Tam regretted buying a new phone the moment she connected it to her Wi-Fi. Expecting her old phone to be having a few sleepovers in the evidence room at the police station before it was returned to her, she'd decided to use a chunk of her soon to be diminished bank account to purchase a new one. She was in the middle of importing her contacts when she made the regrettable mistake of logging onto social media.

She'd been tagged and messaged more times in the past twelve hours than she had in her entire life. Maybe some were condolences to her on the tragic loss of her boss, but, catching a word here and there, she doubted it. She put the phone down on the kitchen counter and stepped away from it like she'd caught a poisonous spider under an empty jelly jar.

The room spun. She sank to her knees below her kitchen sink, letting the faint smell of lavender dish soap sooth her frazzled nerves.

It wasn't just the police who assumed she'd murdered Goldie.

After several minutes, she forced herself up and walked towards that poisonous silicon spider, gingerly lifting it from the table. She needed to understand what was happening, even if doing so delivered a dose of venom to her veins.

She ignored her notifications for the time being. The glimpse she'd gotten was dreary enough. Instead, she scrolled to the top of the trends and there it was: Goldie's name. In memoriam. People reacted with expressions of grief and incredulity. They couldn't believe it. It must be a hoax. They posted selfies of their blurry eyes faces streaked with mascara-darkened tears.

She scrolled on passed a few RIPs, pictures of Goldie's flawless face posted along with a link to a news article with scant details surrounding the influencer's untimely demise. And then, eventually, not Goldie's face, but her own appeared. The image was her profile pic, a photo she'd taken after her most recent haircut. She'd loved how the chin-length bob framed her face, accentuating her jaw line and making her dark eyes seem deep and mysterious. She'd fancied that it made her look like one of the flappers Goldie was so fond of, a cheeky brunette starlet from the silent film era.

No one mentioned her glamorous appearance. Glitz and glamour—she didn't deserve either. No one compared her to a golden era It Girl. The post, from GoldieGirl01, was short and to the point, but it did its job.

This is the face of Goldie's killer. Tam Martin. Remember that name. If the police won't bring her to justice, we'll have to.

Venom. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, her phone tucked in her hand, out of sight. This was what women felt like in the sixteenth century when they were being accused of witchcraft for prescribing mugwort to pregnant women. She forced her hand to reveal her phone again, made herself read a couple of the post's comments. They ranged from "OMG, how do you know it's her?" to "Shit, has she been arrested?" to the simple one-word responses: Murderer, Bitch, Cunt.

Her DMs, once she'd gained the courage to click on them, were pretty much the same, random people telling her to turn herself in, to confess, to die. Stop breathing. She wasn't worth the air. She was evil for what she'd done, and no amount of suffering would be too much for her.

Tam closed out all social media apps and checked the door to her apartment to make sure it was bolted. She could never go outside now. It would be like quarantining all over again only this time, instead of a virus out to get her, it was an internet mob. They didn't need a judge or jury. They only needed the rage of their own misguided convictions.

Tam wiped sweat from her forehead. Her body burned. It would be better for her if she spontaneously combusted. When the police came to arrest her, all they'd find would be a pile of ash on top of warped plastic flipflops. They'd close the case, and everyone would be happy that Goldie's murderer had been brought to justice by an act of God.

She kept a running tally in her head of those who believed in her guilt. The police. GoldieGirl01. The majority of Goldie's fans. Internet randos. Who else?

Did Goldie's parents think she'd pushed their daughter off her balcony? Did Jasper? He hated her already. It wouldn't be a bridge too far to put him in the same camp as Goldie's fans.

She called Paul. If she could plead her case to him, maybe there was hope for her. Paul was Goldie's manager. He had business sense, which hopefully transferred over to common sense. He had to see reason.

His phone went to voicemail. Tam's throat constricted at the beep and she gave a sharp cough before speaking. "Um, hi Paul. I'm so sorry I didn't have a chance to talk to you and Mrs. DeAngelis last night. It's... I wanted you to know I didn't... I would never... do what her fans are saying I did. Maybe you haven't seen but, anyways. I'm sure the police will find out the truth and then..." There was no and then. She couldn't ponder anything beyond her innocence being proven. Likely she'd return to her wretched old life and a series of miserable jobs and never see Paul or the rest of the DeAngelis family again. "Anyways, I'm really sorry for your loss and... this is Tam Martin by the way. I'll talk to you soon, bye."

She ended the call and chewed on her lower lip. Poor Paul, having to make sense of her sleep-deprived word salad amid his grief. What a stupid decision she'd made to leave that message. A lawyer, if she'd had one, might have advised her against any contact with Goldie's family.

Too late to take it back.

Tam crossed the short distance between her door and the window next to her bed, drawing closed the blinds. She imagined tabloid reporters and Goldie Girls staked out in the buildings near hers, hoping to catch a glimpse of her in her modest Canoga Park studio apartment, waiting to get a shot of her.

Or shoot at her.

