Page 89 of The Followers

After a moment, Jeremiah went on. “Scott didn’t want to leave Kristina. He was holding her face and crying. I’ve never seen or heard anything like that in my entire life. Ella was crying, too, and I didn’t know how to calm her.”

Molly closed her eyes and listened as the story washed over her. At some point Scott turned around and saw his daughter, Jeremiah said, and it was like a switch flipped in his brain. No more tears, no more emotion. He went silent, rigid. And then he took charge.

He told Jeremiah to get in the car, but Jeremiah could hardly walk. Scott—in pain from his fight, covered in Kristina’s blood—grabbed him and hauled him out of there, Jeremiah in one arm, Ella in the other.

They got in the car, Scott driving this time, stone-cold sober now. They drove to the office where Scott worked. He went in, returned with a bag of cash and a grim expression on his face. All the money from the fundraiser that night—Scott had stolen it.

Then they stopped at the apartment of a woman Scott had been dating. Jeremiah didn’t know her, but Scott went in with a wad of cash, talked to her for a while, and left.

“She lied for him,” Liv whispered. “She told the police Scott was with her all night. He paid her to lie for him. And maybe the neighbor, too.”

Molly hadn’t heard this part of the story, and Jeremiah just shrugged. “All I know is that after that, Scott drove west. I curled up in the backseat with Ella. She fell asleep; I tried not to vomit.”

The next morning, they stopped at a shady-looking used car dealership. Scott bought them each a new car with cash and left his truck in a ditch miles off the highway, license plates removed. After that, he handed Jeremiah a wad of bills and told him to keep driving.

“He said no one knew I had been with him that night, and we should keep it that way,” Jeremiah finished. “I shouldn’t have gone along with it, but I didn’t know what else to do. I kept driving, all the way back to Durango. I didn’t tell anyone what had happened, and I didn’t see Scott again for four years.”

The ledger Scott had kept with lists of sums, Molly thought, the money he donated to the charity—he was paying back what he had taken. The gold cross necklace, the matching tattoo—they hadn’t been some sort of souvenir of a crime, but a memento from the girl he had loved and lost.

“Does anyone else know?” she asked. On the couch, Liv seemed to have retreated into herself again, her face like a door slammed shut.

“No one,” Jeremiah said.

“What about Sarah? Doesn’t she wonder why Sam changed his name to Scott?”

Jeremiah shook his head. “Sarah’s ten years older than me—she was already married and living on base with her husband when my mom remarried. She was so pissed off at her for leaving our dad that she refused to meet our stepdad or his kid. I told her Scott is a friend from college. I’m pretty sure she suspects something, but we’ve never talked about it.”

“And now he’s run off again,” Molly said, leaning back against the chair. “Do you know where he’d go?”

Jeremiah seemed relieved to focus on a task he could accomplish, and he sat forward. “I have some ideas. About a year after he and Ella moved here, something happened that got him nervous. He took off, but I tracked him down, convinced him to come back. He was at an RV park a couple hours west of here. The lady that owns it likes to keep things off the grid—back when marijuana was illegal, she used to sell it. She doesn’t keep records of the people staying there, only takes cash.”

Molly wanted to jump in her car and drive there right now, but she couldn’t uproot Chloe and she wasn’t sure she felt comfortable leaving her daughter with Liv. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

Jeremiah focused on her, muscles tensed to move, to act. “Molly. Listen to me: Scott will do whatever it takes to keep his daughter with him. And if he’s worried someone is a threat—”

Molly looked up to see Liv watching Jeremiah’s face, her eyes brimming with tears.

“I’ll go,” Liv said, her voice hoarse. “I’ll tell him I’ll keep quiet. Whatever it takes to keep your family together.”

Molly wasn’t sure if their family would stay together, but she didn’t want Scott leaving like this.

“You stay here,” Jeremiah said to her. “In case he comes back. Did you try calling his phone?”

Molly nodded. “It’s going straight to voicemail.”

“He might have ditched it somewhere. Okay, Liv, let’s go,” Jeremiah said, all business.

Liv looked startled. “We’re going together?”

“I’m the only one who knows where he is,” Jeremiah said, “and you’re the only one who can convince him he’s safe to return.”

“Just bring Scott back,” Molly said. “Please.”

forty-eight

The only thing scarier than being vulnerable with someone you hate is being vulnerable with someone you love.

—An Invincible Summer: A Memoir

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