Книга - Like, Follow, Kill

Like, Follow, Kill
Carissa Ann Lynch


What if your stalker could become your saviour… The USA Today Bestseller ‘One word of advice when reading this book—trust no one’ Wendy Heard, author of Hunting Annabelle and Kill Club Badly scarred after the accident that killed her husband, Camilla Brown locks herself away from the world.  Her only friendships are online, where everyone lives picture-perfect lives. In private Camilla can follow anyone she likes. And Camilla likes a lot. Especially her old school friend Valerie Hutchens. Camilla is obsessed with Valerie’s posts, her sickening joy for life, her horribly beautiful face.  But then Camilla spots something strange in one of Valerie’s posts – a man’s face looking through her window, watching, waiting… And then Valerie goes missing. This suspenseful and intoxicating psychological thriller is perfect for fans of Paula Hawkins, Black Mirror and Killing Eve. Readers are loving Like, Follow, Kill… ‘GO GET THIS BOOK!!!! This one was a definite page turner for me. The characters were developed perfectly and the plot just got more twisted page after page!’ Cheyenne, Netgalley reviewer ‘Wow what a ride this book was!!’ Misty, Netgalley reviewer ‘Loved it very much, fast paced and unexpected!’ K, Netgalley reviewer









Like, Follow, Kill

CARISSA ANN LYNCH








One More Chapter

an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

Copyright © Carissa Ann Lynch 2019

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)

Emoji © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)

Carissa Ann Lynch asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008362638

Version: 2019-08-08


Table of Contents

Cover (#ud17e799c-b9c7-5987-85b7-60f2ed31fa59)

Title Page (#u4dcc40fc-09d6-532b-8ab8-f21af3ab2df0)

Copyright (#u70155232-4d8d-592d-a926-68629b1b83f8)

Dedication (#u379e8b1c-42a6-578c-a689-27234770cb2a)

Epigraph (#u0eda0fb3-0b28-5de2-a23c-645de4deebaf)

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

The One Night Stand – Coming in 2020

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher


This book is dedicated to my editor, Charlotte Ledger, and my agent, Katie Shea Boutillier. Thank you both for believing in my stories and making me a better writer.


Always eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or bed—no escape. Nothing was your own except for the cubic centimeters in your skull.

George Orwell, 1984




Prologue (#u02a3787b-5bf4-5ec4-b320-25b6bc340344)


I was born with a scream inside me. Lodged between my heart and throat. Can’t swallow it; can’t choke it down. Can’t spit that motherfucker out. It’s stuck, like me … anchored to the in-between, slowly rotting in the core of me. It festers like a sore, oozing through my bloodstream, sending seeping shocks of silent fury to every nerve ending in my body.

Like an IV, it drip, drip, drips, but there’s never a release.

One of these days, I’ll open my mouth and the world will rumble from the roar.




Chapter 1 (#u02a3787b-5bf4-5ec4-b320-25b6bc340344)


My body is broken.

Arms like dying, desperate fish, they flop on the seat beside me. Hips yanked from their sockets. Red-rose gashes on my chest and neck.

A deep dark hole where my nose once was.

And my teeth … these teeth don’t belong to me. Like broken eggshells, they stab the roof of my mouth, pricking my cheek and gums.

Are they Chris’s teeth?

If so, how did Chris’s pearly white, now-broken teeth end up in my mouth? Did I kiss him?

No, not a kiss.

I can’t remember the last time I kissed him … but I can taste his blood in my mouth.

Chris with the cocoa-colored eyes and hair like silk on my skin. Chris with the lips, soft as falling feathers on a windy day …

Chris: the love of my life.

Chris: who is dead.

One minute we were laughing … or were we shouting? Discussing our plans for the day … although now I’ve forgotten what those plans were.

And the next … the next … we’re upside-down, strapped in our seats like a rollercoaster, only we can’t get off, we’re stuck, suspended in mid-air. The roof of my Buick becomes the sky. I’m mesmerized as it swirls like one of those psychedelic spinning tunnels, like they have at the county fair.

Oh, the fair. That’s where we were going, weren’t we?

Chris promised me a deep-fried Snickers bar.

And I promised him I’d stay sober.

Chris: The Love Of My Life and Chris: The Headless Man On The Seat Beside Me are one and the same.

This is my fault.

Chris is dead.

I did this.

I. Did. This.

***

I stopped answering my phone months ago, but that didn’t stop my sister from calling. Every day, at five past noon—a phantom phone call, followed by a buzzing barrage of texts.

Hannah is calling … read my phone screen.

But Hannah was always calling. And I, her less attractive, less successful, less stable sister, was always ignoring those calls.

As predicted, the texts came next:

Hannah: How are you today? Want to go out to lunch? Need me to stop by?

Translation: Are you alive? When are you going to do normal things again? Don’t tell me I need to come over there and drag you out of bed again.

Me: Busy. Can’t. No.

My sister is more than my sister. She practically raised me after the death of our mother.

I would love nothing more than to answer her calls, to have her beside me—but not this version of her. Not the sister that tiptoes around me like I’m a melting chunk of ice in the center of a deep, black sea.

I’m a sinking ship she wants to save … but she’s too afraid to come aboard. Because, deep down, she knows I’ll suck her into the murky black hole, too, just like I did with Chris.

Wiggling my jaw, I tried to ease the phantom tooth pains as I pulled myself out of my twin-sized bed. The sheets and comforter lay tangled at my feet. Angry red numbers blinked at me from the clock on my bedside table. It was 12:30 in the afternoon, the time when most normal people were working.

Everything hurt: my arms, legs, chest, and back. My teeth.

Traces of the dream still lingered and would stay there for most of the day, the way they always did.

My nightstand was covered in pill bottles. I twisted the caps off, one by one, and swiped out two pills of each. Pain pills. Anxiety meds. Leftover antibiotics. Another med to counter the side-effects of the first two. I washed them down with an ashy can of Mountain Dew. Grimaced.

Every night, the same thing: the car accident reenacted, but the details were always fuzzy, always evolving … whether the actual memories of that night were becoming lucid or more convoluted, was unclear.

I just wish they’d go away. Period.

It’s not that I don’t want to think about Chris. I miss him … I love him … but I can’t.

I can’t let myself go back to that place. I’m Hannah’s sinking ship, and Chris … well, Chris is mine.

No, dear husband, I will not come aboard.

Because if I do, if I let myself go there … that ship will suck me down, down, down, and never let me loose.

During my wakeful hours, I’d become an expert at burying my feelings. But these dreams—these warped flashbacks of the accident—were trying to remedy that all on their own. I could push away the memories and the horrors while I was awake, but when I closed my eyes … the dreaming side of myself took control. That side of myself wouldn’t allow me to forget, no matter how much I wanted to.

Maybe it’s payback for what I did.

Karma.

What goes around comes around—isn’t that how the saying goes?

For the rest of my life, will I have to relive those awful, ticking moments in that crushed-up Buick?

Of all the things about me that needed fixing, the sleep/dream issue was my priority. But my doctor wouldn’t prescribe sleep medication, or any other downers. They didn’t mix well with my other meds.

I want to be reassembled. Scrapped for parts. My memories wiped clean.

I padded down the hallway to the bathroom, leaving my buzzing phone behind. Without turning on the bathroom light, I began my lonely morning ritual in the dark—brushing my teeth, gargling mouthwash, combing the knots from my hair.

The dream snaked its way back into my brain while I brushed.

Cringing, I recalled the gummy taste of my own teeth. The teeth that I had initially—and strangely—believed to be my husband’s teeth.

I can still taste blood in my mouth. But whose blood is it?

It’s like sucking on a battery dipped in sugar.

Taking a deep breath, I flicked the light switch on before giving myself a chance to change my mind.

My toothbrush fell from my mouth, bouncing in the sink, as I studied my reflection in the bathroom mirror. No matter how many times I saw my face, I’d never get used to it now.

I look worse than the last time I checked.

It looked like someone was pinching my nose, the bridge a hard knot in the center of my face, the nostrils squished flat on both sides. The plastic surgeon had done the best possible job.

