She looked at her watch and was surprised to see it was already 6:29. She made herself wait until the clock clicked over to 6:30, then reached for the pregnancy test. The first time she had bought only one, sure that was all she would need. Now, two years later, she bought them in multi-packs at Costco.
In the control window was a pink horizontal line. And in the other window, the results window, were pink crosshairs.
Not single pink lines in both windows.
She was pregnant.
PORTLAND FBI HEADQUARTERS
December 15
The words popped up on FBI special agent Nicole Hedges’s screen.
PDXer: WHATS UR FAVORITE SUBJECT?
Nic—using the screen name BubbleBeth—and some guy going by the name PDXer were in a private area of a chat room called Younger Girls/Older Men.
BubbleBeth: LUNCH
It was what Nic always answered. She could disconnect from her fingers, from the reality behind her keyboard and the words that appeared on her screen. Which was good. Because if she thought about it too much, she would go crazy.
At first, working for Innocent Images, the FBI’s cyber-crime squad’s effort to take down online predators, had seemed like a perfect fit. Regular hours, which were kind of a must when you were a single parent. The downside was that she spent all day exposed to vile men eager to have sex with a girl who barely qualified as a teen.
Most people were surprised that it wasn’t the creepy guy in the rain-coat who went online trolling for young girls. If only. In real life it was the teacher, the doctor, the grandpa, the restaurant manager. The average offender was a professional white male aged twenty-five to forty-five.
PDXer: HOW OLD R U?
BubbleBeth: 13
In Oregon, eighteen was the age of consent. But prosecutors preferred to keep it clear-cut to make it easier for the jury to convict. So Nic told the guys she met online that she was thirteen or fourteen, never older. Some typed L8R—later—as soon as Nic told them her imaginary age. For the rest, it was like throwing a piece of raw meat into a dog kennel.
PDXer: KEWL
Surveys had shown that one in seven kids had received an online sexual solicitation in the past year. It was Nic’s job to find the places where the chances weren’t one in seven, but 100 percent, which meant going to chat rooms.
Sure, that kind of thing happened on MySpace, but the FBI didn’t have the time to put together pages that would fool anyone. They never looked as good as the real thing. Real kids spent hours on their MySpaces, tweaking them with photos and music and blogs. Real predators went there, too, but it was hard to catch them without some kind of tip.
But there were plenty of chat rooms. Nic’s being there was predicated on the chat room name (Not Too Young to Have Fun, for example) or a kid’s report of having been solicited.
Sometimes she took over from a true victim, but usually she just started out fresh—went into a chat room and announced her presence. The first thing you noticed upon entering a chat room was the absence of any actual chat. The point of being there was to start up a private conversation. It never took longer than five or ten minutes before someone approached her.
PDXer: R UR PARENTS TOGETHER?
BubbleBeth: NO. I LIVE W/MY MOM. ONLY C DAD SOMETIMES.
It was what she always said. Guys like PDXer loved kids with one parent and unfettered access to the Internet. It was like that line in Casablanca. “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
PDXer: DO YOU HAVE ANY BROTHERS OR SISTERS?
BubbleBeth: 1. SHES 3.
Young enough that Nicole’s imaginary mom would have her hands full.
Nic let Makayla play Neopets online. But only when she was in the room with her. And her daughter knew that at any time her mom could come to her and ask to see what she was typing, and Makayla would have to show her right away.
PDXer: R U A COP?
Nic smiled. Got ya.
BubbleBeth: NO!
Nic went on answering PDXer’s questions, not even paying that much attention. It was better if she didn’t. Didn’t think about this sick jerk sinking his hooks into a girl. Grooming her. Better if she didn’t wonder how many there had been before her. Girls who really were thirteen or fourteen.
PDXer: CAN U SEND ME A PIC?
Since they never used pictures of real kids, Nic would send him a picture of herself, morphed back to look like she was thirteen. The morphing wasn’t accurate because it didn’t take into account three years of braces and four pulled teeth. When she had really been BubbleBeth’s age, everyone had made fun of her buckteeth.
PDXer: WANT 2 GO 2 A MOVIE SOMETIME?
BubbleBeth: SURE, THAT WOULD BE COOL.
Nic had to backspace and retype the last words, changing them to B KEWL.
PDXer: ANYTHING U REALLY WANT TO C?
BubbleBeth: MEAT MARKET.
It was rated R, which meant technically she couldn’t get in. Well, BubbleBeth couldn’t. Sometimes Nic forgot to distance herself. She wasn’t thirteen, she wasn’t going to school, she didn’t fight with her mom.
PDXer: GR8. R U WEARING ANY UNDIES RIGHT NOW?
Bingo.
CHANNEL FOUR