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"May as well get this over with," I whisper to myself. I quickly change into the dress and apply the lipstick before stepping out into my bedroom. Trent looks up, something akin to lust appearing in his gaze before it quickly disappears.
"You look gorgeous," he murmurs, his eyes leaving a heated trail as they moves along my body.
I smile. "Thanks." I move over to him and hand him the script that lay on the bed. "I just need you to hold this up so I can read from it when it's time for me to throw the advertising in."
"Don't you need me to hold the phone?" he asks with a raised brow. "I thought your tripod was broken."
I shake my head and grin as I retrieve the perfectly intact tripod from my desk. "Oops. I guess I was mistaken," I said with a cheeky grin.
Trent chuckles and shakes his head. "Devious. I like it," he muses.
I set the camera up and open Instagram, going through the steps until I'm finally live. Viewers pour in as they usually do, commenting on how pretty they think I look or asking where I got my dress.
"Hi guys, hopefully you didn't miss me too much," I say into the camera with a smile. I take a few steps back and spin around. "Do you guys like my dress? It's so cute, right?"
I move a little closer to my phone to read a couple of comments, most of them asking where I got the dress from. "It's actually a custom design. I met this really sweet upcoming designer last winter when my dad and I went on our family ski trip, and it just came in a couple of weeks ago! I have a hot date tonight, so I thought it would be something cute to wear." Trent smiles, but he doesn't say anything. "And I can finally use this new lipstick that matches it perfectly. It's such a beautiful color."
As expected, the questions about the brand and color of lipstick fill the chat. I glance up at the script Trent holds up before grabbing the product box from my bed. Walking back into the camera, I hold the box up to show the logo printedon the box. "I got this lipstick in a nice PR package from BMP Cosmetics!" I open the box, pull out all five lipstick tubes, and hold them up. "The one I have on specifically is BMP Cosmetic's new lipstick called Cherrypop. It's a matte lipstick with a beautiful satin feel and doesn't smear or transfer onto anything—or anyone," I say with a cheeky grin. "The best part? It lasts for twenty hours, and it's available in a total of five different colors." I hold up each color in front of the camera for a few seconds. "It's now up for pre-order online on their website. Trust me, you guys have to get these. I'm already obsessed with them."
The live continues with me answering questions about the lipstick or my dress multiple times until I'm sure I can recite the script forward and backward with how many times I've said the same thing. I've never been so happy to sign off in my life. By the time the live is finally done, a long sigh escapes me.
"I don't think I ever want to say Cherrypop or lipstick ever again," I joke as I take my phone off the tripod. Trent's entire demeanor has changed, his body now rigid as his jaw tightens. "What's wrong? Everything okay?"
"Yeah," he says, but his tone is different from usual. He jumps to his feet. "I have to go. I'll call you later."
"But—"
He's quickly out of my bedroom before I can even finish my sentence, leaving me staring at the empty doorway in pure confusion.
7
TRENT
The entire time Morgan was live, I couldn't help but think that something was off.
The information we have on her says that she's planning a bomb threat, but how could a social media princess with a huge following have time to do that when she has her father hovering over her about minute things such as going live? Even if he's managing her social media, the urgency in which he had in telling her that she has to do the live at a certain time, wear a certain thing, and even read from a particular script didn't sit right with me. The first time she read the script, they were simply words that came out of her mouth. But the more she repeated them, the more my brain began connecting the dots.
I quickly make my way out of her house, my mind hyperfocused on the pieces quickly connecting. Once I'm in my car, I pull out my phone and type BMF Cosmetics into my search engine. The website comes up, and I click on it, scrolling through the site to see all the makeup items they carry. I frown. The site itself seems legit and looks the same as any other site selling the same product. Yet that nagging feeling doesn't go away. I click through the different products, noticing how amajority of them are sold out. But all the listings seem to use the same lingo Morgan had used in her life. Many of the listings also seem to have some variation of the word cherry, which I find strange, especially for colors that didn't even include red as an option.
Closing out the site, I call Natalie. The more the pieces settle into my head, the more I realize how wrong we are.
"This is Natalie speaking," she says upon answering.
"It's Trent. I think I just stumbled upon something that may potentially blow this entire hit out of the water," I state, skipping the formalities and jumping right into business. "I've been spending a little time getting closer to the target in hopes of finding something incriminating enough for this hit on her to make sense, but I think I discovered something else entirely." I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. "I suspect she's unknowingly doing black market advertising in her Instagram lives."
"How would it be unknowingly if she's doing the lives herself?" she questions.
"Because she's only reading from some script her father gives her. I was actually with her when she just did this last one. If she is, in fact, doing that, then it would make sense for a competitor to try to take her out by ordering a hit in false pretense. Nothing I've discovered so far has given me an inkling of a reason for her to want to blow up her school. There's no motive. She's not mentally ill, she's not angry, she's nothing you'd expect a potential bomber to be. I honestly think it's more than that."
"Well, what do you think she's advertising?"
I lean my head against the headrest. "Based on the script she was reading from and what I've seen in my line of work, I think she's advertising something related to human trafficking," I answer.
In my days as a CIA agent, we'd had times when we were investigating international human trafficking rings. They always come up with the most crafty ways to stay under the radar, but I did remember some of the terminology they'd used, ones that seemed innocent enough on the surface to slide past the average civilian.
"I took a look at the website of the company she was promoting. The information is normal enough, but something still doesn't sit right with me. During her live, she kept emphasizing how the lipstick lasts twenty hours, which, when I hear twenty hours, I think about 8:00p.m. in military time. She also said the name of the lipstick often as well, which is Cherrypop. I remember back when I was working on an assignment, a lot of traffickers used references of cherries to imply that they were selling virgins. I'd say that the number of colors Morgan mentioned having is probably code for the number of girls they have." I paused to take a breath. "It might be a reach, but I honestly think Morgan was giving a coded message in her live about an upcoming human trafficking auction."
"That's quite the conclusion," Natalie says when I finally stop speaking.