There’s only so much we can do, Camilla …

The skin on my nose was darker, which made sense—it didn’t belong to me. Ten surgeries and counting. So far—two to “repair” my nose using someone else’s skin and cartilage, four to fix my broken teeth with mostly false ones, and another four to fix my legs. My hips hadn’t been pulled from their sockets, but it sure had felt that way at the time. But both legs had been broken, one worse than the other, and now two metal rods and countless screws resided inside me, extending from my shin bones all the way to the top of my thighs. My wrist had been sprained. My elbow shattered.

My heart smashed to bits.

I was beautiful once. Chris used to say so. Until my reckless driving had led us to the backend of a flatbed truck. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to hear the gravelly shake of his voice … to see that one eyebrow flexing playfully as he tucked my always-messy brown hair behind my ears …

You’re the most beautiful girl I ever did see: his words.

We hadn’t been upside down either, like the dream implied—another figment of my twisty reinterpretation of what actually happened that night. The car was crushed beneath the semi’s trailer, my whole world spinning like a top because that’s what happens when you have a concussion.

A big chunk of my nose was severed by windshield glass. And Chris … he’d lost more than his nose. His death was horrific. He didn’t deserve to die that way.

Splashing icy cold water on my face, I forced myself not to think of him. Deep down, I knew that if I gave in to that craving … to think about Chris, to go back in my mind to how things used to be … that it would become an obsession.

If I think too long and hard about Chris, I may never stop.

The anxiety pills helped with the flashbacks while I was awake.

It’s like there’s this version of me, living inside my head, and once the meds kick in, I can hear her in the corner, her voice murky and low … she’s scared, she’s worried, she’s ashamed … but then the pills flood my bloodstream and her voice gets drowned out completely. I imagine her in there somewhere, floating in the lazy river of my bloodstream, wondering when I’ll let her back out. The numbness never lasts—drugs help, but they can’t alleviate my misery. They can’t cure loneliness, either.

Sometimes that girl drifts so far downstream, I don’t think I’ll ever reach her again …

I flipped the light switch back off, the sudden change in lighting causing a sharp twinge in my right temple. The head pains often came and went so quickly, almost like they were a figment of my imagination.

I liked leaving every light in the house off and the shutters closed until darkness came, and I was forced to illuminate myself and my surroundings.

But one light in the house was always shining—the glare from my laptop computer. It beckoned me from my desktop in the living room.

Now, here is an addiction I can handle, and sometimes, control.

I turned on the coffee pot in the kitchen then sat down in front of my computer, a rushing wave of relief rolling through me. This was my life now—the internet, my only window to the outside world.

Lucky for me, it’s a pretty large window.

A lonely window, but a window, nevertheless …

“I wonder where we’re going today?”

I refreshed my browser from where it had frozen last night and Valerie Hutchens’ shiny face blossomed like a milky-white flower across my home screen.

_TheWorldIsMine_26 had over 2,000 posts and nearly 10,000 followers, and like Valerie herself, the Instagram account was growing and improving daily.

“Where are you now, Valerie?” I clicked on her newest Instagram story.

Branson, Missouri.

Straddling this world and the next. #livingmybestlife, her caption told me.

Valerie’s hair was different today—her sunny blonde bob had skinny curtains of pale pink on either side of her face. Maroon lips. Kohl-rimmed eyes. A body that was neither fat nor walking-stick thin, just perfect.

Valerie Hutchens is perfect.

In this latest story, she was straddling two train rails, arms spread wide in a V. Her palms were open, fingertips reaching for the sky. Dusty sunlight shimmered through her pale white dress. She had on brown leather boots—the boots she’d bought in Texas three weeks ago, I remembered—so tall they almost reached the hem of her dress.

I could feel the goosebump-inducing burn of the sun on the back of her arms and legs.

She was looking at something overhead, something no one else could see …

It’s like she doesn’t care if we’re watching. Like she’s simply living out loud, while the rest of us sit here in awe of her, just like we did back then.

But technically, that wasn’t true. If Valerie didn’t care what people thought, she wouldn’t be posting about her travels all day and all night on social media, I reminded myself.

But still, I didn’t really believe that either. Valerie operated on her own agenda, independent of everyone else—she always has.

I liked her post—I always do—then I flicked the screen off. Next, I forced myself to go shower and make some lunch.

My addiction to Valerie had become so great that I was restricting myself to one check per hour. And believe me, an hour was generous.

***

Lunch was a sizzling plate of chicken fajitas and spicy black beans.

The best fajita in the whole world lives right here in Branson #nomnom, according to Valerie.

It did look tasty—the juicy strips of meat and plump toppings spread out on an iron skillet billowing with steam.

She had changed her clothes since this afternoon.

In a dark back booth, she wore a low-lit smile, in what appeared to be a mostly empty restaurant. She posed for the camera in a lacy black shawl that slipped from her shoulders. If I maximized the screen, I could almost see the constellation of freckles on her right shoulder … four dots in the shape of a diamond, with a few little dots forming a tail, almost like a Valerie-version of the Little Dipper on her skin.

Her smudgy black makeup from this afternoon was gone, replaced with pale-pink shadow on her lids, no trace of concealer.

Lovingly, Valerie stared down at her plate of fajitas and beans.

Her beauty was inspiring, but also a constant reminder of my own ugliness. My own isolation …

I can’t remember the last time I ate Mexican. Or ate out anywhere for that matter, I thought, slowly chewing my limp cheese-and-mayonnaise sandwich. The cheese had expired two days ago, the edges of the slice slightly stiff. Chewing, I tried not to taste it. My cherry-oak computer desk was littered with soda cans and leftover plates from last night’s snacking-while-stalking session.

What a mess. Valerie makes me feel like a total slob. At the same time, I can’t stop watching …

My incision sites on my legs were sore but manageable; the headaches were painful but short-lived. The damage to my face was mostly about vanity …

The accident had changed me, and the damage was done. But it wasn’t so much damage that I couldn’t get around, or walk, or even drive for that matter. I had to be careful about driving because of my medication, but the doctor had cleared me anyway, much to my dismay. Ten weeks of physical therapy and now my therapist was encouraging me to get out and move more.

I can leave this apartment. I can clean up after myself. I’m capable of so much more …

But the truth was … I didn’t want to leave. I wasn’t ready to face the world, or more specifically, the people in town who knew about the accident. The accident that I caused.

I slammed my fists down on the desk on either side of the keyboard, rattling half-empty cans and spilling the contents of a dusty old pencil-holder.

Focus. Focus on what she’s doing.

Valerie’s newly dyed hair was pulled up into a sloppy ponytail, loose strands of petal pink curling around her face and neck.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw her.

Valerie wasn’t local; not one of those kids you’d known since grade school, wiping boogers on the back of your seat in first grade, then sporting a Wonderbra in seventh. We didn’t know anything about this new girl, not really …

She came from … where was it? Arizona, I think. Her parents were either dead or deadbeats; she’d moved in with her aunt. She was the ‘new girl’.

But to us, it was like she’d stepped off another planet and crashed into our hemisphere without any warning. And without an invitation.

Two weeks into seventh grade—my first year as a middle-schooler at Harmony—the alien showed up at our morning assembly. I was proud of how I looked that year. My breasts had developed into tiny buds that weren’t much, but they made me feel good, and I’d worked all summer, doing odd jobs, mostly babysitting, in order to buy six new outfits for school. Designer jeans. Fancy flannel button-ups (they were reversible!). A couple name-brand hoodies. A pair of painfully stiff Doc Martens. White, no-show socks and panties with designs on them that weren’t cartoons.

Every morning, I spent no less than an hour making my hair and makeup as flawless as they could possibly get. The only girls I envied were the few who did it better than me—some girls had better clothes, or they didn’t have to wear a repeat outfit on week two. Some of the girls had a knack for hair and makeup.

I envied some, but not many. I felt good in my skin … well, I thought I did.

