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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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