Page 86 of The Followers

“After that, meeting on the run—was it just a coincidence?”

“I followed you from the coffee shop to your apartment afterward. I started keeping an eye on your routines. Your pattern was easy to figure out. Early morning runs, always along the east side. I decided to catch up with you and find out more about you.”

Liv cringed, thinking about racing Jeremiah up the hill, teasing him at the top, and running with him afterward. “That’s why you asked me out.”

“Yes,” he said, as if she was stupid for thinking otherwise. “I don’t know why you’re upset. You were doing the same thing with me.”

“No, I wasn’t.” She faced him, anger simmering below the pain. “I didn’t know you were Scott’s friend until last week. And at that point I was already—” She cut herself off before she said too much—before she admitted she had started fantasizing about staying with him. “Surely there were easier ways to keep tabs on me than to seduce me.”

He shrugged, and her heart felt bruised. “You know what they say. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

Something snapped inside Liv. He looked like a stranger now, and she couldn’t believe she had been worried about his feelings if she left without saying goodbye. She wanted to rage at him, to punish him for making her feel something for him—to feel again, period. After so many years spent keeping the world at bay, she had opened up to him. Now everything seemed too intense, her feelings terrifying and vivid, and it was his fault. He had done this to her.

But before she could say anything, her phone pinged. A text from Molly.

Scott’s gone.

Her face must have paled, because Jeremiah took a step forward. “What’s wrong?”

Without thinking, she turned the phone and showed him.

forty-seven

Honesty means more when it’s inconvenient.

@InvincibleMollySullivan

Molly had been out all afternoon with Chloe, and when they returned, lugging bags from their shopping trip, the house was dark and silent. The air felt stale, undisturbed. She swallowed, worry bubbling inside her.

Bitsy woke from where she lay on her bed by the back door and trotted over to Chloe and Ella for a belly scratch.

“Where’s Hoopi, Bits?” Molly murmured, running her hands through her dog’s fur.

Maybe Scott had taken his dog with him. Molly headed down the hall toward Chloe’s bedroom with the shopping bags, glancing into Ella’s bedroom as she passed. She did a double take.

Ella’s bedroom was nearly empty.

The furniture was there, the bedding, the lamp on her nightstand. But everything personal was gone. The photograph of Scott and Kristina—gone. The book Ella had been reading—gone. The clutter of shells and rocks and dried flowers on the dresser—gone.

With a sinking feeling, Molly stepped into the room. A quick look into Ella’s dresser drawers and closet revealed that most of her clothes were missing. Her heart pounded as she raced into her own bedroom and threw open Scott’s drawers—empty. His side of the closet, too.

Option two: we run.

She sprinted to the backyard where Scott’s Westfalia had rested, unmoving, all summer. It wasn’t there. That’s when she texted Liv, because what else was she supposed to do? She had nowhere else to turn.

When the doorbell rang a few minutes later, Molly settled Chloe in her room with her dollhouse. She didn’t know how to explain any of this to her.

She opened the front door to see Liv and Jeremiah. A flash of anger surprised her—she had specifically told Liv not to tell Jeremiah about Scott’s past.

But one look at the two of them and Molly knew something else was going on. Tense and quiet, they stood as far apart as possible. They’d come in separate cars—she could see Liv’s little sedan and Jeremiah’s Jeep parked in front of her house.

“Why is he here?” Molly asked Liv.

Liv blinked, surprised. “You don’t know that he knows?”

“Knows what?” Molly said, turning to Jeremiah. “Scott said he hadn’t told anyone else.”

“Well,” Jeremiah said, shifting his weight and looking at his feet. “He didn’t tell me.”

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