The Bad Sister. Kevin O'Brien
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How long would it take for you to read it? Just a few hours at the very, very most. You should be flattered that I was even interested in your newspaper articles. Now I don’t even think you’re even that good a writer . . .
“Oh terrific,” Ellie murmured. “Now someone else hates my guts.”
There was no use writing back to Nina and apologizing, because then, she’d end up having to read the stupid screenplay, which was bound to be very, very bad. With a pang of guilt, Ellie deleted Nina Rumble’s emails.
Then she opened the next one, sent on June first from [email protected] with the subject line “Thinking of the Children.” There was no salutation:
Because of YOU, my brother, Ted Brewer, is in prison, and his wife is left without a husband at home, and his three children are left without a daddy. They had to move from their nice house to a small apartment in a terrible neighborhood on the south side. You should know that all three of Ted’s kids are now having problems in school and “acting out.” The oldest, Ted, Jr., has been in fights and arrested twice. My sister-in-law is now suffering from depression, and she drinks as a way to self-medicate. You’ve ruined my brother’s family and so many other families. You did this. You took Ted away from his family, and put him in prison. You are godless . . .
It went on for another five paragraphs and was signed Gloria Georgina Brewer. Ellie wanted so much to write back—just one sentence: Ted put Ted where he is. But what good would that do? Gloria had had her say. There was no use in trying to argue with her. She wanted someone to blame, but not her brother. It was easier to blame the former newspaper reporter.
However many angry or threatening emails waited for her now, the numbers had been a lot worse two years ago, when the messages had come through her newspaper email address—dozens by the day. Ellie had written a six-part exposé for the Chicago Tribune about an organization called American Family Preservationists. Eight of its most ardent members—including Ted Brewer—carried out a string of arsons in the city. They set fire to a Jewish cultural center, a mosque, a branch of Planned Parenthood, a GBLT youth center, and even a yoga studio. Three people perished and another seven ended up hospitalized from those fires. Thanks to Ellie’s exposé, Ted and his cohorts were arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. Ellie won a few local awards for her reporting, and the series was syndicated nationally. For a while, there was even some movie interest. Ellie got an agent—and a film option netting her one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. But the movie people couldn’t come up with a decent screenplay. There wasn’t much glamour, sexiness, or cloak-and-dagger stuff in Ellie’s painstaking investigative work. She’d conducted scores of interviews and had dozens of doors slammed in her face. She’d also done a ton of research online, in the library, and at the Cook County Hall of Records. But that kind of thing didn’t really transfer well into film. Yet, according to Ellie’s film agent, there was still a lot of buzz about the project, and once it was off and running, she would receive half a million dollars on the first day of the movie’s principal photography.
So—nineteen months ago, when the newspaper downsized and Ellie was encouraged to take a buyout, she didn’t feel too bad about it. Unfortunately, once that happened, film interest in her story dried up and her option wasn’t renewed.
Ellie glanced at Gloria’s email again. She wanted to write back and point out that the people killed or permanently scarred by Ted Brewer’s handiwork had families, too. But she knew it was pointless.
She imagined—while she’d been unemployed last year, watching her film deal and her marriage unravel—that maybe all of it had been the answer to some fervent prayers from the Brewers and families like them. If they had known what a horrible time that was for her, they’d have said she had it coming.
In the wake of it all, Our Lady of the Cove seemed like a good place to recuperate—and hide.
But someone—probably her film agent—had updated her Wikipedia page, which mentioned that she now taught journalism at the university. So Ellie was still getting hate emails through her college email address. Even with all the misspellings and bad grammar, some of those notes were damn disturbing. As a precaution, she kept three fire extinguishers in her small townhouse. And she felt wary about non-students—like Nicholas Jensen—taking her freshman journalism class. The Brewers and their kind had a lot of friends. Two of the men convicted of arson were now out of jail. Ellie knew all their names and faces. Nicholas Jensen wasn’t among those arrested and convicted, but it could be a fake name.
She’d have to wait until the first day of her journalism class on Wednesday to see if Jensen looked at all familiar.
Ellie slurped the last cold drops of her watery latte, and then she pulled the class list out of her purse. She glanced at the names again—and then stopped once more at O’Rourke, Eden and O’Rourke, Hannah.
She returned to her laptop screen, closed the email page, and tried a Google search for the half-sisters. The results came up, a long list of news articles from two years ago, when the story in Seattle first broke.
Under the Google headings, Ellie clicked on New to see if there were any follow-up stories on the two girls. There were no articles. But Hannah O’Rourke was active on Snapchat and Instagram with all sorts of posts over the summer. The most recent was from yesterday: a selfie, taken at a high angle with her looking up at the camera so that the shot also included a half-packed suitcase on her bed.
Heading to Chicago tomorrow to start college. 99 degrees there! Packing my swimsuit!
For someone whose family was part of such a scandalous news story, Hannah didn’t seem publicity shy. Then again, she was a teenage girl, and some of them lived and breathed social media. If they didn’t photograph it and post it online, then it never really happened.
Despite what Jeanne at the bursar’s office had said about the girls wanting to be left alone, Ellie once again considered the possibility of talking to the half-sisters. The notion of writing a follow-up story—or even another series—intrigued her.
She couldn’t help it. Once a reporter, always a reporter. Because of her last big scoop two years ago, she was still getting horrible, hateful emails.
Yet, all she could think about right now were the two half-sisters and the potential story there.
CHAPTER FOUR
Thursday, 4:16 P.M.
Hannah hadn’t really noticed the businessman sitting nearby on the train car’s upper deck until he asked if she needed help with her suitcases. He was thirty-something, and nerdy-cute with receding light brown hair. He must have taken off his suit jacket and loosened his tie before coming to her aid. Hannah figured he probably heard her cursing under her breath as she struggled with the four big bags on the luggage rack—among them, a heavy as hell and embarrassingly ugly canvas suitcase with Eden’s moronic Magic Marker doodling all over it.
He grabbed that one and a second bag, then led the way down the narrow winding stairwell to the train’s main deck. He took one of the suitcases from her while she was still in the stairwell, creating a pile of bags at the foot of the steps.
“This is really very nice of you,” Hannah said. “My sister is supposed to be here helping out, but she wandered off. I think she must have gotten off at the wrong stop.”
“Did you try calling her?” the man asked.
She sighed. “Twice. She must have turned off her phone. This is pretty typical of her. I’m sure she’ll materialize eventually.”
Nodding, the stranger gave her an awkward smile.
Hannah wondered if her Good Samaritan recognized her from the news stories. Though it had been a long time since all the headlines, people still occasionally stopped her on the street or in a store. She got everything from “Hey, you look familiar” to “Oh my God, you’re the one from that screwed-up family!” Some guy had actually said that to her. “Were you there when that whack-job tried to shoot your father?” he’d asked.
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