“Okay, but you don’t think that’s weird, Tara?” Rainy plugged a finger into her own ear to try to hear Tara better, but there was more noise coming from Tara’s end of the line.

  “It’s all weird. Mike doesn’t want me to hang out with her anymore, not after—ugh. Listen, I have to go.”

  “Okay, but wait, she was texting me and she—someone—said that it wasn’t Braithe. This isn’t making any sense... I think someone might have Braithe’s phone.”

  “Rainy, it’s Braithe, okay. She’s going through something and—”

  “But what if it’s not her? What if something’s really wrong?”

  Tara was silent. When she spoke again her voice almost sounded bored. “She plotted for months to take Grant from you. I’m sorry, but you are delusional if you think she’s some saint. I hate to break it to you, but you got played, I got played. Whatever victim thing she’s doing, whatever game she’s playing—I’m not buying it. You know the night of Viola’s shower...?” Tara’s voice changed. “She was with Grant. That’s why she pretended to be sick. She wanted to talk to him about her feelings. So she ambushes him on your doorstep before you get home. And you know what? I freaking covered for her.”

  Rainy’s shock was obvious to Tara, who sighed deeply. “If it makes any difference to you, he rejected her.”

  It did make a difference, but she didn’t want to hear any of this from Tara. Why hadn’t Grant told her? She thought back to that night, how he’d been acting. Rainy swallowed, her throat tight and dry. She wanted to do nothing more than crawl into bed and process everything, but right now...right at this very moment, it couldn’t be about Grant; Braithe was in trouble. She closed her eyes, exhaling through her nose, and tried again.

  “What if she’s in trouble? You just don’t care?”

  “She threatened me after everything I did for her. She doesn’t care. Sorry, Rainy.” Tara hung up. She wasn’t sorry. This was going from bad to worse.

  “Wow, okay.” Rainy set her phone on the floor near her foot and leaned her torso backward until it was resting against the wall. She thought for the hundredth time about calling the police, but didn’t know what to say to them. Was Braithe still at the same hotel they stayed at, or had she left and gone somewhere else? Rainy was half-asleep when her phone pinged.

  She wanted it to be Grant. But when she lifted the phone to her face, the text was from Braithe.

  Tattling to Tara, it said.

  Rainy dropped the phone, chills running up her arms. She shook her hands out like something nasty had touched them. That was fast. Tara must have shot some hot-worded text to Braithe’s phone right after she’d spoken to Rainy.

  You two having trouble? She was stalling, trying to think of what to ask next. Maybe if she knew where Braithe was, she could call someone to check in on her.

  I only know Tara through her insipid social media posts. And the screenshots. Did you know that little Braithe has organized folders of her friends’ texts?

  Who are you?

  Now that’s a good question.

  Prove that you’re not Braithe. Send me a voice text.

  I don’t have to prove anything to you.

  You want my attention, so you do actually.

  Lol

  She waited while the dots appeared again, shaking her foot from side to side as she started at the screen.

  The voice memo appeared. It was three seconds long. Rainy hit Play.

  “Hello, Rainy.”

  She stood up, holding her hand over her own mouth; the room seeming to hum around her in a silent panic.

  The voice was male. The voice was male. The voice was male.

  “Fuck,” Rainy said. Then she started typing, her thumbs stiff with fear.

  Where is Braithe?

  Here with me

  Who are you?

  Greetings, fellow bondservant! This is Paul!

  Paul who? Am I supposed to believe you’re some rando who kidnapped my friend?

  She was digging her fingernails into her palms, eyes tightly shut. He was addressing her in a way that was...familiar. A coil of a sentence misted through her brain, but when she reached for it, it was gone. Was this happening? This was happening. Her body felt wired. Her phone pinged, the sound violent in her ears. Paul had sent his response:

  That’s the question, Rainy! Now you’re getting somewhere. Who. Am. I.

  She tossed her phone on the bed, frustrated.

  Paul was a Biblical name, one of the most important figures in the New Testament. What else did she know? Think. He was Saul before he was Paul...that’s right...

  She paced in small circles, her brain really whirring now. He was a persecutor of the first church until he had a conversion experience on the road to Damascus, after which he became Paul. None of this made sense.

  Paul who was converted on the road to Damascus, or Paul the Beatle, or are you your own fucked-up type of specialty Paul?

  Choices, choices...

  Okay...so what do you want?

  Now that’s an interesting question! You’re really on a roll here.

  Stop fucking around, you’re wasting my time.

  On the contrary, you have all the time in the world. Braithe does not.

  Rainy tried calling, but Paul sent her to voice mail.

  “Dammit!”

  We’re a little under the weather, Rainy. Let’s stick with texting for now.

  Where are you?

  But Paul didn’t answer her question. Instead, the reply read, I’m mostly up to date on Tara’s and Braithe’s texts. They never did figure out why you were so averse to their little predatory trip. Do you want to tell me? They spent hours talking about it and I gotta admit—I’m curious

  Rainy made her way over to her laptop. She lifted the lid and typed in her password.

