Page 68 of The Followers

Howard is 23 years old, 6-foot-5, 210 pounds, with brown eyes and sandy blond hair, according to police. His last known vehicle is a white Toyota Tacoma. He is suspected of kidnapping Gabriela and is wanted for questioning regarding the murder of the deceased.

At the bottom of the article was a picture of a young man with his arms around two other young men, the picture cropped so their faces weren’t visible. They wore navy-blue fraternity sweaters, and the one in the middle wore a cocky smile, too. Sam Howard, the caption read. Recent graduate of the Ohio State University, former president of the Lambda Pi fraternity.

He was younger, and she’d never seen an expression like that on his face, a smugness that made her want to throw up. But it was Scott. It was definitely Scott.

Fighting down her rising panic, Molly continued clicking links and reading, finding more pictures. Sam Howard had last been seen at a fundraiser banquet for the nonprofit he worked for, the same night Kristina was found dead. A coworker described him as “a little inebriated” and reported that their boss had asked him to leave around 11:00 p.m.

“He was ranting about his ex-girlfriend,” the coworker added. “It was disturbing the guests.”

Molly clicked to a snapshot from what appeared to be a college party, Scott in a crowd of other students, holding a red solo cup in each hand, chin lifted as he stared at the camera with blatant arrogance.

Each time she found his face attached to a different name—a different life—it felt like a punch in the gut. Not only had he lied to her about the events of his life, but he’d also reinvented himself, from a cocky frat boy to a reclusive single dad. That seemed even more deceptive than lying about events—he’d lied about who he was, at his core.

A photograph of Scott’s parents captured them as they left the police station. Scott’s father was tall, broad-shouldered, with salt-speckled dark hair and a hard jaw, his mother slim and blond with tired eyes. Douglas and Meredith Howard of Shaker Heights, Ohio, the article said, have declined to comment on the whereabouts of their son, his ex-girlfriend, or their missing granddaughter.

Molly started to cry—deep, wrenching sobs she stifled by covering her mouth with her hands. Then she got angry, and that lasted longer, the desire to scream and rage, to march into her bedroom and wake Scott, to demand he explain everything.

But behind the anger was fear. She knew what he was capable of now, and she was terrified. She had the sudden urge to scoop Chloe out of bed and take her somewhere far away, somewhere safe. But if she did that, Scott would probably wake up. Besides, she was exhausted, her eyes burning, her brain foggy and confused. She ached to sleep, to crawl into bed and drift into a welcome oblivion. But she couldn’t imagine getting back in bed with Scott.

Instead she took a couple short steps across her office to the queen-size bed she’d brought from her house in Denver, the bed she’d slept in all those years. Lonely years, yes, but simple ones, too, just her and Chloe and Bitsy. She wanted back into that world.

She didn’t get out of bed the next morning to see him off. If he wondered why she had ended up in the spare bedroom, he didn’t give any indication of it. He came into the room and bent over her, kissed her forehead. Her skin crawled, but she pretended to be asleep until she heard Scott’s car back down the driveway and pull away.

She made it through the rest of the day in a fog, going through their typical summer-day routine as if by muscle memory: breakfast, outside time, a visit to the pool, dinner, night games with the neighbors, then bed. Through all this she ached to tell someone, to pick up her phone and start a live video and blurt out her fears and worries. Thousands of her followers would immediately start commenting, sharing this moment, making her feel less alone.

She dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred to her—she would never do that, of course she wouldn’t. But the itch was there, and she wondered if this was how an addict felt, wanting their next hit.

As the hours ticked past midnight, she couldn’t stop staring bleary-eyed at the tiny cameras dotting her living room. The size of dice, like Brookelle had said, and if someone didn’t know where to look, they’d never notice them. The company had installed six in strategic locations in her living room and four in the kitchen. All she had to do was hit the app on her phone—tap it once with her finger—and they would start recording, tracking her face as she moved. So easy.

Maybe if she explained her feelings, without telling any of the details, she could unravel her thoughts enough to sleep.

Hoopi wandered in from the bedroom and sat near her feet, ears pricked high, on alert. She ran her hand along the top of his head. “It’s okay, Hoop,” she said.

And then she opened her phone and hit the app.

“Hi, Invincibles,” she said, looking at one of the tiny cameras tucked behind a vase on the mantel. There wasn’t even a light to show it was recording, but she assumed it was. “How are you all doing tonight? It’s been a hard day for me.”

Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat, trying for a smile. It was strange, not being able to see her own face in the phone, but it was nice, too. Less like talking to a screen, and more like thinking out loud.

“I wanted to ask for some advice. I recently discovered that someone close to me, someone I love and trust, hasn’t been honest with me. I’m feeling hurt and confused and frustrated—with this person, and with myself. I can’t talk to this person about it for a few days, so I’m trying to stay calm and not jump to any conclusions, which is pretty difficult when I’m all by myself. Tell me, Invincibles, what should I do? Do I come right out and confront this person with what I know? Or do I try to beat around the bush and get this person to tell me the truth?”

She’d rather that Scott was honest of his own volition, not because he was caught in a lie. But as soon as he saw her, he’d know something was wrong. Her face wasn’t just an open book, it was an unbound sheaf of pages spilling all over the floor.

She continued talking as she walked into the kitchen and sat on one of the stools at the counter. Hoopi followed her and once again sat at her feet, watchful. This time she didn’t even try to look for the cameras, just let her thoughts tumble into the empty space.

“I guess the biggest thing is the lack of respect,” she continued. “This person lied to me because he doesn’t respect me enough to be honest, to consider how this affects my life. And not just the lack of respect, but the lack of authenticity. That’s a relationship killer, I know from my own past.”

Her throat swelled with emotion, and she ran a hand over her face. “My question to you, Invincibles, is this—”

Hoopi growled, and she held her breath. The dog sat erect, his glittering brown eyes focused on the window over the kitchen sink. The low rumble vibrated again from his throat, making her entire body break out in goosebumps. She squinted, trying to see what he was seeing, but the light from the kitchen made it impossible to see through the window.

“What’s wrong, Hoopi?” she whispered. She was nervous to touch the dog, and now she wanted to end the video, so she finished by saying, “My question is this, now that this has happened, is there a way to get past it? A way to move forward? And if so, how do I do it?”

She ended the video. Phone in hand, she walked to the window and looked out, heart racing. Nothing but her normal backyard, serene in the moonlight. When she turned back to Hoopi, he had relaxed, laying down with his head on his paws.

“Okay,” she whispered. “We’re okay.”

Back in her bedroom, she curled up in bed next to Bitsy, who snuggled against her. Hoopi, always obedient, walked over to his bed on the floor.

---