Харлан Кобен - Win

I am not a good sympathetic ear, but I try very hard to appear like one. I try to nod in all the right places. I try to look concerned and mortified. My resting face, if you will allow me to use that annoying colloquialism again, is either disinterested or haughty. I struggle thus to engage and look caring. It takes some effort, but I believe that I’m pulling it off.

“Teddy shows up unannounced begging her to take him back. On three separate occasions, Sharyn has to call 911 because Teddy’s pounding on her door after midnight. He’s pleading with her to talk to him, says she’s being unfair and cruel not to hear him out. Teddy actually cries, he misses her so bad, and eventually he convinces her that she” — here Sadie makes quote marks with her fingers — “‘owes’ him the chance to explain.”

“And she agrees to meet?” I ask, mostly because I worry I’ve been silent too long.

“Yes.”

“This,” I say. “This is the part I never get.”

Sadie leans forward and tilts her head to the side. “That’s because while you’re trying, Win, you’re still too male to get it. Women have been conditioned to please. We are responsible not just for ourselves but everyone in our orbit. We think it is our job to comfort the man. We think we can make things better by sacrificing a bit of ourselves. But you’re also right to ask. It’s the first thing I tell my clients: If you’re ready to end it, end it. Make a clean break and don’t look back. You don’t owe him anything.”

“Did Sharyn go back to him?” I ask.

“For a little while. Don’t shake your head like that, Win. Just listen, okay? That’s what these psychos do. They manipulate and gaslight. They make you feel guilty, like it’s your fault. They sucker you back in.”

I still don’t get it, but that’s not important, is it?

“Anyway, it didn’t last. Sharyn saw the light fast. She ended it again. She stopped replying to his calls and texts. And that’s when Teddy upped his assholery to the fully psychotic. Unbeknownst to her, he bugged her apartment. He put keyloggers on her computers. Teddy has a tracker on her phone. Then he starts texting her anonymous threats. He stole all her contacts, so he floods mailboxes with malicious lies about her — to her friends, her family. He writes emails and pretends he’s Sharyn and he trashes her professors and friends. On one occasion, he contacts Sharyn’s best friend’s fiancé — as Sharyn — and says she cheated on him. Makes up a whole story about some incident in a bar that never happened.”

“Imaginative,” I say.

“You don’t know the half of it. He starts sending Sharyn messages, pretending to be her friends saying what a fool she is to let a sweet guy like Teddy go.”

I frown. “Imaginative albeit pathetic.”

“Beyond pathetic. These men — sorry, I don’t want to sound sexist, but they are almost always men — are insecure losers of biblical proportions.”

“Does Sharyn go to the police?”

“Yes.”

“But that doesn’t prove helpful, does it?”

Her eyes light up. Sadie is in her element now. “This is why we exist, Win. The law as it is now can’t really help the Sharyns of the world. It hasn’t yet caught up to technology, for one thing. Teddy hides himself using VPNs and burner phones and fake email addresses. It’s impossible for anyone to prove who is stalking her. That’s why the work we do, it’s so important.”

I nod for her to continue.

“So now that he’s been dumped again, Teddy doesn’t let up. He sends a naked picture of Sharyn to her ninety-one-year-old grandmother. He makes up a video filled with lies about Sharyn — that she hates Jews, that she’s into all kinds of weird sex, that she’s a white nationalist, you can’t imagine. And get this. When Teddy is confronted with what he’s done, he claims that Sharyn is setting him up. That he dumped her and she can’t move on and this is her way of getting back at him.”

I shake my head.

“Anyway, that’s when Sharyn finally learned about us.”

“How long ago?”

“February.”

I wait.

Sadie swallows. “Yes. I know, I know, it’s a long time.”

“And?”

“And we were trying, Win. We dug in deep and found out Teddy has done this before to at least three other women — it’s one reason why he keeps moving from college to college.”

“The colleges know?”

“Institutions protect their own. So he agrees to resign quietly and they agree not to say anything. On at least one occasion, money exchanged hands, and the victim signed a nondisclosure agreement.”

I frown some more.

“So anyway, we do what we can for Sharyn. We get her a temporary order of protection against Teddy. I told her to write down everything she remembers — everything Teddy did — and to keep a diary of everything he does from here on out. This is key — to keep a record from the get-go if you can. We go to law enforcement, just so we are on record, but like I said, this is why our work is so important. Police aren’t really trained in digital forensics.”

I lean back and cross my legs. “So far, this sounds like a classic case for your firm.”

“You’re right.” She smiles sadly. “Teddy is textbook. He sounds like my ex.”

Sadie’s stalker had taken it to the next level too, but this is not the time to bring that up. I sit back and wait. I already know the bare bones of this story, but she is filling in the details. I am also not sure where she is going with it.

“Sharyn ends up dropping out before she gets her degree because Teddy keeps harassing her. She moves up north, starts at another school. But Teddy finds her again. Like I said, we dig up other victims, but no one wants to come forward. They’re scared of him. And then Teddy turns up the harassing by proxy.”

She stops and looks at me. I figure she is waiting for my prompt, so I repeat: “Harassing by proxy?”

“You know what that is?”

I do, but I shake my head no.

“In his case, Teddy sets up profiles on Tinder and Whiplr and rougher sex apps, ones that deal with BDSM and whatever, as Sharyn. He posts her photos. He carries on conversations as Sharyn, sets up hookup rendezvous. Strange men start showing up at Sharyn’s apartment at all hours expecting sex or role play or whatever. Some get mad when she turns them away. Call her a cocktease and worse. Teddy works it hard. And then...”

Sadie stops. I wait.

“Then Teddy begins a flirtation with one guy on an underground site. As Sharyn. It lasts for six weeks. Six weeks, Win. I mean, that’s devotion, right? ‘Sharyn’” — again with the finger quotes — “tells the guy all about her violent rape fantasies. ‘Sharyn’ tells the guy she wants to be attacked and handcuffed and gagged — Teddy even gives the guy the place to purchase this stuff — and then Teddy sets up a time for the guy to role-play raping her.”

I sit perfectly still.

“This guy, he thinks he’s talking to Sharyn. He’s been told for weeks to be violent, to hit Sharyn and punch her and tie her up, to use a knife. He’s even been given a safe word. ‘Purple.’ Don’t stop, he says as Sharyn, unless you hear me say ‘purple.’”

Sadie looks away and blinks. My hands tighten into fists of rage.

“Anyway, that’s how Sharyn ended up in the hospital. Her condition... it’s not good.”

Again: I already know all this. I wonder how to proceed because I still don’t understand the panic. So I make my voice tentative. “I assume Teddy still hid his identity?”

Sadie nods.

“Ergo the police couldn’t touch him,” I continue.

“That’s correct.”

“He got away with it?”

“So it seemed.”

“Seemed?”