  You tell me something about you and I’ll tell you something about me.

  When she hit Send, she thought she’d made a mistake. If someone truly had kidnapped Braithe, making him angry was the last thing she wanted to do. But everything about this guy’s tone indicated he enjoyed banter. But only if he has the upper hand, she thought. That’s how bullies worked. If she could keep his mood light, she might be able to get him to tell her something useful.

  You like to play games! What a night you girls had playing games, wasn’t it?

  Were you watching?

  No. But I got the firsthand account from Braithe, and boy is that girl a talker when she is drunk. Yowza!

  Braithe had gone to a bar the second night alone, hadn’t she? So, whoever this guy was, he’d positioned himself to meet her.

  Where’d you meet?

  That’s not important. What’s important is what I know.

  She pressed her fists to her eyes, the coolness of her hands grounding her. She was hot and cold, scared and angry; every time this guy sent a text, the hairs on her arms stood up.

  Which is what? she sent back.

  It was getting dark outside; she could see the indigo of the sky above the strip. For her, time seemed suspended in this nightmare, but below her the city throbbed, unknowing.

  I know that Stephen has no idea that his perfect wife is so unhappy. I’m wondering how I should tell him...

  Why are you telling me this? I don’t care what you tell Stephen or anyone about Braithe. Are you a jilted lover, is that what this is? She rejected you and now you have her phone?

  Guess again. Think carefully, Rainy.

  She tried logging into her Facebook account; it had been so long it took her three tries to guess the password. She’d added Braithe and the rest of the girls long ago when they used the app to share information about their get-togethers. Eventually, they’d switched to text, and she’d stopped going on altogether. She went to Braithe’s profile and clicked on her friends; then, typing “Paul” into the search box, she waited for the results.

  “Paul, Paul...” She tapped her fingers on the table as the computer filtered the results. There was no one named Paul among her friends. She went through Stephen’s friends next, then Tara’s, and finally Grant’s. There were Pauls—one of them was an ex-professor both Grant and Stephen were friends with; he lived in Minnesota with his wife now. The other was a youngish guy in Stephen’s friend list who turned out to be his cousin. When Rainy stalked the shit out of him she found out he was in Boston, going to college. He’d posted a photo of himself the night before at a bar with his friends. She checked out the bar before logging out of Facebook. She decided to say nothing else until Paul texted her again. She was going to need this as evidence...for the police. She searched “Saul,” too, but that landed her similar results. Whoever he was, she was certain that neither moniker was his real name.

  Someone had Braithe, and police would take her seriously when they saw the texts, heard his voice. “You have to call the police,” she said out loud. “Right now.”

  But she didn’t. Had Braithe been missing for twenty-four hours? Police wouldn’t do anything until then; she’d listened to enough Dateline specials to know that. If she was actively texting people from her phone, could she be considered missing or in danger?

  You are the reason she’s here. And if I make her dead, that will be your fault, too.

  Wow. I guess I can put being gaslit by a psychopath on my résumé.

  Also: Make her dead? The guy’s phrasing drifted from Biblical to preschool.

  It was a few minutes before he texted back, and she wondered if what she’d texted had made him angry. There were three types of people as far as Rainy was concerned: the people who knew who they were, the people who didn’t and the people who didn’t want to. She fell into the last category, marked by an early life that included shame conditioning. Rainy had no idea who she really was. She was just existing, making art about her untapped feelings. And did she want to know what type of monster those years had created—a monster she ignored and kept guarded? Nope. But guys like this: they either relished it or denied it was there.

  Don’t you want to know what she told me, Rainy? About her and your guy?

  Cold dread blew through her chest and gusted out of her mouth in an exhale. Three years. You’ve only known Grant for three years. Had he been lying to her all this time? No. Why would he ask her to move out to Washington if there was someone else? Was it because Braithe was married?

  She pressed all ten of her fingers onto her forehead; she would have known if something was wrong between her and Grant. If he was in love with someone else, he would have been...off. There would have been tells...or had there been, and she’d been too distracted to notice? No. Paul was just baiting her.

  There is nothing between them.

  The dots appeared immediately; he’d been waiting for this, waiting to drop the next bomb.

  She was waiting for rebuttal text, but what came through was a voice recording. Rainy clicked on it and was immediately met with the sound of Braithe’s voice.

  “We went away together. It was before her. My husband was away for work, and so we just drove through the border and went to Canada for the weekend, you know? It was really romantic, and I thought...I thought that that was it, he wanted to be with me, and I’d leave Stephen.”

  Rainy’s breath hitched; the sandwich she’d eaten for lunch felt heavy in her belly. She didn’t want to hear more, but she couldn’t not hear it; the weight of Braithe’s words clutched her throat and squeezed.

  Braithe’s voice broke off, and for a second, Rainy thought that the recording was over, and then Braithe’s voice came back, weaker this time—she was crying. “But then when we came back, he pretended like it didn’t happen. He... I don’t know...” Her voice was so wet with emotion Rainy found herself holding her breath, waiting for what she would say next.

