouched because she either outgrew the need to have the decor match her age or she’s taken solace in the memories of simpler times.
“I’m okay. Thanks for checking on me,” she says, though her quiet voice and downcast eyes contradict this assertion.
“How’d it go with your mom?” I ask.
