Follow Me

by Sara Shepard

  Seneca breathed in sharply and pointed out an overweight bleached-blond woman wearing too much pink lipstick walking quickly into the real estate office. “There.” It was Amanda Iverson, Gabriel Wilton’s boss. They’d been waiting for her to show up to work all morning. Seneca hurried over to the woman. Maddox followed.

  “Mrs. Iverson?” Seneca trilled.

  The woman looked up cautiously. Her gray eyes narrowed. But before Seneca could say more, a reporter elbowed past her. “Mrs. Iverson! Can we get a few words?” The reporter shoved a microphone in her face. “How well did you know Gabriel Wilton? Did you ever suspect he might be a kidnapper?”

  Mrs. Iverson fumbled to push her keys into the lock. “No comment.”

  “Do you know where he might have taken Miss Dawson? Has he ever seemed violent to you?”

  The woman finally got the door open. Her keychain, a large pink rabbit’s foot, swung merrily from the lock. “I’ve told the police everything I know.” She hurried into the office and slammed the door shut. The reporter pounded on it, and she pulled down the shade. Shrugging, the man retreated to the sidewalk, then stopped a passerby. “What do you think about the Chelsea Dawson abduction?” he asked smoothly, microphone at the ready.

  Thomas glowered at the reporters. “They’re like vultures.”

  Madison was studying a report on her phone. “According to this, the cops can’t link Gabriel Wilton to a bank account—he paid for everything in cash. Also, it says his Prius is missing. He took things from the condo. No one has seen him anywhere.”

  Maddox sank down onto a wooden bench next to the street. “That’s because he isn’t Gabriel anymore. He’s someone else. And I’m sure he ditched that Prius somewhere it’ll never be found.”

  Then he caught sight of a TV broadcast on the set over the counter at the pancake house. A reporter stood in front of the local hospital. He knew they were talking about Jeff Cohen. He was about to turn away when an image caught his eye: a simple selfie of an unsmiling Jeff on Instagram. Below the picture, highlighted for clarity, was a simple, horrifying sentence: Sometimes it’s all just too much.

  His jaw dropped. He grabbed his phone and called up Jeff’s account. The post was there. It had uploaded yesterday at 9:08 p.m.—around the time Seneca had hinted that she was into him.

  “Seneca,” he said sharply, motioning her over. Her eyes widened as she read the post and the comments beneath it, which said things like, Wish we’d have talked more, man, and A life cut short, and a number for a suicide-prevention hotline.

  Seneca’s eyes darted back and forth. “Do we know what happened to Jeff’s phone?”

  Maddox nodded. “Cops found it smashed near his body. They figure it was on him when he fell.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Or the person that pushed him could have tossed it over after posting his suicide message on social media.”

  “Exactly.” It felt like another big point scored for Brett.

  Seneca slapped her hands to her sides. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. But we have to get Brett. We have to.” She held up the Sushi Monster menu they’d taken from “Gabriel’s” condo. “This has to mean something.”

  A couple in a golf cart whizzed by down the main street. Someone was blasting a thrash metal song out an open car window. Maddox studied it carefully. “Maybe it’s something on Instagram? Have we searched Sushi Monster on her account?”

  “Searched on her account, searched for the hashtag in general—there isn’t much,” Aerin grumbled. She showed everyone her phone. A Chelsea video from a few months ago was playing. Chelsea’s face flooded the screen, her smile white, her eyes glittering. “Hey, everyone! I just want to say first that I am thrilled that all of you followed me. Thank you so much for the love! And now, because I know you’ve been waiting, here’s what I’ve been up to this week….”

  Aerin and Madison studied Instagram some more, though there were no sushi references. Thomas loitered in front of the realty office, perhaps waiting for Mrs. Iverson to pop back outside. Seneca retreated to Maddox’s bench, her leg bumping against his as she sat. He smiled, but she looked away quickly and anxiously jiggled her foot.

  “So,” he said, his voice cracking. He so badly wanted to say something about what had happened between them at the party. Part of him wondered if it even had happened, it had been so fleeting. But it was like that Seneca had disappeared again, swallowed up by Crime-Solving, I’m-Going-to-Get-Brett Seneca. Now definitely wasn’t the right time.

