I glance at my computer, where I’ve pulled up one of the many Smith sister YouTube channels.

They all have millions of followers and their videos are viewed hundreds of millions of times.

More people watch them than the NFL. The blonde is named Betty.

Who would have thought a family of missionaries would have a hard-on for Archie comics?

The redhead is Skipper. Yes, Skipper. It’s nearly as ridiculous as Cricket.

I toggle over to Veronica’s account now. “Wait a second,” I stammer in surprise. “Veronica is married to Marsden Greer?”

“Duh,” Cricket says.

The men in these accounts are all interchangeable Ken doll types.

I’m not surprised I didn’t recognize him earlier.

I don’t watch baseball and neither does Peter because he insists that soccer is the superior sport of all athletic pursuits and he won’t let our children be indoctrinated into the American cult of toxic sports masculinity.

I try to draw the spiderweb of connections in my brain. It’s a lattice of familial and carnal interdependence.

“Grayson and Marsden are best friends,” Cricket says.

“They grew up together and then went to college together. They were both Phi Delts, I think, which makes it even crazier if it’s true that Grayson was being intimate with Marsden’s wife.

But who knows. People like to talk.” And so do you, thank god .

I keep peeping on the triplets’ accounts with one eye.

From what I can glean, Christ is king, birth control is the devil, and submission to your husband is paramount.

No wonder Marsden felt so comfortable standing up in front of a room filled with women, women who apparently are making a shit ton of money, and telling them their highest calling is to serve their husbands.

How much of what the triplets say and do is real and how much is performance?

How much do any of them believe about what they’re preaching to their millions of followers and how much of it is derived from what is trending and what an algorithm wants?

Or, if what Cricket says is true and the triplets are such masters of artificial intelligence, how much of it is dictated by a robot?

I already know that Rebecca’s account is mostly smoke and mirrors, but are all of the accounts on social media?

And if Grayson, clean-cut, god-fearing Grayson, was sleeping with the modern-day Phyllis Schlafly, who, according to her Instagram profile, is married to both his best friend and Jesus? Oh the scandal.

I can’t write about a rumor for the magazine, not without something else to back it up.

Modern Woman is still hanging on to that shred of journalistic integrity, though probably not for long if Alana has her way.

She recently tried to buy out an anonymous Instagram account that publishes nothing but salacious blind items about celebrities.

Our lawyers stopped her, and our accountant assured her they couldn’t figure out a way to monetize it, but I think they were wrong.

Alana could monetize a funeral if she put her mind to it. In fact, she may monetize Grayson’s.

I need more proof. “Who else knows about it?”

Cricket waves her hand in the air as if to say this information just exists in the atmosphere, and maybe it does. “Everyone’s been talking about it for a year. It’s also all over the snark sites.”

The snark sites have become a media ecosystem all to themselves. I only recently found them when I began researching Bex for a potential story. They’re simple threads, usually on Reddit, and they’re essentially burn books of nastiness and unsubstantiated rumors.

“Search ‘Veronica Smith and Grayson Sommers’ and stuff will come up.”

That’s helpful. While I can’t write about a rumor, I can write about someone else writing about rumors with a link to the sites. A dodgy loophole for sure.

“Wait…the Smith triplets? If they’re called the Smith triplets that means none of them changed their names when they all got married?

That seems completely against everything they talk about online about how their husbands rule their households,” I say to the woman who just asked her husband for permission to speak to me.

“Oh, they changed them. Their names are definitely legally changed. The Smith triplets are just like their stage names or whatever you want to call them. Probably their manager’s idea.”

“Interesting.” I’m already clicking over to the snark sites, though I want Cricket to keep talking as long as possible. She seems more than happy to, but she also seems to have run out of information, because she starts fiddling with her napkin.

“The last part of all that was off the record, you said. Right?”

“For sure.”

“But you can include the part where I said I idolize Rebecca. I truly do. I respect her so much.”

She doesn’t. But she wants her name in my article.

“Of course,” I lie to her. She won’t be in the story unless she answers my next question.

I’ve made a command decision in the past ten minutes to level with every woman I speak to here and ask them exactly what I want to know. What do I have to lose?

“Do you really think Rebecca didn’t do it?”

Cricket bites her lip and looks behind her again. “I don’t.”

“Do you think Rebecca is in danger?” I ask.

She doesn’t hesitate. “If she’s alive. Then yes.”

We both sit there and let that sink in for a moment.

“Have you been to her ranch?” I ask. Even though I know the two aren’t close, I assume the answer is yes since Rebecca and Cricket seem to have run in the same circles in the same tight-knit community. But she shakes her head.

“Rebecca is super-duper protective of the ranch. Or at least she was. I heard she was planning some event there for next month. She’s been reaching out to florists and caterers and a big tent rental company. That’s what some of the girls told me.”

That lines up with what Olivia said about Bex wanting to take her brand more public.

“It looks beautiful on her account though, doesn’t it?” Cricket says. “It’s always been my dream. That much acreage, all those animals, living off the land. It’s perfect. She’s truly influenced all of my influencer aspirations.”

Nothing in Rebecca’s life was perfect. Cricket knows that and I know that, and yet the gauzy fever dream persists.

“I should head out,” she finally says. “I’ve been trying to find a way to get home, but my flight isn’t for a couple of days and the airlines are such a pain.

We won’t get reimbursed for the room either.

Chad is so mad. My mother-in-law was watching the kids for me and it’s a disaster back there.

My husband is a terrible babysitter. But DM me anytime and don’t forget to tag me in your story.

” She stands and then turns to offer her hand for me to shake, like we are making some kind of deal.

Her handshake is firm and decisive, yet another surprising thing about her.

“Have you heard anything about, you know, what she cut off?” Cricket whispers while our hands are still clasped.

