I squint at the photo thumbnails, clicking to expand them one of the time. Only two new pictures, although one of them is artfully cropped and filtered for Buzzfeed. The new Reddit topic already has 1762 upvotes and it was posted only twelve minutes ago.
This is not good. Not good at all.
“Take care of this, August!” she demands. “Do your job!”
“Yeah, I got this,” I mutter, pulling the phone away from my ear and thumbing the disconnect button. I still hear her voice yammering on, but my attention is on the screen.
On closer inspection, I don't think this is a new group of photos from a new location. I can’t be entirely certain, but I see a corner of the blue chaise in the corner of one of the photos. Unfortunately, it's Kirkman's dick again, this time with a lady’s hand around it. She's wearing silver rings and blue nail polish on her short fingernails. She's kept herself carefully out of frame and that hand could be anybody's, but, again, looks like we got another situation to deal with.
Scanning the headlines, I see that sentiment has changed. Now, instead of people gaping in horror, the story contains some insinuation that Kirkman is doing this to himself. He's “leaking” pictures of himself to create more buzz. Frankly, I don't think the idea is out of the question either. But since he told me he's not the one doing this, I have to continue to believe him for the time being.
And unfortunately, some of the coordinates on these entries are hitting pretty close to home. According to my DNS tracker, twelve percent of the commenters on Reddit are located in the Washington DC metropolitan area.
That's a problem. That's a really big problem. It’s starting to look like whoever this is, they are trying to stir the pot locally. That means that he's about to be exposed, in my experience. You can't keep paparazzi in Washington DC in the dark for too long.
“Hello?” Kirkman says in a sleepy voice when he finally answers the phone.
“Who's there with you?” I ask him, tapping the icon to put him on speakerphone so I can get dressed.
“Fuck you,” he grumbles. “I don't need you checking up on me, man.”
“Whoever she is, get her out. You're trending again.”
“What? Shit.”
“I'll be there in fifteen. I expect you awake. Take a shower. And actually, whoever she is… tell her I need to talk to her.”
“Fine… fine…”
The penthouse is in total disarray again, like somebody threw a frat party with a mariachi theme. There are Corona bottles everywhere, absolutely everywhere. A pyramid of Don Patron bottles teeters on one mirrored end table. The air is thick with stale cigarette and pot smoke, and the whole place feels grimy. It's amazing to me that he can trash this penthouse night after night, starting over from scratch. Some people just don't respect their surroundings.
Pounding on the bedroom door with the back of my fist, I step back a respectful distance. I don't actually want to barge in on him with his dick out, but I do want to make my annoyance perfectly clear.
I hear voices inside the massive bedroom, then the door opens from inside. Kirkman gives me a cocky half smile. He scrubs his hands through his hair and then gestures at the interior of the room with a flourish, holding his arm out at two blondes still laying crossways over the bed. Sheets are twisted around them, forming lewd visual echoes of whatever the hell they have been doing all night.
The first one pushes herself up on her elbows and regards me sarcastically. Her eyeliner is smudged into drastic raccoon shapes but her hearty pout tells me she's going to be impatient with my questioning.
“Show me your hands,” I bark gruffly.
She doesn't move but glances down at her fingers, newly tucked underneath her. Her knees are open and I can see the patch of light brown pubic hair edging up over her sex. She waves her knees back and forth slightly, as though daring me to come closer.
“Both of you. I need t
o see your hands.”
The second blonde rolls over the opposite way, displaying a full back tattoo of butterflies and spiderwebs. Not sure I appreciate the artistry. Looks like she was a victim of a school project gone horribly awry.
I stride up to the bed, crossing my arms. “Which one are you?” I ask.
“Lorna,” she sneers. She's on the manifest, so that's good.
“And you?” I ask the one with her back to me.
“Anita Boone,” she drawls.
Apparently the sound of her own voice pains her and she throws her arms up over her head protectively. But I can see when she does that she's wearing dandelion yellow nail polish and thin gold pinky rings.
“Your hands,” I tell Lorna. “Show me. Now.”