  She held the sushi menu in her hands, folding it back and forth over the well-worn creases. “He left this deliberately. I can feel it.”

  “Maybe this is Brett’s favorite takeout place?” he posited, but he felt so stymied. They’d been staring at this crazy menu for hours and it just looked…well, like a menu. But suddenly, something caught his eye, and he leaned in. Beams of sunlight illuminated the shiny paper, giving it a slight iridescent sheen and sharpening all its blemishes. Invisible before, he now noticed a few light pencil marks around certain menu items. Edamame, Krab Stick, and the First Date roll were circled.

  He pushed it to Seneca. “Look.”

  Her eyebrows shot up, and she brought the menu closer to her face. “Maybe it’s the first letter of each dish. E, K, P? Or maybe First Date is significant?”

  “Or maybe it’s their numbers.” The first dish was number nineteen on the appetizers, the second nine on the sushi nigiri menu, and the third was three on sushi rolls. “Nineteen, nine, three,” he said aloud. “A locker combination?”

  Seneca stood and stared across the street at a large decorative sign. When there was a break in the traffic, she hurried across; Maddox loped behind. It was a cartoon map of Avignon. The pancake house they were standing at was drawn at the top of Ninety-Fifth Street, Ralph’s was at the bottom, and it showed the surf shop, the fudge place, the ice creamery, and the Wawa. Spiraling out from the main drag were the other streets, and at the very bottom of the map were abstract swirls that represented the sea.

  “What if it’s an address?” she whispered.

  They exchanged a glance. Maddox raised his eyebrows. The corners of Seneca’s mouth pulled into a nervous smile. They waved over Madison, Aerin, and Thomas, saying they needed to get going.

  “Go where?” Madison asked warily.

  “We’ll explain on the walk,” Seneca said. “Come on.”

  THE HOUSE AT 19 Ninety-Third Street had three different vehicles with Fraternal Order of Police bumper stickers in the driveway, and at one point, a burly, rugged, strong-looking roughneck appeared on the patio and glared. One Ninety-Ninth Street led to a ramshackle building next to a marina, and it didn’t have an apartment 3. But there was a 1993 Yellowtail Drive, which seemed promising, as yellowtail was an item on the sushi menu, and maybe that was a link.

  They drove up wearily, desperate for a lead. The house on Yellowtail Drive was a large yellow Victorian with four second-story decks, three quaint gables, and a fish-shaped wind sock blowing on the front porch. The front offered a view of the town’s public water tower, and Maddox could hear the roaring ocean a block away. When he was younger and it was just him and his mom, his mother used to pin pictures of beach houses just like this one into a scrapbook, saying someday they’d get to vacation somewhere like here.

  The house was quiet, and there were no cars in the spaces on the street. There was a big sign out front that proclaimed the house was managed by a local rental agency—the agency, in fact, that Brett, aka Gabriel, worked for—but it didn’t seem like anyone was renting it for the week. Madison curled her hands around the wrought-iron gate. “Do you really think she’s in there? All the windows are huge, and nothing’s covered. We can see right in.”

  “Maybe there’s a basement?” Aerin asked.

  Seneca peered at the foundation for small windows that indicated a lower floor. “I don’t think there is one.” She started to walk around the perimeter. Her sneakers crunched in the white-gravel yard. �
��What are you looking for?” Maddox asked as he trailed behind her.

  “I’m not sure.” She stooped to pick up something under a pebble, but it was only the top to a Sprite bottle. Maddox peered at the electric meter in the back, then poked his toe into a bush. The yard was pristine. The gravel was carefully raked, like a Zen garden.

  But when Maddox crunched around to the other side of the house, he stopped short. “Whoa.” Tied to the railing of the lower deck, bobbing in the sky, was a shiny balloon with a rainbow peace sign printed across its front. Maddox’s breath caught. That same peace sign was the logo on Gabriel’s Bastille Day party flyer. “Guys!”

  The others came running. Maddox untied the balloon from its post; the string went taut in his hand, the balloon tugging toward the sky. Was it a clue? There wasn’t any writing on the balloon. No note tied to the string.

  He let it lift into the air once more; the balloon recoiled when the string went taut. Seneca frowned. “Do that again.”