But then the alien showed up, posing as a girl named Valerie Hutchens. When she walked into our morning assembly, the envy I felt was instantaneous. It consumed me …

But what I couldn’t understand was why.

She was wearing a T-shirt that obviously belonged to her father, or maybe an older brother. Violent Femmes, the front of it read, the es on the end so faded that I couldn’t actually read it, I just knew the band, so I filled in the blanks. The shirt was three sizes too big for her and the crack of her shorts was crooked in the back. No-name shoes without any socks, the laces untied. Tweety Bird panties protruding over the top of her shorts every time she bent over to pick something up.

On that first day, she walked in and took a seat in the first open spot on the bleachers. She smiled at our principal, Mrs. Sauer, and even though Mrs. Sauer never smiled, she smiled back at Valerie that day.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she finger-combed her shiny, shoulder-length blonde hair. Long hair was in style that year at Harmony, or it was supposed to be … but somehow, Valerie’s short, stylish ’do ruined all that—it made me self-conscious of my own long, brown locks, and it wasn’t long before the “in style” was nasty tees and short hair and don’t-give-a-fuck shoes, because, let’s face it, what was really in style was: Valerie Hutchens.

Can I borrow a pencil? she’d asked one of the boys on the seat above her. He fell all over himself scrounging one up.

Keep it, he said. I’m Luke.

Luke was a nerd, so I rolled my eyes. But Valerie didn’t—she smiled with all her teeth, not a flirtatious smile but a genuine one, and then busied herself, writing in a black-and-white notebook poised in her lap.

What is she writing about? It seemed so stupid, so unimportant, how I felt this urge—this need—to know exactly what words she scribbled into that tattered old book of hers. But I never found out; no one did. She kept her writing to herself, just like she kept everything. She was so available, yet so private at the same time …

As the school weeks marched on, I learned a few more things about Valerie Hutchens: she was just as nice as she was pretty; she was smart as a whip without even trying; and she was talented in all things extracurricular: volleyball, music, theater, cheerleading, art, you name it. She signed up for everything. And it didn’t seem like a ploy to gain popularity, just an actual interest in all things Harmony. The boys followed her around like puppies; the girls wanted to be her friends. And although she was kind to everyone, she was never really close to anyone. Including me.

I admired her from a distance for the next six years as she blossomed into a young adult and carried her magnetism with her into high school. It wasn’t until tenth or eleventh grade that I realized why I wanted to be friends with Valerie. It wasn’t her talents or her creativity. It wasn’t her good looks or the way she lit up a room when she walked inside it. It wasn’t even the fact that she was so goddamned nice and likable.

It was the way she didn’t give a shit about any of these things.

Valerie Hutchens never laid awake at night, worrying about what she would wear to school, or who her friends were, or if she’d make the basketball team. Valerie was a floater, freely drifting through life on a fluffy cloud, always living in the here and now.

She had the confidence that I lacked, which is why I wanted to be her friend.

That smile … I wanted to be on the receiving end of it.

But her eyes floated over me; I might as well have been a ghost, stalking the airless halls of Harmony …

I would have preferred being hated or mocked … anything besides ignored.

I watched the others who followed her around—Luke and some of the other nerdy boys. Valerie was too nice to turn them away, too cool to give them a real chance. I wouldn’t stoop to their level; I wouldn’t grovel for her attention.

Shortly after my accident, memories of Valerie came floating back like they’d never left in the first place. It wasn’t until I had managed to get out of bed and venture back online that I thought about the girl from high school. Her perfect face consumed me. I don’t know what triggered it—I just woke up one day and wondered if she was on Facebook. Like so many of my other classmates and former friends, I expected her to have a profile where she doted on her husband and kids; maybe occasionally bragged about her Etsy business … but Valerie didn’t have a Facebook profile, much to my surprise.

Apparently, Facebook isn’t really that cool anymore among young people. Who knew? I certainly never got the damn memo. But Valerie did. Of course she did.

A few weeks later, I tried searching again. Only this time, I used Google to find her. She hated Facebook, but she was active on Instagram and Snapchat. In fact, she spent more time posting than she did living, or so it appeared at first.

Since finding her profiles, I’d become absorbed in all things Valerie Hutchens.

When Valerie goes to the beach, so do I. I can almost taste the salt of the ocean, hear the whisper of waves in Panama City …

Valerie was a pharmaceutical rep, which meant she traveled for her job—a lot, apparently. How ironic, that I was the one choking down the pills while she was the one peddling them.

But that wasn’t her only job. She was also an aspiring writer, like me.

Almost done with my first novel. Will you guys read it someday? Please say yes! #amwriting #writerforlife.

It was a black-and-white photo of her sitting on the edge of a pier in Ocean City, Maryland, dangling her toes over the edge, all the while balancing a notebook full of tiny, neat words on her lap. Hell, it could have been the cover of her very own book—that’s how good the picture was.

But the photo itself made me nervous—What if a sudden breeze came rushing by, and her pretty little words floated out to sea? But, of course, Valerie didn’t worry about things like that. Because bad things didn’t happen to people like Valerie.

Bad things happened to me.

Look on the bright side, every once in a while, Kid, Chris’s words and cheesy smile ripped like blades through my cerebrum.

He was the optimist; I was the realist—and together, we kept each other in check.

But not anymore.

There’s no one left to lean on.

I pushed aside thoughts of Chris, focusing only on Valerie.

Maximizing the old picture of her on the pier, I tried to catch a few of her words. But I couldn’t make them out. Even now, nearly fifteen years later, I couldn’t sneak a peek into Valerie’s inner world, no matter how hard I tried …

My favorite post of Valerie’s was one from about a month ago. She was standing outside our old middle school.Passing through town again, thought I’d stop and see Aunt Janet! Look where I am! I don’t remember much about Harmony, but it feels right being back in Wisconsin. Only back for one day. What should I do? #Imbaaaack #homesweethome #instawisconsin

She couldn’t remember much about Harmony, but one thing was certain: Harmony hadn’t forgotten about her. Dozens of people commented on her post, including her old pal Luke, and I recognized some of my other classmates by either their usernames or profile pics. I even recognized our old high-school algebra professor in the comments—young and old alike, everyone worshipped Valerie.

Apparently, I’m not the only one still watching Valerie from a distance.

I felt embarrassed for all the commenters. But most of all, I felt embarrassed for me.

Back pressed to the brick under the Harmony Middle School sign, she had one leg bent, her foot pressed to the wall, both hands casually tucked in her torn jean pockets. I imagined myself sending her a private message—Just saw that you’re in town! This is Camilla Brown. Do you remember me from school? I thought if you weren’t busy, we could meet for coffee or drinks. Catch up?

But of course, I didn’t send it. I’m ashamed to even admit that I practiced writing it. Even if my fucking face and body weren’t twisted and lame, I still didn’t think I could face her. I liked her post—the way I always did—then erased the message.

Closing my eyes, I tried to imagine what a meet-up with Valerie would look like.

Do I think she would meet up with me if I asked real nicely? Yes, I do. Because Valerie is polite like that. Valerie is … well, Valerie. Always charming, always kind, always out of my league …

When I imagined us sitting across from each other in a local café, chatting away like old friends, I couldn’t help picturing my real face—correction: my old face—the one I had before the accident.

It wasn’t until weeks later, when she was back out on the road, far enough away that it felt safe, that I sent my first message.

She’d responded—it had taken a few days, but still—and since then, we’d chatted briefly. She remembered me from school. She asked me how I was doing. She didn’t mention the accident or Chris, so one could only hope she hadn’t heard …

In my messages, I complimented her pictures. I tried to keep it short and sweet, un-desperate.

We talked a little bit about writing, although she still hadn’t told me—or any of her other followers—what she was writing, exactly. I didn’t mention my face, and I never suggested that we hang out in person. She didn’t either … perhaps she is waiting for me to suggest it?

There was no point in trying to see her in person. There weren’t going to be any chatty meet-ups.

Because I didn’t want to be her friend—I don’t think I ever really wanted to be her friend.

No, that wasn’t it at all.