  But then another voice spoke, and it was male. “Made you think you were going to be together and then abandoned you?”

  “Yes,” Braithe said.

  “Why do you think he did it?”

  Rainy could hear the tinkling of glasses and the sound of other voices in the background. Was this the bar where Braithe had gone after they parted ways that night?

  When Braithe spoke again, her voice sounded hard, cold. Could the woman who had always been so kind to her, so inclusive, have secretly hated her? It was too much to process. Rainy would have to sit down and unpack every memory she had with the woman. Myriad emotions bloomed in her chest. She was obviously trying to get close to you for other reasons, those reasons being Grant, like Tara said, Rainy thought, squeezing her eyes closed.

  “Because he’s the type of guy who thinks he owes everyone...my husband is his best friend,” she said. “He could never hurt him. His new partner is an artist. She moved her whole life for him. He’s never going to up and leave her.”

  It was true. Braithe was right.

  She saved the voice clip to listen to later. Right now, he wanted a reaction, and she was going to give it to him.

  She could be talking about anyone, she sent back.

  He sent another audio message, this one shorter than the first. Braithe’s voice was slurred.

  “I said that to Grant, I told him exactly how I felt.”

  It wasn’t just the use of Grant’s name, but rather the familiarity of how Braithe used it that sent a chill through Rainy. Did she have any memories of them behaving oddly together? She searched her mind, but came up with none. She’d always thought Braithe and Stephen were the perfect couple, and she’d never seen so much as a crack in their relationship. But you weren’t looking.

  But more importantly, how had Paul captured Braithe? All this talk of Braithe and Grant was a distraction. How long had he been watching; what else did he know about their group? The thought was terrifying.

  He’s been waiting for something like us to play with, Rainy thought. He was creating situations to feed on, and their group had been there at the right time. What would he do if she refused to play his games?

  I’m calling the police.

  What will you tell them?

  She had to think about that for a minute. So far, all she had for evidence were a bunch of texts from Braithe’s number. Coy, playful texts were not a cause for alarm. All of Braithe’s other friends believed she was blowing off marital steam. He had isolated her from them with texts. It was actually brilliant.

  Hate to tell you this, but you’re the reason she’s here, Summer. And no one is going to believe you. By the time you get them to believe you I’ll have cut through her vocal cords.

  Rainy went cold.

  She stared at her phone for a long time, unmoving. Summer. He knew. He had Braithe, but this wasn’t about her at all. And he didn’t say he would kill her; he’d specifically said cut through her vocal cords. He was telling her he had a plan. Whoever he was, he was here for her. No matter what Braithe had or hadn’t done, she couldn’t let her die at the hands of someone who was after...

  Summer.

  Taured. Or was it? After all these years, she knew his tone, his style. This was not Taured. But what did he want? As she sat, trying to fight the fog in her brain, it occurred to her. A fragment of an idea began to form in her mind. Sara. She opened up a browser on her laptop.

  Okay, she texted back. What do you want?

  23

  Then

  She’d woken in a hospital room alone, not afraid, but relieved. O’Connor was in the room, sitting in a chair, and a man stood next to her, this one short, bespectacled and bald.

  “May I have something to drink, please?” Her voice was a rasp. A nurse brought her water and sat her up in bed. Then O’Connor turned to her. “Summer, this is Dan Malari. He’s a social worker with the state and he’s been assigned your case.”

  “What case? I have grandparents, I told you their names. I—”

  “It’s just procedure to open a case file, Summer. When there are accusations and a removal of a minor from a home, we have to investigate for your well-being.” Dan Malari didn’t smile at her when he spoke, but Summer felt that he was an okay guy, anyway. There was something calm about him.

  “But I don’t have to go back there?”

  “No, you’ve been removed from that place and it is currently under investigation.”

  Summer felt like she could breathe for the first time since...when? Forever. She could breathe so long as they never sent her back to that place. She touched her neck and felt bare skin. “Where’s my mother’s necklace?”

  “I’m sure they’re keeping it safe for you. They might have taken it off while making sure you were okay.”

  If it was gone... Her face bunched up and she dissolved into tears.

  “What about my mother? Will they be investigated for what they did to her?”

  “What did they do to her?”

  “They locked her in a room and killed her.”

  “How? With what?”

  “She didn’t take drugs, no matter what anyone says. I know she didn’t. They injected her against her will.”

  He looked embarrassed for her, but he nodded slowly. “We’ll let the coroner do their job, okay? My job is to find out where the safest place for you is.”

  Summer closed her eyes; the safest place for her was with her mother.

  “If there was foul play involved in her death, police will move forward with an investigation.”

  Summer looked at O’Connor and the woman nodded; she didn’t feel good about that, but she didn’t feel bad, either. Things were still in the air, as her dad used to say.

  “What if they can’t prove foul play?” she asked carefully.

  “Then there is no case,” O’Connor said matter-of-factly. Summer nodded, settling back into her pillow.

  “Good news is, your grandparents are on their way. They should be here in a few hours,” Dan said.