  Maddox grabbed the balloon between his hands, pulled it down, and let it bob to the sky once more. “It sounds like there’s something rattling around inside,” Seneca said.

  Madison backed away. “An explosive.”

  Maddox gazed around. The street was so still. It was like no one lived in this town at all. Far away, he could hear a police siren. Overhead, an airplane groaned. When the wind shifted, he swore he caught sight of something moving behind the bushes, but when he looked away, it was gone.

  He turned back to Seneca. “Should we open it?”

  She nodded, her hands already at the gathered rubber at the bottom of the balloon. Within moments, she had pried it open. Helium began to leak out, and the balloon deflated quickly. She pressed the balloon between her palms. “There is something in here.”

  She worked to slash the peace sign in two. A folded piece of paper tumbled out, and Maddox gasped. On the front of the paper, generically typed with the same wonky typewriter as the one that had been used for his letter, was the name Seneca.

  Seneca snatched it and unfolded it. Her eyes scanned, and she frowned. “Huh?” Maddox glanced over her shoulder, but the message made no sense to him, either.

  Red, white, and awesome

  With some caramel syrup and

  a spot over the eye.

  I met her, and it was love.

  Thought she thought so, too.

  THAT AFTERNOON, SENECA hefted her suitcase onto the bed of her new room at the Reeds Hotel. The sheets smelled fresh, and there wasn’t a single cat or crotch-sniffing dog to be found—little details that should’ve made her happy if her stomach wasn’t shredded to ribbons and her mind wasn’t swimming with questions. It was unclear whether people had hightailed it out of Avignon because of Chelsea’s disappearance or the news of Jeff’s death, but all four of them were able to score their own hotel rooms—no more sharing. But the privacy was no longer welcome for Seneca. As soon as she shut her door, she started to tremble. The room was too empty. Too quiet. The gauzy curtains fluttered, and she jumped. She checked under the bed and in the closets just to make sure Brett wasn’t there.

  Then she sat down on the bed and unfolded the latest note from Brett in her hands. That weird little poem. What did it mean? It spoke about meeting Chelsea somewhere—so where had Brett and Chelsea first laid eyes on each other? At a party? In a parking lot? At the beach? The poem said caramel syrup—so maybe an ice cream place? They’d piled into Maddox’s Jeep and cruised every ice cream joint up and down Avignon, but they’d found nothing. Or maybe it was a Fourth of July reference with red, white, and awesome? They’d called J.T., Kona from the surf shop, Alistair, and even Amanda Iverson, Gabriel’s boss from the rental company the press had hounded that morning. Mrs. Iverson didn’t answer. Nor did Jeff’s brother. When Kona spoke, he said, “Are we sure Gabriel’s to blame in all this? I mean, he’s so…chill.”

  Seneca had resisted explaining to Kona that Brett was many things, but chill definitely wasn’t one of them.

  She sat down at the room’s little table, wondering if the message was encoded. Cryptograms? Rearranging the first and last letters of each word? Shifting the phrase several letters forward? An hour into her work, her phone bleated. It was the alarm she diligently set to check in with her father. She stared at it for a moment, trying to muster up the energy. Part of her wished she were home with her dad, curled up on the couch. Safe. Ignorant.

  She dialed him, and her father answered on the second ring. He was in his office, she could tell—his voice echoed in the high-ceilinged room. “How are you?” he asked.

  “Fine,” Seneca lied. “The weather’s great. Aerin and I took a paddle-boarding lesson.”

  “Ah, they didn’t offer paddle-boarding when we vacationed there,” her father said. Seneca’s heart broke at the trust in his voice. Then he cleared his throat. “Listen, I’ve seen on the news that there’s some trouble there—some kid jumped to his death?”

  She tensed her shoulders. Here we go. “Yeah, I heard about that, too,” she said carefully. “Off a balcony at some party? Is that what they’re saying on the news?”

  “I don’t know.” She heard a voice in the background, and her father paused to murmur something. “Just promise me you’re being careful,” he said.

  “I am. I swear.” She dug her nails into the comforter.

  “You coming home soon?”

  “Tomorrow,” she whispered. “I’ll definitely leave tomorrow afternoon.” If Brett didn’t kill her first.