I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of Valerie’s smiles, I wanted to wipe them off her pretty face.




Chapter 2 (#u02a3787b-5bf4-5ec4-b320-25b6bc340344)


My house smelled of decay. Everything had that dirty-dishrag aroma clinging to it, even me. No matter how much I cleaned or sprayed, the apartment stank.

Maybe it’s not the house that’s rotten and falling apart. Maybe it’s me.

A walking corpse—that’s me.

The house was small; so small, I often caught myself calling it my “apartment.” Eight hundred rented square feet of mildew-laden carpet; dingy walls the dull color of Cheerios. And not a decoration to speak of.

But I had what I needed to survive—a kitchen, one bathroom, a cramped living room, and a bedroom that could easily be mistaken for a walk-in closet. It was the cheapest thing my sister and I could find for me after the accident. She offered to let me stay in her nice, two-story, brick home in town. But she and I both knew that wasn’t an option. Her house was only a few blocks from my old one … the house I used to share with Chris. And she had her own life, her own family to tend to …

The drab walls, the isolation … it was less like an apartment, and more like a prison. And maybe that’s how I want it to be … a form of self-punishment, I suppose.

I didn’t want to be around anyone after the accident … do I now?

No, not really, I realized.

It helped talking to Valerie online—she was my window to the world. And sure, I was lonely, but the alternative … being surrounded by people, them judging my face, my mistakes … loneliness seemed like the better option.

My rental home was on the outskirts of town, with only one neighbor beside me. She was an elderly woman … Karen … or Carol, maybe? I couldn’t remember. Karen/Carol’s house was barely visible in the warmer months, a thick tangle of trees forming a wall between us.

My place was cramped, but it was also the most secluded and affordable place for rent in Oshkosh.

When you never leave your 800-square-foot apartment, it actually feels more like 400 square feet.

The walls closing in on me, the distance between the ceiling and floor was shortening by the day, threatening to crush the breath from my chest like one of those X-ray machines they use while performing mammograms …

My old place with Chris had been nothing like this. I could barely remember the sunny walls of our townhouse or the neat parquet floors throughout. I could barely remember Chris for that matter … the way he was before …

But that’s a lie.

I could still remember everything, if I allowed myself to. That old version of me trapped inside my head—she wouldn’t let me forget. I could silence her voice, but not her memories. No, some memories never die, no matter how much we want them to.

I want to forget … it’s easier to forget a life that I destroyed.

We had a great relationship, Chris and me. Not good, great.

I imagined the weight of him, thick hairy arms draped around my neck while I typed at my desk. Chris massaging my shoulders, twisting his fingers through my hair, tugging at the knots … hands squeezing my neck, not so hard I couldn’t breathe, but enough to give me pause …

But my life was different now. For the most part, I spent my days reading books and watching TV to keep myself sane. I bathed and exercised (a bit) and cooked food. But the moments between those activities and sleeping, those moments belonged to the internet. Searching and looking … trying to find myself somewhere, I guess. Lately, I’d been consumed by Valerie.

It wasn’t her video on Instagram at 2am that woke me, because I was already awake. In the wee morning hours … that was when I often ventured outside, but never beyond the concrete slab I used as a porch.

Perched in a rusty lawn chair, a shapeless cloud of smoke formed around my head like a bubble. Pall Malls—another addiction I couldn’t quite master or shake.

Karen/Carol couldn’t see me from here, even if she was looking. But still, I’d left the back porch light off just in case. I didn’t want to be seen. Looking at my own scars was hard enough; I didn’t need others staring at them, too.

The 2am notification shook me out of my dream-like, smoking state. I stubbed my cigarette out on the rim of an empty soda can on the table beside me, then squinted down at my iPhone. The white-hot brightness of the phone in the dark caused a sharp twinge of pain in my right temple.

_TheWorldIsMine_26 started a live video. Watch it before it ends!

Valerie posted live videos a few times per week, but 2am, even for a frequent poster like her, was unusual. Hours earlier she’d posted several photos on Instagram and a Snapchat story in a smoky underground club in eastern Kentucky called Cavern.

Meeting some interesting new ppl in Paducah! Cavern is the best-kept secret here. But it’s all about business tonight though. #allworknoplay #hustling

The club had a dingy, dark look to it … but Valerie herself was dressed to the nines, in a navy-blue suit that made her hair look white hot and glossy in the photos. I noticed the pink strips in her hair were now gone …

Most likely, she was wining and dining some doctors or other consumers in the healthcare industry. Working that Valerie charm to push whatever the latest drug product on the market was.

I clicked on the newest video, holding my breath in anticipation.

The video was dark, so it was hard to see, and for a moment the screen bumbled and glitched … then Valerie’s nose and lips filled the entire screen.

Immediately, I felt a prickle of fear in my stomach. Something is wrong.

“Not a good night, guys. Not a good night at all,” Valerie’s bow-like lips moved shakily on the screen. They were puffy. Stained purple with drink.

“The meeting was swell, but some creep decided to follow me back to my hotel room. Can you guys stay with me, please …?” The screen bobbled and shook as she walked; all I could see was the lower half of her face. She was panting, releasing short gulps of air through her swollen lips. And she was stumbling too … possibly drunk.

I’ve never seen her this vulnerable.

“Almost there, guys … thanks for having my back,” she huffed. The video panned out and finally, I could see her whole face. Her eyes were wide, more frightened than I’d ever seen them before. And she was surrounded by darkness, spiky dark buildings in the distance, but nothing decipherable. Surely, if she were close to the hotel, there would be lights … Speaking of lights, where are all the street lights in that town …?

“As much as I love being on my own, sometimes I feel like I need a hero. There are lots of creeps in the world, guys. But I know I’m safe with you all watching, always having my back …”

The video cut off abruptly.

I gripped the phone, surprised to hear myself panting just like she was seconds earlier.

Will she post again, to let us know that she made it inside safely?

At 4am, I finally climbed into bed. Should I send her a message, ask her if she’s okay? I was always hesitant to message Valerie, afraid of annoying her or seeming desperate … but she could be in trouble …

Ultimately, I decided to wait until morning. Valerie will be okay, she always is.

I balanced the phone on my chest. If she posted, my phone would vibrate, and hopefully, wake me up.

I stared at the fan blades … swish swish swish … until my eyelids grew heavy and closed.

***

The sound of a phone ringing shook me from sleep. Thankfully, I hadn’t dreamed of the accident. I jerked up in bed, trembling for no reason, and immediately, I remembered Valerie’s odd live video she’d posted in the middle of the night. Did she make it back to her hotel okay?

I declined my sister’s call and swiped away her texts. Without taking my meds or washing up, I scrambled out of bed and went straight for my laptop.

I could see my social media notifications from my cell, but I preferred the bigger screen.

And I needed to know if Valerie was alright this morning …

Clearing away cans and empty chip bags, I rolled my computer chair up close to the screen.

The browser was still open on her page from where I’d left it last night. I refreshed, tapping my fingers noisily on the desk while I waited for it to load.

She’s fine. Valerie Hutchens is always fine. And what does it matter if she’s not, huh? She’s not your sister; she’s not your friend, not really. You barely know the fucking girl.

But I did know her, sort of. At least that’s how it felt, as I followed her day-to-day movements, activities, and moods. As much as I hated to admit it, Valerie’s mere existence was keeping me semi-sane while I hid, tucked away from the world in my shitty house, wasting away.

She seemed to be the only thing I could—or wanted—to focus on these days. And although our brief messages weren’t much, she was the only living soul I’d communicated with—besides my sister and the doctors—since the accident.

I don’t have any friends, no one I can talk to … and although our short chats online probably meant nothing to her, they meant everything to me. Sure, I was jealous of her—her fragile beauty made me more self-aware of my own flaws, and her free-spirited travels and successful career highlighted my personal failures … but Valerie was hope.

