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“Yes?” Jessie confirmed. “How did you know that?”
“That used to be my neck of the woods so it makes sense. What’s her name?” Hannah asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the screen.
“Michaela Penn. But her friends called her Mick.”
“She reminds me of girls I knew in school,” Hannah said quietly.
That didn’t shock Jessie. Her half-sister, until her life was upended, had gone to a private all-girls school in the Valley as well. On the surface, their lives probably weren’t that different.
“I’m sure you can see some of yourself in her life,” she agreed.
“No,” Hannah said forcefully. “I mean, I know actual girls like her, who did porn on the side. I bet some of them knew her.”
“You knew girls who did porn while attending your school?”
“A few,” Hannah said. “I can think of at least five. Three had already graduated. One was a senior with me and one was a junior.”
“There were that many girls at your school that did this?” Jessie asked incredulously.
“Yeah,” Hannah replied, stunningly blasé about it. “In fact, some of them did more than that.”
“What do you mean?” Jessie asked, though she suspected the answer.
“They would go on…private dates to make extra money. At least a few of them did. I know the junior did for sure.”
“So this junior girl who did porn and private dates—she was definitely underage,” Jessie said.
Hannah rolled her eyes at the apparent naiveté of the question but managed to answer without sarcasm.
“I assume so. But I was only friendly with the one girl in my year. And she didn’t really advertise it.”
“Did she say why she did it?”
“We didn’t ever talk about it,” Hannah said. “But she was kind of wild—liked to party, liked to…experiment.”
“With drugs?” Jessie asked, trying not to sound too judgmental.
“Among other things,” Hannah replied. “I also think her home life wasn’t the greatest. She’d come to school with bruises sometimes and she’d occasionally talk about her dad being super-strict, like violently strict. I think this was her way of taking some control.”
“That sounds familiar,” Jessie mused. “Apparently Michaela didn’t have the greatest home life either. Her mother died when she was younger and her father was an abusive alcoholic.”
Hannah nodded.
“Sounds like she was a perfect candidate to end up doing what she did.”
Jessie had about a dozen other questions she wanted to ask. But this was the first time in a while that Hannah had opened up about anything and she didn’t want to scare her off or have her shut down. She forced herself to take a slow, calming breath.
But before she could speak again, her phone rang. She looked down. The call was from Officer Burnside.
“I have to take this. It’s about the case,” she told Hannah before she picked up. “This is Jessie Hunt.”
“Ms. Hunt. It’s Officer Burnside from last night.”
“Hello, Officer,” she said, keeping an even tone though she felt a sudden hit of adrenaline. “What can I do for you?”
“I can’t talk for long. But I thought you should know there’s been a hit on Michaela Penn’s stolen laptop. It was just pawned at a shop on Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood.”
“Is the seller still there?”