  Then her father hung up. Just like that. She could sense he was worried about her…but he was trying to give her some independence. Lying made her feel dirty and ashamed. It’ll be worth it, she told herself. But would they ever find Brett? What if this was a dead end?

  All of a sudden, she felt panicked. She stood, stepped into the hall, and walked to the room three doors down. It took Maddox a few moments to appear after she knocked. “Seneca?” His eyes widened at her expression. “Are you okay?”

  “I can’t figure it out, Maddox. We’re going to lose.”

  “Don’t say that,” Maddox scolded. “You can’t give up.”

  Seneca stared at him. “But I have no idea what Brett means, and we’re running out of time.”

  “Hey,” Maddox said softly. “We’re going to get him, Seneca. I can feel it.”

  But Seneca wasn’t so sure. She sat on his bed and tried to think, but all she could feel was the panic hammering at her. It was as though all her fears and worries and shame had been contained inside a shaken-up bottle and someone suddenly undid the cap. She was overflowing, out of control.

  But no. She couldn’t lose control. That was what Brett wanted. She sat up and took a deep breath. Maddox was watching her carefully. She couldn’t imagine what she looked like. But suddenly, it didn’t matter. Maddox was seeing her at her absolute worst, puffy-eyed, a total wreck, and it was…well, maybe not okay, but not totally horrible.

  “You’re right,” she said. “You have to be right. We’ll find him.” She ducked her head. “Sorry about the freak-out.”

  “No problem,” Maddox said gently. His throat caught. “I never mind you freaking out.”

  Seneca hid a smile, sadly remembering their talk at the party. It felt like a million years ago. Pushing the desire away, she unfolded Brett’s note again and studied it as though seeing it for the first time. “Is this something Brett had said to us, once? Something buried in Chelsea’s Instagram? What does he mean a spot over the eye? Did he punch Chelsea?”

  “I don’t think we can rule anything out,” Maddox said. “Aerin and Madison are looking through her Instagram now, to make sure.”

  She carried the note over to Maddox’s little table by the window and sat down. Maddox rolled off the bed and pulled back the drapes, revealing a brilliantly blue late-afternoon sky. “When was the last time you ate, Seneca? We should get dinner. There’s a restaurant in the hotel.”

  Seneca shook her head. “Just bring me up something. I don
’t want to stop working.”

  What seemed like moments later, he was returning with a plastic bag of takeout. “Thanks,” Seneca murmured, barely glancing at the cartons. She tapped her pencil to the note—she’d begun rearranging the letters, finding anagrams. The note contained the words sneered, whitened, smote. Meaning…what?

  For a while, the only sounds in the room were Maddox’s utensils clicking. He sat next to her and studied the note as he ate, but then he stood and announced he felt brain-dead and was going for a run. “Sometimes it clears my head,” he said. “Helps me see things from a new angle.”

  The sun set out the big windows. The door clicked; Maddox returned, sweaty and breathing hard. He disappeared into the bathroom, and soon Seneca heard the shower.

  Anagrams were making no sense; Seneca crossed them out and decided to take a different tack…but what? Aerin, Madison, and Thomas stopped in, saying they’d made no headway and were going to bed. Seneca stared at the dark sky, her chest throbbing. They’d wasted a whole day. What weren’t they seeing? What had they missed?

  Maddox emerged from the shower and sat on the edge of the bed. “Stay here as long as you like.”

  Seneca glanced up at him, feeling grateful. Maddox seemed to understand she didn’t want to go back to her room without her having to explain it. “Thanks,” she said softly.

  She bent over the letter. The TV hummed at low volume, but she barely registered the stream of programs that played. She thought of Brett’s letter to Maddox. Brett’s demeanor when they’d first met in Dexby. The conversation they’d had outside the Dexby Rec Center after Seneca caught Maddox and his track coach together. The look on Brett’s face at the Easter Bunny party when he’d discovered that Aerin liked Thomas Grove, who’d saved them from Marissa Ingram. She paused on that memory—Brett had been so crushed. He’d left before Seneca had gotten the chance to ask if he was okay. The next morning, when Seneca began to connect the dots and realize something was seriously up with Brett, she’d tried to reach out to him, but his number had been disconnected.