She was who I wanted to be … a glimpse of who I might have been …

My thoughts drifted over to the unopened Word files, which I couldn’t see because Valerie’s page was blocking the many icons that dotted the screen. Like Valerie, I was a writer. But not the kind that could ever get published. No, I’d stopped that kind of writing years ago. Now, I did some ghostwriting and occasionally, some freelance editing.

God knows I need the money. That’s how I should be spending my time, not stalking people online.

I used to enjoy it, getting lost in other people’s stories after I’d given up on my own … but lately, all I wanted to do was stay up to date with Valerie’s whereabouts and doings … it was her story that intrigued me the most.

Frustrated, I clicked the refresh button again, and finally, Valerie’s Instagram page filled my screen.

Nothing.

The last post was the live video I’d already watched. It had been posted at 2:06am.

I jumped up and ran back to my bedroom to retrieve my cell phone, then checked to make sure she hadn’t posted any Snaps.

Nope—nothing.

***

By 4pm, I’d taken an hour-long “bath”—which involved me scrubbing myself with water and soap while I sat in my new shower chair that the doctor had recommended because it was too painful to get in and out of the tub if I sat all the way down inside it. I’d limped around my kitchen, sweeping the floor. I’d washed a sinkful of moldy dishes and started and stopped three editing projects that were due next month. As much as I wanted to stay busy and keep my mind from wandering back to Valerie, or something worse, I just couldn’t focus. The words on the page were jumbly; my head throbbing; thick waves of red washing over my face and neck.

Valerie hadn’t posted all day, nothing since that shaky, sinister live vid at 2 in the morning. I’d skimmed through nearly a thousand of her previous posts, and then her followers’ posts … I’d also sent her three direct messages, asking her how she was doing, if she was okay … they had all gone unanswered.

Something is wrong. Something happened last night to Valerie.

I had gone so far as to make a scribbled list of hotels, motels, and inns that were in or around eastern Kentucky. There weren’t many, and most of them were listed outside of Paducah. There was nothing in their local news either—no kidnappings, rapes, assaults …

No murders.

I’m worried about a stranger; meanwhile, I can barely take care of myself. This is insane!

Once again, I pulled up a manuscript I’d been paid to edit. I made it through three lines, before my thoughts drifted back to her again and I couldn’t read the words on the page. The shaky sound of Valerie’s voice in that darkened street still haunted me … she had seemed so afraid, so unsure of herself …

I leapt from my computer chair as someone pounded on my front door.

I wasn’t sure how to react. It had been so long since I’d had any visitors. My mind immediately thought of my neighbor, Karen. Or Carol, whatever her name was … or possibly my physical therapist? But we didn’t have an appointment and my neighbor had never stopped by before. I’d always assumed she was a hermit, like me, and that worked out well for both of us.

My heart thumping in my chest, I tiptoed over to the living-room window and peeked out through the dusty blinds.

“I see you, Camilla! Let me in!”

Fuck.

It was Hannah. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I hadn’t answered any of my sister’s texts today. Also, I hadn’t taken my medicine. The switch-up in Valerie’s routine was affecting my own.

Dammit.

Reluctantly, I unfastened the deadbolt and opened the door.

“Jesus. I was worried. I had to leave work an hour early …” Hannah brushed past me, nearly knocking me over with her oversized purse and puffy pink coat.

Hannah was tall and elegant, with white-blonde hair. The polar opposite of me, with my short, chubby frame and dark-haired features. I’d often wondered if I was adopted.

You hatched from an egg, Milly. Fell out the back of a farmer’s truck and went splat on the ground. You were lucky I scraped you up when I did. She had told me that when she was eight and I was four, and for some reason, the image had stuck with me.

My sister plopped down on my living-room sofa, dropped her purse by her feet, and kicked off a pair of shiny brown loafers.

“You alright?”

I was still guarding the door. I closed and locked it, breathing in through my mouth and out through my nose.

“I’m okay, Hannah. Just busy.” Awkwardly, I sat down on the couch beside her.

She instantly launched into conversation, about how hectic her schedule was today—she’d been a dental hygienist since she was twenty, earning her associate’s degree and completing her clinical practice in less than two years—and she reminded me, twice, that she’d had to take off early to come check on me.

Through all her chatter, her eyes never once met mine.

Even my own sister, my own blood, can’t look at my ugly, disfigured face anymore.

I wanted to reach over and shake her. Yell: Bring my fucking sister back, please! She’s the one I want. Not you. Not this bumbling girl who can’t even look me in the face!

And it’s not just the not-looking that bothered me … it’s that every time I did leave the house—which wasn’t often—people either quickly glanced away or stared straight at me, unapologetically, like I was some sort of circus freak …

I missed the days of being looked at appreciatively by men and women; but mostly, I just missed being looked at like a normal person, another face in the crowd …

“I’m sorry you came all this way. I promise, I’m fine. Just busy. I’m editing a manuscript for a client right now.” Maybe Hannah isn’t the only one acting unlike herself. I, too, have been treating my sister like a stranger, I realized, uncomfortably.

Hannah was staring across the room. I followed her gaze to my computer screen and the mess of cans and crud on the floor around my desk space.

The manuscript I was supposed to be working on was pulled up on the home screen (thankfully, I’d minimized Valerie’s profile).

“I’m glad you’re working and getting back in the swing of things. But what have you been doing for fun? You need to get out more. They miss you at the buffet.”

The Pink Buffet was an old-timey restaurant that I’d worked at for nearly six years, before the accident. I’d used to go in early to set up prep for the buffet, and sometimes waitress in the evenings. I didn’t miss it; and I didn’t believe for a second that they missed me there either. The other girls were probably thrilled to have my extra hours.

I realized then that Hannah was still talking, although my mind was somewhere else. “Huh?”

“I was saying that we should do something together … go catch a movie, or better yet, have one of those girls’ nights at my place, where we stay up all night watching movies and …”

“And drinking wine,” I finished for her.

Wine. She can’t even say it. Because she knows my drinking is what caused the accident in the first place.

Say it, Hannah. Look me in the face, for once, and say what you and everyone else is thinking: How could you be so reckless, Camilla?! How could you be a drunken fool, like Dad?

“What have you been doing for entertainment in this stuffy place?” Hannah pressed, breaking through my guilt-ridden thoughts.

What do I do for entertainment? I imagined myself telling her the truth: I spend all day checking up on a girl I barely know, consumed by other people’s lives while I watch my own shrivel up and disappear. How is that for fun, big sis?

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I’d forgotten how to speak to her … how to relate with anyone, for that matter.

How long has it been since I’ve spoken out loud to another person?

“I-I need to finish this. It’s due tomorrow,” I said hurriedly, pointing over at my screen. My couch was less of a couch, and more like a love seat, and the two squishy, smelly cushions were making me uncomfortable.

Too close. Hannah’s sitting too close to me.

I stood up, suddenly, mindlessly rubbing the incision sites on my thighs.

“Thanks for checking up on me, though …”

Hannah nodded, squeezing her lips together in a way that made me feel like she was disappointed in me.

You’re not the only one, sis.

“Okay, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing then,” Hannah said, reluctantly rising from the couch. “Can I use your bathroom first? I’ve been holding it for hours.”

“Sure. It’s …”

“I know where the bathroom is, Camilla.” She gave me a strange look, her hazel eyes finally rising to meet mine. We stared each other down, a thick knot forming in my chest and throat.

We used to be so comfortable together, finishing each other’s sentences, plucking thoughts straight from each other’s brains and trying to guess what the other might say next …

But those days are long gone. It’s like we’re strangers now.

Don’t cry, Camilla. Please don’t cry …

If you cry about missing your sister, then you’ll cry about Chris. And if you cry about him … well, you’re liable to never stop. You’ll die of dehydration from all those tears …

It looked like I wasn’t the only one fighting back tears. “Be right back,” Hannah gulped, blinking rapidly as she turned down the short hallway.

I watched her disappear into the bathroom and moments later, I heard the water running. I paced back and forth in the living room, waiting for her to come back out. Minutes passed, and finally, I crept over to the computer. I bent down slightly, clicking the mouse to minimize the current document, before glancing over my shoulder to make sure Hannah was still in the bathroom. I could hear her opening and closing drawers—is she snooping?

