Page 55 of No Offense
Now he sat in one of the Mermaid’s orange-and-teal booths, watching as his daughter happily waved to her friends on the other side of the restaurant. At home, she would have been texting if he’d allowed it, but at the Mermaid, texting wasreallynot allowed, as Ed, the owner, would throw out customers for cell phone use.
John waited until Katie had had a few bites of her chicken and he knew she had something in her stomach and wasn’t still light-headed from all the calories she’d expended at the dance practice she’d been at all day. Then he pulled out the camera Molly had given him and said, “We need to talk about this.”
Katie glanced down at the camera and said, “Isn’t that Elijah’s? He said his dad left it when he moved out.” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. Don’t tell me hestoleit. No way. I know Elijah’s a little weird, but he would never—”
“I’m not talking about the camera.” John switched on the display screen. “I’m talking about these photos.”
Katie blinked down at the screen. “Yeah. What about them?”
He felt a surge of exasperation. “Katie, these photos... you look... they... you... the way you’re posing...”
She rolled her eyes and turned her concentration back to her salad. “Dad, we were just goofing around.”
“Yes, I can see that. But—”
“We’re notpostingthem anywhere. Well, the headshots we’re going to send with our apps to cheer camp. But the rest of them were just for fun.”
“Just for fun,” he repeated, looking down at a photo of all three of the girls lifting their skirts and mooning the photographer—presumably this Elijah person. They still had on their cheer shorts or whatever they were called beneath their skirts, but that wasn’t the point.
“Come on, Dad,” Katie said, still laughing as she speared a crouton with her fork. “Don’t tell me you never did silly things in high school.”
“I did,” he said, thinking of an incident involving a spear gun, some eggs, and an old friend’s car. “But we never filmed it.”
“Well, times are different now.” Katie popped the crouton into her mouth. “Everybody films everything. It’s no big deal.”
“Itisa big deal,” John said, flipping through the photos until he found the one he wanted. “At least this time. This is why.” He showed her the picture of herself with Larry Beckwith in the background.
At first Katie’s expression didn’t change. She said, “So what? I’m blowing a kiss. You know we all do that in the ‘Mack the Knife’ number—”
Then her expressiondidchange. She reached for the camera in order to bring the screen closer so she could get a better look.
“Oh my God, Dad! Who is that guy? Is hespyingon us? That is so gross! What a creeper.”
“That,” John said, “is Larry Beckwith III, also known as Dylan Dakota.”
“The guy you’ve been trying to catch for so long? The one who messed up the MTV house and the library? Oh my God, is hestalkingme?”
Katie looked more thrilled than frightened by the idea that she had a stalker. John sighed and reached across the table to take the camera from her.
“No, he isn’t stalking you. He robbed a house near Sharmaine’s last night. We think he must have tried a number of homes before finding one that was unoccupied.”
“So he’s creeping on Sharmaine?” Katie reached instinctively for her bag, in which she kept her phone. “I have to tell her right away. She’s always wanted a stalker. She’s going todie.”
“You are not going to tell Sharmaine,” John said. “At least not yet. First of all, no cell phones in here, remember?”
She glanced toward the sign by the Mermaid’s register:
NO SHOES, NO SHIRT, NO PROBLEM.
USE YOUR CELL PHONE? GET OUT.
Then she sighed. “Oh, right. Darn.”
“Second of all,” John went on, “this photo of you and Beckwith is now evidence. And there are certain people who think it should be submitted to the press so that the public can see it and help with the search for Beckwith—”
Katie gasped. Unfortunately, she appeared to be gasping with delight, not horror.
“Oh my God, Daddy, are you serious? What site? Is it BuzzFeed? When? Tomorrow?”
