"You're going to make me do bad things to you, sweetheart." | Frank Rider is the new teacher. His favourite word is 'detention'. He's iniquitous, rude and vicious. To get on his bad side would be suicide. Unfortunately for Cleo, she's already dived...
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"Betsy Coker, forty-one from Missouri City wrote: 'It's a DAMN shame the criminal justice courts failed this poor boy! If he was my son, I'd hire him the very best defence lawyer – not that shifty, useless, good-for-nothing uncle! My heart BROKE for him when I first heard about the case in the news in 2008. I knew he was innocent as soon as I laid eyes on him. He has the face of an angel and those eyes! Good lord, have mercy on me! He makes my heart flutter. I feel like a school girl. I've tried visiting him a few times but that wretched mother of his has a rock hard grip. She refuses to pass on any letters or photographs. Selfish cow! I've spent eight years keeping an eye on this case and when he was finally released, my heart leapt for joy. I find it RIDICULOUS how his mother has forced him underground. I've never liked her. She's a stuck up – Jesus will forgive me for saying this – slut! I hope he escapes from her. If he ever needed a place to run to, my home is always open.'" Eton read her address, the glare of his phone shining on his face. He doubled tapped on a picture and enlarged it to see clearer. "She's a fucking grandma. She'd probably suffocate me under those rolls of fat. Oh, look. Someone replied. This is @etonia89_ and they said: 'Agree completely, Betsy! He's a victim who needs to be compensated. I wouldn't mind if tax payer dollars went to him rather than the immigrants. Ha-ha-ha!' This person is from Ohio, I'm checking their profile but there's no pictures or anything to identify this person."
"They're disturbing," I remarked and turned Eton's cheek to the side, using a damp beauty blender to dab on silver face paint on the other half of his face. I was sitting cross-legged on my dresser table with my make-up products surrounding me and an almost half-empty bottle of red wine between my legs. Eton was sat in my chair, his once-black-now-grey hair stiff with glittery hair spray and curled. He had found a website (www.truecrimeprofilers.com) and discovered his own page. He had an army of his own fans and descriptive columns on his crimes and news on him– although many of the articles were often debunked as fake by him as he scrolled through. He had never been to Australia despite the blurred photographs insisting he was in the back of a truck through a heatwave and neither had he visited the Washington Monument with a mysterious red-head. Right now he was reading through the comments section of an old article. "They're obsessed with you. Don't you find that creepy?"
He shrugged, half-assed. "It is weird. There's a five hundred dollar reward for any information about my whereabouts. It was posted last year and the banner is still up. I don't get what they want from me. I'm not going to fuck any one of them and neither am I going to offer any exclusive interviews. This one thinks I'm innocent, listen to this: 'I have my own theory on Mr Aristodemos. He has been punished for his father's crimes. They're a wicked family for allowing this to happen. An insider told me the boy has been threatened and if he didn't go along with it, he would've been killed no doubt. If anyone would like to know more, shoot me an email at susanwhitticker @truecrime. org.uk.' She's got twelve replies and she's not responded to a single one of them."
"Let that sit and dry out," I set down the face paint powder and picked up the wine bottle, taking a swig. Outside the rain lashed on the window pane, pouring down heavily from the gloomy blue-grey clouds like it was the last day on Earth. It was the perfect tone for Halloween; nebulous, foreboding and ill-lighted. Thunder rumbled lowly as Eton took the bottle and swallowed a large mouthful.