I refreshed Valerie’s page.

A new post!

Impulsively, I pulled my computer chair out and sat down, scooting in close to the screen.

My heartbeat echoed in my head as I quickly scanned the caption beneath the newly posted image. It was a sleepy-looking Valerie, nursing a cup of what looked like hot tea. Her hair was braided on one side, but carelessly loose, and she was wearing an oversized sweater that looked like something a grandma would knit.

What a long night and day … sorry guys, I hope you weren’t worried. I have the worst stomach bug of my life, but I’m finally feeling better … going to nurse myself back to health because guess where I’m going tomorrow?! New Orleans! Look out Bourbon Street, here I come … #Nola #imnotfeelingwell #instasick

I breathed a sigh of relief. Why didn’t it occur to me that she might simply be under the weather?

After all, perfect people get sick too.

She had responded to my messages, too! My eyes scanned quickly: Thanks for asking. I’m fine, just a bit under the weather.




I stared at the smiley face, the corners of my own lips turning …

“Who’s that?”

Startled to find Hannah standing behind me, I clumsily tried to close out the screen.

“Valerie, right?”

Too late.

I swallowed back the scream in my throat.

“Oh, yeah … I remember her. You guys were in the same grade, weren’t you?” Hannah was so close; I could feel her minty hot breath on the back of my neck. I shivered.

“Yeah, Valerie Hutchens. I don’t really know her though. I was just scrolling through old classmates a few days ago and forgot to close out the screen.” I shrugged, minimizing the page and spinning around and around in my computer chair.

Hannah clucked her tongue. “Yeah, wasn’t she the one you were always jealous of? I never could understand what everybody saw in that girl. Especially you, Camilla.”

I whipped around in my seat, turning so fast that my still-stiff neck from the accident roared with pain. “I wasn’t jealous of her!”

But I could hear the defensive spike in my voice. “I wasn’t,” I mumbled.

I’m just lonely. And lost, I wanted to add. And having someone to chat with, someone to pretend I’m friends with … well, it helps a little. Maybe even a lot.

“Okay, okay … no offense. I think it would be good for you to reconnect with old friends, but …”

“But what?” I thought about the sounds in the bathroom, her shuffling through my closet and drawers …

“Are you taking your medication as prescribed?”

Ah, there it is. The real reason for her visit.

My eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Of course I am. Why?”

Hannah held up her hands, defensively. “I’m just asking. Just worried about you, that’s all … and you’re not drinking, are you?”

“For fuck’s sake, Hannah! No, I’m not drinking. What about you, huh? Still going out for Thirsty Thursdays with Mike?” I spat.

Hannah’s face hardened and she didn’t answer my question. Her eyes were traveling the room again … She doesn’t fucking believe me, does she? I realized.

“Look, Hannah, I appreciate you coming by, but I need to get back to work. Time for you to go.” I stood up and crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for her to take a hint and leave. “No offense.”

Hannah frowned, her eyes zeroing in on mine once more. “I guess I’ll see you later then,” she huffed, scooping up her purse and seeing herself out.

From the window, I watched her climb into the driver’s seat of her black Camry. Quietly, she sat, staring straight ahead at God knows what, for what felt like several minutes. Finally, she put the car in gear, and slowly reversed down the snaky driveway. I watched her taillights until they disappeared at the bottom of the hill.

Screw her! She was rude to me. It was her, not me, right?

Before I could waste any more time feeling guilty about my sister, I plopped back down in my desk chair and took a sip of flat Mountain Dew. Taking a deep breath, I clicked the refresh button on Valerie’s page and reread her brief, but kind, message.




Chapter 3 (#u02a3787b-5bf4-5ec4-b320-25b6bc340344)


I slept with my door closed and the ceiling fan on high, the spinning wood paddles lulling me to sleep … but now those paddles are the blades of a helicopter.

A spotlight beams from overhead and the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the heavy blades signals that help is coming …

“Don’t worry. Help is on the way, Kid,” Chris says, reading my mind.

Painfully, I twist my neck to the right, but then I remember … Chris is dead. I killed him … oh, Chris … it’s all my fault, isn’t it?

I don’t want to look … don’t want to see Chris that way again … but he’s talking.

He’s talking! I just heard his voice!

I must have dreamed that he was dead … he’s still here … he must be because he’s talking, dammit!

But when I look at my husband, the parts of him that I love so much—his lips, his eyes, the dimple on his right cheek, the scar where his eyebrow piercing used to be—those parts of him are gone. All that remains is a crumpled body in the passenger’s seat. A body without a head. It doesn’t even look real, like some sort of movie-set prop or clothing-store mannequin …

And blood. There’s just so much of it …

“Back here, Kid.”

Moaning, I force myself to lift one floppy arm and reach for the rearview mirror. It’s slow and painful, like it’s somebody else’s arm—I’m commanding the arm to move, willing it with my mind like I’m telekinetic.

When the mirror is lowered, I can see the entirety of the backseat.

But where is his voice coming from …?

Then everything comes into focus. In the rearview mirror, I come eye to eye with Chris.

Chris’s head is in the backseat.

Chris’s head is talking to me.

Chris: The Talking Head, is frowning.

“You promised. You promised me you’d stop drinking,” his lips are moving.

“I know. I—I’m sorry … I fucked up so bad …”

“You lied. You’re a liar … you made me bleed …”

A new voice breaks in.

“Ma’am, don’t look back there. Look at me. Listen, you’re in shock, but we’re going to cut you out of there. There’s a helicopter waiting to transport you to university hospital, okay? Keep your eyes on me and breathe.”

The man is squatting down, looking in at me from outside the shattered driver’s window. His face smudgy and dark, my vision blurred … but his voice is soothing and kind. I allow my eyes to lock onto his, sucking in huge gulps of air.

“Don’t look at either of them. Look at me,” comes a bell-like voice from my past. Slowly, painfully, I twist my neck to the right. Past the broken glass in the console, past the body that used to be Chris’s in the passenger’s seat … there’s a familiar face peering in at me through broken glass.

“Look at me, look at me … focus only on me,” says the girl with the bell-like voice.

The man is talking, Chris is talking, and somewhere inside my head I can hear them both pleading … begging me not to look.

But it’s not Chris’s body in the passenger’s seat that I’m looking at. It’s the girl in the window. My gaze follows her wherever she goes …

I can’t peel my eyes away from her shining, beacon-shaped face. That smile, so contagious …

Valerie.

***

I gave up on sleep hours ago.

This probably happened because I took my meds later than usual.

The dreams were always disruptive, but usually I slept at least six or seven hours before they caused me to shoot up out of bed, drenched in sweat and shaking.

My skin was still red with heat from the dream, a cool breeze shifting through the slope of trees that lined the back of my rental property. A cold chill rushed through my hair and blew it around my face.

I inhaled, closing my eyes as I tasted the wind.

I exhaled, tried to push the dream out of my mind. Tried to rid my body of memories and horrors that ran too deep …

My iPhone sat on the flimsy lawn table beside me. I picked it up and held it to my chest.

You don’t need it. It’s a crutch. Promise me you’ll stop drinking … you don’t act like yourself when you do, Chris’s words whispered between the trees.

But I did need it—a crutch. Even before the accident, I’d struggled with anxiety my whole life. The alcohol dulled my nerves and created a sense of euphoria in a world where there was none for me. Even when I was happy, that pessimistic inner voice liked to spoil all my fun. Crutches helped. They allowed me to focus on something other than the deep dark voice inside me.

I never used to drink during the daytime—I had to work my food-prep job at The Pink Buffet. And after work, I’d either work extra hours, waiting tables, or I’d come home and write or edit until Chris came home. But in the evenings, after all the work was laid to rest … I drank.

I drank until I promised Chris that I would stop.

Only, I didn’t, not really … I just got better at hiding it. I’d wait until he went to sleep at night, then I’d sneak sips into my soda water and fill my mouth with Listerine strips in between … sometimes, drinking so late at night, that I was still half-drunk when I showed up for my early morning shift at the buffet.

