Page 88 of The Followers

Jeremiah nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me—she broke his heart. And he loved his baby girl. Little Ella. His world revolved around her.”

That part didn’t surprise Molly. “Go on,” she prompted.

Jeremiah shifted his weight. “The night everything happened, Scott was at a fundraiser for this nonprofit he worked for. He had too much to drink and started talking about Ella, how he was worried about her, and how Kristina didn’t want him around. I’m guessing he was annoying the guests because his boss told him to go home. Scott called me to pick him up.”

Scott seemed mildly drunk but mostly upset, Jeremiah told them. He could see that his stepbrother wasn’t going to feel better until he could see his daughter, so Jeremiah suggested they drive to Kristina’s place and check on Ella.

Kristina’s apartment was vacant, however, and Scott got even more nervous. He had good reason—Kristina had disappeared once before, when he called social services on her. Since then, he’d always worried she would take Ella somewhere and not tell him.

After that, Jeremiah drove Scott across town to Kristina’s grandmother’s house.

“That’s when I saw Liv,” Jeremiah said, looking at the floor. “She was watching Scott from the window.”

Molly glanced at Liv. Her eyes had a faraway look in them, like she was back there again, a teenager on the night her sister was killed.

When they arrived at Kristina’s new place, Jeremiah continued, Scott ran into the apartment. Jeremiah waited in the truck with the window rolled down—it was a hot night. Then he heard shouting, jumped out, and ran inside.

The apartment was in chaos: Kristina on the couch, bloody and unresponsive. Scott stood in the middle of the room, grappling with a man holding a gun. As Jeremiah entered, the man was distracted for a split second. Before Jeremiah could even realize what was happening, a gunshot echoed through the apartment, blood spattering the wall behind the man, who fell to his knees. A red blossom of blood appeared near his right shoulder.

Scott had pulled the trigger.

Jeremiah froze, terrified, but Scott took a step forward. “Get up,” he said, pointing the gun at the man. “Go.”

The man grinned and spat a mouthful of blood on the carpet as he stood. “If you were smart, you’d finish me off.”

Scott’s jaw clenched. “Just leave.”

With another grimace, the man was off, limping out the door, leaving a trail of ruby-red blood drops behind him.

After he left, Scott searched the apartment for Ella. Jeremiah stayed in the living room with Kristina. Her face was bloody, her nose broken, but she was breathing. Barely. Not opening her eyes, her lips and fingertips tinged blue.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Jeremiah said, glancing at Liv apologetically. “I was shaking so badly I could hardly stand, so I sat on the floor next to her. Tried to wake her up.”

Molly imagined a young version of Jeremiah, thrust into a scene that must have felt like something out of a horror movie. Blood on the carpet, blood on the walls, a broken and battered woman close to death. A surge of compassion ran through her, and she looked over at Liv, who was crying silently, her eyes still focused on Jeremiah.

“Go on when you’re ready,” Molly said to Jeremiah, who was twisting his hands together, one knee bouncing.

“It took a while, but Scott found Ella,” he said in a shaky voice. “She was so skinny and scared. Scott came over to Kristina to check on her, but then she opened her eyes and saw him holding Ella...”

“I know,” Molly said, wanting to hurry the story along. “He and Kristina argued, she was angry, she tried to grab Ella, he pushed her away and she hit her head on the coffee table.”

Liv flinched, her dark eyes jumping to meet Molly’s. “Scott really did it?”

“That’s not what happened,” Jeremiah said quietly. “Scott never would’ve hurt Kristina.”

He fell silent, his lips pressing together until they were nearly white.

“Go on, Miah,” Molly prompted. She had a feeling about what was coming, but she needed to hear him say it. And maybe Jeremiah needed to hear himself say it, too. He had kept this truth sequestered inside him for so long; it had started to eat him on the inside.

He took a breath. “Kristina tried to take Ella from Scott, she grabbed her legs and yanked. Ella screamed and Scott stumbled and I...”

Jeremiah stopped, squeezing his eyes shut. He stayed silent for so long Molly started to get worried. She looked over at Liv, who was crying openly now, tears running down her cheeks and into her mouth. Molly felt like an outsider, intruding on a private moment between two people she cared about, each on their own island of grief and regret.

“You pushed her,” Liv whispered. Her voice was soft, not accusing, but Jeremiah cringed. He looked miserable, full of all the regret Molly hadn’t seen in Scott’s face—and now she understood why. Because Scott wasn’t dealing with guilt from killing the mother of his child. He was dealing with anger at the person who’d done it, the young man who was like a brother to him. A young man he then felt the need to protect, because it was his fault Jeremiah had been there in the first place. This was why Scott could barely look at Miah, barely speak to him. Why he hadn’t told Molly the truth, even when she pressed him. He was protecting his brother.

“I didn’t mean to push her so hard,” Jeremiah said, his voice like an open wound. “I was worried about Ella. I don’t know why Kris had a marble-topped coffee table—but she landed wrong. I swear to god, it was an accident.”

Molly knew his words were for Liv, only for Liv. But she wasn’t sure if Liv could hear them, or if she was nine years in the past, in a blood-spattered apartment, watching her sister dying in front of her.

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