Page 33 of The Followers
“You did?”
She nodded. “The day after Gabriela was born. You don’t remember going to see her with Gran? You were there, too.”
“I remember being at the hospital in Pittsburgh to see Kristina and the baby. I don’t remember much about Sam, though.”
Kristina had been living in Ohio when she’d dated Sam, so that was the first time any of them had met him. Oliver had spent most of the visit slumped on the couch, ignoring everyone else while he doodled in his notebook.
Liv remembered Sam’s discomfort, the way he and Kristina had barely made eye contact. His gaze had followed baby Gabriela no matter who held her, as if she were a fragile, precious object. What would it be like to have a father who had looked at me that way? Liv had wondered, blissfully unaware of what Sam would later do to keep his baby.
When Gran had left the hospital room (she’d said she needed some air, meaning a smoke), Sam had handed Liv his phone and asked her to take a picture. That was the photo she found in Ella’s room: Kristina and Sam on the hospital bed, the baby held between them.
“What do we do?” Liv asked Oliver, dragging her mind back to the present.
“Do you think Gabriela is safe?”
Liv had no way of knowing if Scott Wander was a danger to his daughter, but she felt certain that Molly would never have married a man who obviously mistreated his daughter—which didn’t mean anything long-term, but in the short-term it was reassuring.
“I don’t think she’s in any immediate danger,” Liv told her brother.
“Then we have time to think about how to handle this. You could email that picture to the detective you contacted, right? He said to tell him if you found any new information.”
“Yes, but who knows if he’ll even pay attention to this.” Liv chewed on her lip. She didn’t want to spend another two weeks waiting for the detective to get back to her. “I wish the original detective was still there. Remember him?”
“Sort of.”
Liv had last spoken to Detective Kent Rasband a year after Kristina’s death, when he stopped by to let Gran know that he’d reached a dead end on the case. He’d rubbed his shiny, bald head and said he was terribly sorry. The entire police department had taken a personal interest in the case, but it hadn’t been enough.
The media attention hadn’t lasted long, either. By Kristina’s funeral a few weeks later, most of it had blown over. Liv always wondered if the press would have cared more if the murdered woman had been white, blond, and blue-eyed, a Kristin instead of a Kristina. And if the kidnapped baby hadn’t been little black-haired Gabriela Casillas.
“Oliver,” Liv said, aware she was about to ask something big of her brother. “Would you drive there and ask to speak to someone about the case? You can go to the bank and open her safe deposit box, too. Maybe there’s something in there linking Scott to everything.”
“You’ve been watching too many crime shows,” Oliver said. “I’m sure she just put her car title or some extra cash in it.”
He was probably right, but she couldn’t shake the childish hope that her sister’s graduation necklace might be waiting. “Whatever she kept there, I want it. It’s the last thing we have of her.”
Oliver deliberated, pressing his lips together. “I’d have to ask for time off at work, and we’re short-staffed right now. And I’d have to borrow a car from someone if I’m going to make that long-ass drive.”
“But you’ll do it anyway?” she said, hopefully.
He sighed and ran his hands through his messy hair. “Here’s my offer, take it or leave it: you email the picture to that detective and see what he says. And you figure out what the bank requires in order to give me access to the safe deposit box. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can find someone to lend me a car. Maybe Elton.”
“Elton?” Liv perked up. She hadn’t heard that name in a few months. “The law student you were seeing? He sounded nice.”
Oliver’s face clouded over. “He is nice. That’s why I’m not seeing him anymore. But he might let me borrow his car.”
seventeen
Ultimately, the problem with Molly Sullivan is that not only has she failed to create anything new or important, she’s failed to create anything necessary. She’s spouting the same inane philosophy we’ve all heard from much more articulate sources. Nothing more than a watered-down version of feel-good Self Esteem culture mixed with a pep talk for the Instagram generation. Useless, nonsensical, ridiculous drivel.
—Review of An Invincible Summer: A Memoir, LATimes.com
Within twenty-four hours, Molly Sullivan’s followers posted over ten thousand comments disagreeing with the review and crashed the website
The best part about Scott’s weekend trips, Molly discovered, were the Mondays afterward when he was home all day. After a lazy morning and brunch, he’d taken the girls to the pool so Molly could work.
As she went through her endless to-do list in her office, she couldn’t help feeling nostalgic for the old days when it used to be so much simpler: take a few pictures, post them on Instagram, block the creepy men who send dick pics.
Now she had to think about TikTok trends and the ever-changing Instagram algorithm and would that video do better in her stories or as a Reel? Plus the constant discussion of her life by random people online. Just today she had learned of two separate TikTok accounts created to comment on her: @FanGirl_InvincibleMolly had thirty thousand followers, which was cool, but @InvincibleMollyHaterSquad had two hundred thousand, which was decidedly not. She had no idea why these people cared so much; if you don’t like me, she wanted to say, just don’t follow me.