“No. That night a cop showed up at my door and told me Mason had filed a complaint against me. He said I’d slashed the tires on his Porsche. He’d told the police that I was crazy and obsessed with him and I’d threatened to tell his wife we were having an affair—”

“Wait.” Leigh held up a hand. “Back up. A police officer came to your apartment?”

“Yes!”

“Did he show you a badge?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t open the door until he held it up. His name was Detective Akins.”

“So, was he wearing a uniform or—”

“No. Street clothes. But he had a badge and a gun, and he was definitely a cop. I mean, I could tell by everything he did and said.”

Somehow C.J. had missed this. Maybe Brandon knew about it.

“He even had pictures of the slashed tires on his phone, and he said Mason was planning to press charges unless I agreed to leave him alone.” She took a deep breath. “After the detective left, I was shaken. And confused. And I felt powerless, because everything had gotten all twisted around, and now I was the crazy one. That’s when I decided to move apartments. And I thought that helped. I moved at the end of June, and didn’t hear from him for almost two months, just caught a few glimpses of him at work, but he pretended to ignore me. I thought maybe everything had come to a head, but it was over. But then all that blew up in my face.”

She drained her bottle of Evian and set it among the other empties on the nightstand.

“One of my high school friends reached out to me on Instagram and told me there was a video of me going around.”

Leigh’s stomach filled with dread. “On social media?”

“He saw it on a porn site. I thought he had to be mistaken, but he sent me a screenshot.” She closed her eyes. “It was horrible. I wanted to die.”

Leigh looked at Vanessa, trying to ignore the ache in her chest so she could be objective.

“All those weeks, I thought my problem was solved,” Vanessa said. “But really, he’d just gone from threatening me to taking revenge. I was so clueless.”

“The video he posted, I assume it was the two of you having sex?”

She nodded, not making eye contact.

“Was it consensual or—”

“Yeah, for him to watch. I didn’t consent to him posting it online!”

“I’m just trying to understand the facts. So, what did you do?”