My eyes still closed, I imagined sitting out on the back deck with Chris when we lived in our townhome. I could almost feel the squeeze of his hand on mine, his promise ring digging sharply into my palm … I’m proud of you for not drinking, Camilla. You’re working hard to stay sober; I can tell.

But it was all a farce … I was working hard to stay drunk, more like it.

Liar … his words from the dream rushed back at me.

Lies … I told so many of them. Even now, I can taste them—like vinegar on my tongue. They tasted bad, but they flowed like honey from my mouth …

Chris’s hands—so tender and sweet—are squeezing harder and harder, choking the breath from my chest …

Opening my eyes, I poked a finger at my phone, causing it to light up. I was surprised to find several unread texts from Hannah. She messaged me daily, but evening calls and texts were a rarity. Evenings were reserved for her and Mike.

Mike: the perfect husband. Mike: who was alive and still had a head. Mike: who went to bed early and woke up early. Who took my sister to dinner shows and vacations.

Things I never had a chance to do with Chris.

Hannah had sent several messages between 11pm and 12am, while I was dead asleep and dreaming.

Reluctantly, I opened them:

Hannah: I miss you, Milly.

Milly … Hannah hadn’t called me that in ages. Not since we were kids.

The endearing nickname made my throat and chest constrict, like peanut butter in my gullet.

Hannah: I’m sorry for the way I acted today. I just don’t know what to say to you anymore. I don’t know how to fix things the way I could when we were kids. You were young then, and you listened to me. Now … now, I don’t know how to help you. But I want to … I want to help you, Milly.

Hannah: I’m sorry about what happened to you. I know you miss Chris. I miss him, too.

Hannah: But he’s gone … and now that Dad’s gone too, all we have is each other.

Hannah: What I’m saying is … I can’t lose you.

Hannah: I love you, Milly. I miss you so much I can’t breathe. Please come back to me.

When I closed my eyes this time, I was falling … floating back to our farm house on Credence Drive. Hannah and I hiding in our bedroom closet …

Don’t move, she had whispered. He’s in the bedroom now. I opened my mouth in horror, and like a little bird, a frightened chirp slipped out. Suddenly, her hands were wrapped around my face, covering my mouth and nose … tight, so tight … I can’t breathe! The harder I fought, the firmer her clamp became. I tried to scream but couldn’t. Shhh … just a few more minutes, she had promised.

My mother died of cancer before I was old enough to know her. My father coped with her loss by drinking. And he wasn’t a funny drunk or a clumsy drunk … he was mean. Hannah and I would hide in the closet, or wherever we could, until he finished one of his rampages.

There’s not a horror movie in the world that could make my heart race the way Dad could …

I shook that memory away and opened my eyes. My phone chimed again. A notification this time: Valerie had made a new post!

I lit another cigarette, pushing aside thoughts of my sister, ignoring the sharp burn in my chest, and opened my Instagram app.

I was disappointed to find that she hadn’t posted a new video or picture of herself. It was simply a faded blue image with a quote, like the bored-as-fuck ones I saw on my Facebook feed daily.

My eyes scanned the words … they were familiar, but where had I seen them before—a book, or a movie, maybe? I typed the first sentence of the quote into Google and instantly, results for that old Beatles song, Eleanor Rigby, popped up.

It was a song about lonely people, like me. A woman who died in a church, all alone. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the rest of the song, beyond the first verse.

Pulling up YouTube, I found the song within seconds and clicked play.

Before I could change my mind, I was typing out another message to Valerie.

Me: I haven’t heard this song in years. It’s so haunting, so beautiful … hope you’re feeling better today.

Usually, it took Valerie hours—sometimes, days—to respond. But she immediately wrote back, sending a slither of pleasure right through me.

Valerie: Me too. It always helps me sleep.

Eyes closed, I leaned my head back in the lawn chair, letting that haunting old song consume me, all the while imagining Valerie, sick and alone in her hotel room a few hundred miles away, doing the exact same thing.

Paul McCartney’s timeless voice … was it Paul or John, John or Paul …? No matter—their words lulled me back to sleep like a pill …

***

The next day, my face was sporting a sun burn—I’d made the mistake of falling asleep out on the back porch, and I’d slept through the early morning sunrise and into the afternoon.

The red, raw shine to my cheeks made me feel almost normal—it had been a long time since I’d felt the sun, since my face had a sheen of color to it. Hannah and I had used to go to the beach every summer with our dad … oh, how we blistered in the sun while he got hammered at the beach bar all day. For some reason, we enjoyed the habit of peeling burnt skin off each other’s shoulders and noses.

I finished a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and drank a glass of orange juice, thoughts funneling back to my sister’s late-night texts …

I need to call her today. Set things straight with her once and for all.

Because she was right—she was all I had left in this world. I needed to focus on her, and getting my life back in order, not chasing old ghosts from high school … not reliving that horrendous night with Chris. It was lonely here—and like that girl in the church all alone, I didn’t want to die in this apartment. If I did, how long would it take for someone to find me … days, weeks, months? Hannah probably won’t be back for a while, after how I treated her yesterday …

But some habits die hard—by one o’clock, I found myself back in my usual computer chair, eagerly scoping out Valerie’s page for updates. I wanted to send more messages, but I refrained. I couldn’t make myself look too desperate.

I’d missed a video she’d posted at 4am. While I was sleeping to the tune of Eleanor Rigby, Valerie had made another update. I clicked on her video, trying to force myself not to care …

Like me, Valerie was sitting at a desk. Albeit, a clean one. It looked generic with nothing on its surface; she was obviously still in her hotel room. Behind her, I could see the silhouette of a queen-sized bed in the dark. Blankets and sheets crumpled up like blobby white ghosts.

Billowy white curtains blew behind her, too … the room was dark, shadows dancing across the walls … Valerie’s face, pale and ghoulish, stared back at me through the screen.

She must still be feeling sick.

Her expression was grim, a tightness to her cheeks and eyes I’d never seen before. I’d never seen her look so … unfiltered.

“I don’t know if it’s this stomach bug, or what … I could be losing my mind. I went out for dinner and a movie by myself tonight, and once again, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being followed. I don’t talk much about my personal life here, but mental illness does run in my family … anyways, pray for me, will ya? I mean, if that’s your thing … okay? I have a flight to catch in the morning and I need to get my head on straight before I head out.”

A shadow shifted in the room behind her, giving my stomach a jolt. There was something moving behind the curtains in the background!

What the hell is that?

Valerie kept on talking, oblivious, but I could no longer hear the words … my eyes were glued to the spot where the shadow had been.

She’d left the window open …

“I’ll check in tomorrow once I land in Louisiana. Good night, world.”

And just like that, the shadow moved. For a brief second, I caught a clear glimpse of a man’s face peeking out from between the curtains. My heart fluttered in my chest. He was looking through her hotel window!

“Behind you …” I breathed, a chill running from the top of my scalp down to my toes. But then the video came to an end. I stared at the blank, dark screen, a rattle of fear in my bones.

The video wasn’t live. She posted this eight hours ago, I realized in horror.

And a quick scan through her pages revealed that she hadn’t posted anything else since.

Did I really see what I thought I saw, or am I losing my mind just like Valerie thought she was losing hers?

I re-played the video again and again, slowing it down as much as I possibly could. There was no doubt in my mind—a man was looking in at Valerie while she had her back turned to the window. It was too clear not to be real. Not a trick of the shadows … or my mind, for that matter.

And although his face was dark and a little fuzzy, there was something familiar about it too …

The man in the window looks like Chris.

A knock of fear jerked me out of my seat. I stood up, pacing back and forth in front of the computer. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen the Chris-lookalike either. It’s impossible—I know it’s not Chris. But damn, he does look a whole lot like him. It’s unsettling.

I’d noticed him in another one of Valerie’s posts … but which one?

The reason the man stood out to me the first time was because he did sort of look like Chris, although, rationally, I knew it wasn’t him.