I’ve been trying my best not to think about the severed body part rumors.

And yet I also can’t shake the memory of an old video on Rebecca’s Instagram from a few years back where she very cleanly and easily castrated a young male bull.

“I haven’t heard anything,” I say.

When she’s gone, I step outside. I want to call Peter again.

I’m on the edge of the patio, creeping my way to that terrifying bridge and the inky blackness below.

I don’t have the courage to step onto it, so I waver on the edges.

Peter answers on the first ring with a jolly “Good evening, my love.” I can hear our children screaming in the background and I picture them naked, finding ways to annoy each other while Peter calmly sips his beer.

He would never call what he does babysitting.

Maybe in the beginning of having kids, but not anymore.

“You want to stay, don’t you? You want to report this out,” he presumes before I can say anything. Some days it feels like my sweet, handsome husband doesn’t know me at all and then he lobs a surprise insight my way and I realize that no one will ever know me better.

“I want to find out what happened to Bex,” I say. And I do. I want that, but I’m also now completely activated by the thrill of reporting this out. It’s what I’ve always loved the most, chasing down a story, discovering something before anyone else.

“Of course you do. I just finished reading your piece. You have an agenda there, but I see what you’re doing, Drew.

” It’s his old nickname for me. As in Nancy Drew.

He first encountered the series of books on a hiking trip we took in Scotland of all places.

We made our way up and down the hills of the Highlands all day and then settled in for the night in a small stone cottage called a bothy that was outfitted with two sleeping platforms, a human-sized fireplace, and three yellow hardcover Nancy Drews that some other American tourist had left, probably one with a teenage daughter.

Peter was so spooked about sleeping in the bothy, which he insisted was haunted with the ghost of a dead prince, that he made his way through all three young adult novels.

Ever since then he’s called me Drew when he sees me get deep into a story.

It’s been years since he called me that.

It’s been years since I did actual reporting.

When I switched over to the mommy track at Modern Woman from the news magazine, I went from political hush-money stories to listicles about “Skin-Softening Shower Lotions That Will Change Your Life!”

I miss the chase. I want more of it.

“Yeah, I want to, but what about the kids?”

“What about them? I’m unemployed. Let’s not forget it. Put me to work. And besides. We’re supposed to head to the Outer Banks to meet your mom and Robbie on Saturday. I can go early with them. They can help with the kids. I know you didn’t want to go anyway.”

“She is my mother.”

“She does like me better.”

Score another one for Peter. Mom and her girlfriend have a beach house in North Carolina and always invite all of us to come for a couple of weeks.

I am not a beach person. I much prefer mountains or lakes that won’t leave sand in all my cracks and crevices, which are only getting deeper and deeper every year.

I like vacationing at the ocean for the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

By then I’m sunburnt and itchy and completely over trying to save a child from drowning themselves in the ocean or swallowing all of the sand.

“Really?”

“Yes. Take your time. The Sandy Bottoms will miss you.”

Everyone in North Carolina has chosen the most inappropriate names for their second homes, my mother included. My own backside itches every time I arrive.

“Can I talk to the kids?”

“Nora is very busy covering the baby in Nutella. I don’t want to disrupt their bonhomie. I know it’s past their bedtime but I’m hoping they’ll sleep in tomorrow.”

“Fair. But they won’t. I love you.”

“I love you, Drew. Go do your thing.”

Marriage can be a wonderful thing and also a terrible thing. Much like parenting small children. Terrible and great. Terrible and great. You have no idea which it will be on any given day.

Except when you do, I suppose. Except when a marriage is toxic, and you feel trapped.

My mind returns to Bex. As much as I can’t stand my own spouse sometimes, I have never once feared him, and even though I shouldn’t have to count myself lucky, I do.

Plenty of women live in terror of the man who sleeps in their bed.

That reminds me…Marsden’s statement? I pop in my earbuds again.

It’s a video taken in his home. He’s sitting next to Veronica, his large pitching hand enveloping the top of her thigh over yet another retro dress, this one covered in fat ripe lemons.

Her expression doesn’t change. Her eyes stare vacantly into the camera as he speaks.

She’s like a robot that has been powered down.

“I’m devastated,” Marsden begins. “I loved Grayson Sommers like a brother. We met on the ball field in Little League and we’ve been inseparable ever since.

My entire family has been deep in prayer since yesterday and we will continue to beg the Lord Almighty for justice to be served.

May we all remember Grayson as a man of noble character, honor, and bravery. ”

That was laying it on a bit thick. The man had run a hobby ranch, not led an army into battle.

“He was my friend, and he will be sorely missed. For now, we will do everything in our power to find his killer, to bring them to justice. We will not let this stand.” He bows his head in prayer.

Veronica misses a beat, but then she does the same.

My eyes move to his hand on her thigh. No one would notice unless they were looking for it, but his knuckles are white. They’re squeezing. Hard.

I go back inside, sit down, order a drink and an appetizer.

I’m not paying attention when the waiter refills my glass of wine.

I’m too engrossed in the screen, but when I finally turn my attention to the beverage, I see it.

A pink sachet, the same pale pink as the envelope that was given to me at the front desk.

My skin prickles with cold sweat as I glance around, vision blurring slightly at the edges.

Which waiter brought the wine? Did they drop off the little pouch or was it one of the women shuffling in and out of the room, their eyes locked on the screens of their phones?

I can’t tell. My eyes scan the crowd for her, for Bex.

The thought of her being so near fills me with both alarm and hope.

I slip the pouch in my pocket and walk back outside. I want to be alone when I see what has been left for me.

When I open it, a folded slip of paper falls into my hand along with two keys. On the paper is an address, a gate code, and the hastily scrawled words next to the bed . I know without any more explanation that someone is helping me get into the Sommers ranch.