“Olivia, can you please describe your interactions with Liam Cass?”
“We’re on the debate team together. We have been for the last two years.”
“Are you friends with him?”
“Yes. I mean, we’ve been on the team together for a while. So we talk a lot. I mean, not just when we’re debating.”
“Would you describe your relationship with Liam as more than friendship?”
“Um. Well, no. Not exactly, but... look, I feel weird talking about this with, like, the police… it’s, like, embarrassing…”
“But you understand why this is important.”
“Yes. Of course. I mean, that’s why I called you. I thought… maybe if I told you what happened to me, it would help.”
“And we appreciate youcontacting us.”
“Yes…”
“So going back to the original question: did you have any sort of romantic relationship with Liam Cass?”
“Well, no. Not officially. But… I sort of…”
“What?”
“I… I liked him. Alot. I thought he was cute. And he’s really good at debate, you know?”
“Did he express romantic intentions towards you?”
“Honestly? I mean, sometimes I thought he did. One time he walked me home, but nothing happened. Obviously he liked somebody else better.”
“And then what happened?”
“…”
“Olivia, if you could tell us what you told me earlier about what happened next…”
“You mean about that guy?”
“Right. You said that a man approached you on the street.”
“Yeah. I was out walking my dog and this old guy—he was, like, maybe fifty—he came up to me and asked me if I was Olivia Reynolds. And it totally freaked me out because, you know, you hear all these stories about some girl going out to walk her dog and she never comes home. And he looked kind of creepy too.”
“How did he look creepy?”
“I don’t know. He smelled like cigarettes and his teethwere kind of yellow. Probably because of cigarettes, right? That’s why I am not going to smoke ever. Or vape. Vaping is even worse. My health teacher says you can get popcorn lung from vaping, where your lungs look like microwave popcorn.”
“Uh, right. So what happened next, Olivia?”
“So I didn’t really say anything. I just looked at the guy, but he seemed to know who I was. And then he asked me if I knew Liam, and that wasreallyweird.”
“What did you say?”
“I said yes.”
“And what did he say then?”
“Well, he started telling me all the stuff he knew about me. Like, bad stuff. I mean, notreallybad. I haven’t done anythingthatbad. But, like, he had screenshots of all these text messages on my phone that I wouldn’t want my parents or my teachers to see. And some other stuff.”