I sat back down, clicking through her old photos and posts … thousands and thousands of photos! Too many …

But then, a few minutes later, I found exactly what I’d been looking for …

There!

It was an old post, from before I’d started following her every move … but I’d scrolled through these old photos so many times …

There.

He was standing two rows behind her at an outdoor concert in Ohio. Valerie was smiling, extending the camera with one hand and holding up the other to show a bracelet—a backstage VIP band circling her wrist. It was a hodge-podge of alternative bands, but she’d specifically referenced a Marilyn Manson song in her caption: #RockisDead.

The reason the man had caught my attention the first time, besides the fact that he kind of looked like Chris, was because he was staring so intensely into the camera from several rows back, almost like he’d accidentally looked at the wrong moment and gotten captured in Valerie’s photo forever … a classic photo-bomb. Annoying, but not uncommon. All the smudgy little faces in the background of her videos and pictures … unassuming strangers, or are they?

I just assumed it was an accident, an odd guy looking in the background, his serious spot-on gaze captured by the lens …

And there! Another pic in Florida—he looked like any other guy you’d see … just a man having a drink at a tiki bar, enjoying his vacation while some girl—Valerie—snapped a selfie of her bikini-clad self, holding a sugary-rimmed margarita. It was a sideview of his face at the bar … it might not be him.

But it sure as hell looked like him. And I couldn’t shake the eerie realization that he looked so similar to Chris … the slope of his jaw, that slightly off-center nose … even the blue-black, closely cropped hair was the same.

Valerie was the kind of girl that was prone to admirers.

But that face in the window … that went way beyond normal obsession.

Valerie had a stalker besides me. A real one.

What if she’s in serious danger?




Chapter 4 (#u02a3787b-5bf4-5ec4-b320-25b6bc340344)


It was warm for October, the wind whispering through the trees behind my apartment, circulating stuffy puffs of air through the open window above my bed. The sill was covered in dust, the window practically jammed shut as I’d fought to wrench it open … it’d been so long since I’d opened a window. Since I’d let the world inside.

But I needed the extra air. My room was too itchy, too tight. And I couldn’t shake off my concerns … What I really can’t shake off is Valerie Hutchens.

After I’d spotted the mystery man in Valerie’s video, I’d called the cops, jumped in my dad’s old Chevy truck, and raced all the way to Kentucky to save her … no. No, I didn’t.

But what I did do was play out all these fantasy, next-move scenarios. They rolled through my head in waves, playing out like a black-and-white, made-for-TV movie, reverberating in my ears. Shouldawouldacoulda … what should I do?!

Every scenario had the same outcome … me: the hero. Valerie: the damsel in distress. Cue credits …

But the truth was, Valerie hadn’t posted anything in two days. Nothing at all since the creepy video with the Chris lookalike in the background. She hadn’t gone two days, or even one day, without posting in months. Not until recently.

I’d carried my laptop from the living room to my bedroom, so I could sulk under the covers and wonder what she was up to …

I couldn’t help thinking about that video she’d posted the night before I saw the man … about a stalker following her home, and that speech about needing a hero. Valerie knew she was in danger, so why didn’t she call the cops?

No stupid quotes, no videos, no pics … no responses to my messages either.

I’d scanned the comments beneath the latest video, quietly hoping and wishing that one of her many followers would also spot the man in the window.

No one had. Not even her oldest admirer, Luke, had noticed. He’d liked the video and moved on, just like everyone else. I waited for comments that mentioned the man, but there were none. But they did offer her well wishes and platitudes …

Her followers told her not to worry. They wished her well on her trip to New Orleans. They told her to ‘get better soon’. They threw around ‘prayers’ like handfuls of confetti.

They said all the stupid things that people say when they know there’s nothing else to be said.

But how did no one else see the man?

The fact that he looked like Chris was fucking with me … Could it all be in my own head? Am I losing my mind, just as Valerie thought she was losing hers …?

No. The photos from her old posts proved it—this wasn’t the man’s first, or even second, encounter with Valerie. He was obviously following her—stalking her—and closely enough to be captured in the background on three occasions now. How many more times had he been around, only he didn’t get captured in a photo? I wondered. And he’s not Chris. Just because he has dark eyes and hair, and a similar build, doesn’t make him Chris …

Chris is dead.

Hannah had texted me today, like clockwork:

Hannah: I tried to call again. Can we chat on the phone? You never responded to my messages the other day. You okay?

My imaginary response: No … no, I’m not okay. I’m worried about a woman I barely know. Unable to help her because I can’t leave my apartment—correction: won’t leave my apartment. And even if I did—if I could—what the hell good would it do? A man that looks like my dead husband is following a girl I haven’t seen in over a decade … and for some reason, I’m bent out of shape about it.

I didn’t know Valerie’s exact location. I didn’t know who the man in the window was, or if Valerie was in some sort of danger …

I rotated my thumbs, hesitating, before finally, I typed back to Hannah:

Me: Doing well! Working hard on a writing project. Talk soon, I promise.

Working hard, indeed.

In reality, I was working hard not to fall apart because my latest addiction had run dry.

Oh, Valerie. I need my fix.

Her un-updated page stared back at me like an empty syringe.

Or an empty glass.

I clicked send, then added another message to my sister:

Me: Miss you too, Hannah. I’m fine. Really.

What am I going to do if Valerie never comes back online? I wondered. I had to do something to help her … to check up on her … but what if something terrible has already happened? What if I’m too late?

My thoughts were quickly spinning out of control. I could ask Hannah for advice, tell her what was going on … but then she’d just give me that look, the one from the other day … that look of disapproval and concern. She thinks I’m a drunk and a pill addict …

I sat up in bed and refreshed my browser. For the hundredth time today, I checked local crime reports in Kentucky. I checked Indiana and Ohio, too, since they were close. Lastly, I checked New Orleans. Nada.

There were crimes, plenty of them. Burglary, assault, driving while intoxicated … but no mention of a young pharmaceutical rep vanishing from her hotel room. No pretty-girl murders splashed dramatically across the front page, no catchy taglines about stalkers or kidnappings …

As popular as Valerie was online, I wasn’t sure how long it would be before her real-life friends or family missed her. She had an aunt who lived in town … Janet, she said her name was. But Valerie’s employer … surely, they would know if she never made it to New Orleans. Wouldn’t they?

I rolled onto my back, staring up at the popcorn patterns on the ceiling above my bed. They swirled, triggering a sick rush of something in my gut … fear? No, not fear—memory. I blinked slowly, the tilt-o-whirl roof from the night of the accident flashing like a blinking bulb in my face. Chris’s voice, pleading in the dark … was he pleading or screaming …?

Fuck. I have to do something. I can’t just sit here and do nothing to help her.

Valerie worked for a company called Rook Pharmaceuticals. They weren’t the biggest branch of big pharma, but they were damn near close.

For one silent second, my next move became clear.

Valerie could be in danger. And if there’s no one to help her or warn her, then I could be the only one who does.

As I sat up, there was a new form of energy pumping through my veins.

I composed my message in a Word document, then read over it a dozen times before finally copying and pasting it into a message on Instagram. I exhaled, then clicked send:

Valerie,

I know it’s none of my business, but I couldn’t help but notice something strange in the background of your latest video. A strange man peering in the window behind you. I noticed him in the background of some of your other pictures as well. I know we don’t know each other well and we weren’t all that close in school … but I’m worried about you. After that other video about the man following you from the bar, I was a little concerned that maybe the man in the window was him … that maybe you have a stalker. Please write me back.

Next, I looked up the phone number for Rook Pharmaceuticals. The receptionist who answered was young, her words breathy and practiced.

My words, on the other hand, sounded like someone else’s—throaty and strained.

I cleared my throat, “My name is Janet Hutchens. My niece is employed as a rep with your company.”

Silence.

“Umm … her name is Valerie. She was traveling on business to Kentucky, and then her next stop was New Orleans. I’ve been unable to reach her on her cell the last couple days, and I was hoping you had another line where I could reach her. Or could you just check in on her, please?”





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