With the kids still at school and the Pink Cupcake under the happy supervision of Lila and Beatrice, Amelia took the quiet time to look up Candace and Florence on their social media accounts.
“I thought Spencer’s was shocking. What in the world is wrong with people?”
Starting with Candace Rosenbaum, Amelia was shocked to see there were so many risqué photos of her posted all over the Internet. In addition to being at every posh event in the city in the past thirty days, there were images of her posing nearly nude in black-and-white photos, intense close-ups that were perfectly airbrushed. It was as if she went to a professional photo shoot every couple of days.
One thing that stood out was that Florence had commented on almost every photo. They slung insults at each other and anyone else who didn’t click the “like” button on the page.
“These are wealthy grown women, and this is how they act?” She shook her head. As she scanned the comments, Amelia was surprised to see the vulgar, almost obscene comments they made at each other. And then there was a third party joining in.
“Who is this?”
The name on the account was Jasmine Peterson. From the looks of it, she couldn’t have been too far over the legal age of consent, and Amelia felt it safe to assume she wasn’t.
“She insults like a girl that age would, but Florence and Candace aren’t any better, so I can’t say it’s because she is young.” She went to Jasmine’s page and saw several images of her in a string bikini hanging on the arm of Amelia’s old classmate Spencer Randall.
She was another one who posed as if she were on one long, continual photo shoot. Who had the time to do this?
A typical social media diva, Jasmine posted about a vacation in Bali, a trip to Mexico, hitting Palm Beach for spring break, skiing in Aspen, and in half of these were captions like “Ran into Spencer in Honolulu! My honey. My sweetie. Love Spencer.”
“Ugh, I’m getting a cavity.”
As she scrolled down and read Jasmine’s childish comments and insults to all the people commenting on her posts, something struck a chord, with Amelia making her very angry.
A picture of Jasmine kissing Spencer with the caption: “Mom and Dad say STAY AWAY. Ha ha ha” was plastered on the page. There were more with her kissing him, sitting on his lap, holding him around the neck. She wore a white blouse and sweater with an insignia on the lapel. That wasn’t just a private-school emblem. She probably went to some highfalutin prep school. All of these snapshots had been added to her page one week ago. Since then, there had been a few posts about Spencer, but then nothing. Not a mention of him being dead. Not a blip about him not contacting her. Not even a sad emoji. Just an update on the status of her manicure.
Without hesitating, Amelia picked up her cell phone and dialed Dan’s number.
“I was just thinking about you,” Dan grumbled into the phone. Amelia always liked how he spoke to her quietly yet sounded like he was commanding a ship. He and Meg had watched Rio Lobo with John Wayne the other day.
“John Wayne sure is tough. He reminds me of you, Dan,” Meg had chirped.
“You think so?”
“Yeah. I mean, you’ve got more gray hair. But I wouldn’t want to double-cross you, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I know what you mean.” He’d chuckled when he looked at Amelia.
She smiled at his low voice over the phone but wasted no time telling him what she’d learned over the course of her day. Finally, she got to the Facebook and Instagram messages from Jasmine Peterson.
“Really?” Dan said. Amelia was sure he was writing everything down.
“Yeah. I know there’s no way I could talk to anyone’s kid, especially if she’s attending some prep school. They won’t let just anyone in there to talk to the kids without parents being notified.” Amelia sounded sad.
“No. But they’ll let the police in,” Dan said cockily. “Want to ride along?”
“You know I do!” Amelia clapped.