Her heart sped when the doorbell buzzed. This was it, then. A Goldie Girl would be waiting on the other side of it to deliver the swift justice Goldie's murderer deserved. Tam forced her body to stay in one place. She kept the cacophony of her troubled thoughts trapped inside her, reverberating like buckshot until her brain screamed at her for release. The room outside her mind felt stagnant, hot, silent. Until it wasn't anymore.

Goldie's wannabe avenger pounded on the door. "Tam?"

She whipped her head in its direction. That voice. This couldn't be good.

The moment of reckoning was upon her. Hide or be seen. Cower or walk out into the light like the innocent person she was.

She stepped towards the door. "What do you want, Jasper?"

"I need to talk to you. About what happened."

Another step forward. "Have you read what the Goldie Girls are saying about me? Do you know what they think?"

"I try my best to ignore anything Goldie Girls think. This isn't about them."

She reached the door, her fingers fiddling loosely with the bolt. "What do you think?"

"That's why I'm here. I'm trying to make sense of it all."

She turned the bolt, cracked the door open and tilted her head up to meet his gaze. "I can't help you make sense of something I can't make sense of myself. All I know is that what people are so convinced happened isn't what happened at all."

"Then you know something, at least." Jasper leaned his weight against the door. It slid open several more inches. "Can I come in?"

She moved aside. "Yes, but only because you were on a date on the other side of town when... when it happened."

He furrowed his brow. "What does that have to do with it?"

"You have an alibi, genius. No way would I let someone into my apartment who hates me and who also might be Goldie's killer."

"I don't... I'm not a suspect."

"Yes, because you have an alibi. What part of this are you having trouble comprehending?"

"If I hadn't been drinking with whatshername the police might suspect me?"

"They have to suspect everyone close to the victim. That's how this works. Look what's happening to me." She closed the door behind him and secured the lock. "I spent all night at the precinct getting asked the same questions over and over again. That one cop, Garcia... she nearly punched a hole in the wall a couple of times because I wouldn't say what she expected to hear."

"Okay..." he sat on her armchair. "But you also got questioned because you were in her apartment and then she was dead. You have to admit that looks bad."

"She was dead and then I was in her apartment. That order really matters." She wanted to crawl onto her bed and assuming the fetal position, but it seemed safer to remain standing in front of him. She widened her stance and crossed her arms. "What are you doing here, Jasper? You want to squeeze a confession out of me?"

He tipped his head back until it rested against the wall. "Fuck, Tam, why do you always have to be so unreasonable. I'm just trying to understand."

"That's what the detectives claimed too, but they still asked all the wrong questions and of the wrong person."

He sat upright again. "So, what's the right question?"

She hadn't thought that one through. "Only the right person can answer that, and instead, they wasted a night on me. The only thing useful I could tell them was that she was seeing someone."

His knuckles whitened as he gripped the arms of the chair. "Who was it? Was it the same person as in the Maldives?"

She edged her way towards the kitchenette. She owned several sharp knives. "Again: wrong question for the wrong person. You were present several times when I can recall Goldie literally saying, 'I'm going on a date. See you later, losers.'"

"Her supposed dates were always with business connections and friends." He stood up and paced back and forth over the precious little pacing space she had between the chair and her day bed. "She wasn't seeing someone romantically. That stunt in the Maldives was bullshit. She made it up."

"You're wrong. I could tell by how she acted whenever she returned from a date. Not so much in Morinda—the fight with her mother took center stage that time. But in general. Whoever it was that she was with, she liked them."

"She would have told me." His words sounded like a bear being rudely woken a month before springtime.

"Not if she thought you'd respond like this. What is wrong with you?"

He stopped a few feet from her. "Goldie's dead. She had secrets. Some she kept from me. But some... some she kept from you."

"So? She wasn't obligated to tell me her life story. I'm not her diary. She wasn't obligated to tell you anything either. Everyone has secrets."

"Yeah, everyone does."

"But in this case, your theory is that one of Goldie's secrets got her killed."

One step closer to her. Juniper berries. A forest at dusk. Campfires and a sky lit up with stars. She couldn't focus with him standing so close.

He leaned in and she held her breath. The forest, the smell of freshly cut trees, the twinkling lights dancing through a tiny clearing—it all went away. There was only Jasper, angry and wounded and looking for a fight. "Maybe. Or maybe one of yours did."

"My secrets have nothing to do with Goldie and they have nothing to do with you." She placed a trembling hand on the middle of his chest and pushed. "Leave now."

Hands up in acquiescence, he backed up until he was at her doorway once again. She opened it for him.

"I can't let this go, Tam."

"No one asked you to. Just leave me alone."

He stepped over the threshold but turned and caught his foot in the door before she could close it. "Watch your back."

As his footsteps echoed down the corridor, Tam wondered if he meant those words as a warning or a threat.

------

A warning or a threat... which is it, do you think? Whose side is Jasper on?

See you back here on Saturday. Until then, don't forget to comment and vote, if you'd like, and thanks for reading!