Chapter 7 - The Midnight Live Stream
By 2:00 AM, the lodge was dark, save for the orange embers in the woodstove.
Outside, the wind howled against the 1948 A-frame, shaking the rafters, but the structure held strong. I was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of black coffee when I saw a faint blue glow coming from the corner of the pantry hall.
It was Olivia. She was whispering frantically into her smartphone, the camera light illuminating her tear-streaked face.
"Hey guys... I'm doing this live because I don't know what else to do," she was whispering into her phone, her voice tremulous and rehearsed. "We’re trapped in the mountains during an extreme blizzard... and my mentally unstable sister broke in with an armed officer she’s romantically involved with. She’s threatening us... she kicked my babies into the freezing basement..."
I didn't yell. I didn't lunge for the phone.
I quietly stood up, pulled my laptop off the desk, and connected to the lodge's high-speed satellite internet.
Within thirty seconds, I logged onto her Instagram live stream from my own verified account.
"Hello, everyone," I typed in the comments. Then I projected the security camera feed from inside the house directly onto my public page, linking it in her chat.
The security feed showed everything: Jason and the children sound asleep in a fully heated, carpeted bedroom with down comforters; the guests comfortably resting; and Olivia sitting on a pile of luxury luggage, fabricating a hostage scenario for clout.
The comments on her stream reversed instantly:
*Wait, that’s Becca’s account?*
*Look at the link! Olivia isn't in danger, she's in a luxury cabin!*
*Isn't that the house Rebecca posted about building two years ago?*
*Did she just lie about her kids being frozen?!*
Olivia watched the comments scroll past, her eyes widening in horror as her followers plummeted in real time. Her sponsors—boutique lifestyle brands that funded her lifestyle—started dropping comments: *We are terminating our partnership effective immediately.*
I stepped into the hallway. "You can't even tell the truth when you're caught, can you?"
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Olivia dropped the phone onto the carpet. She looked at me not with anger, but with absolute terror.
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