Page 28

So what if they find me here? I’ve done nothing wrong.

I’m just trying to help. I convince myself of this, but the important thing is that I’ve committed to this and I’m here.

The only path is the one forward. I timed this well.

The police are holding a press conference about Gray in the city right now, which means most of the people on this case will be more than an hour away.

I roll the windows down and bask in the high of my successful plan as I rumble along the rocky path through the pastures, hoping I’m not stripping all the paint off this rental car.

It’s surreal being here, staring at this landscape that I’ve only glimpsed on Rebecca’s social media on my small screen, like being an extra in a movie I’ve watched dozens of times while slightly high.

Right over there is the massive gnarled tree where Gray and Rebecca stand with the kids during each of her pregnancy announcements, the existing children popping out from behind the trunk one by one until finally Bex emerges with a pregnant belly, again and again.

The latest one of those videos has more than twenty-three million views.

Everyone always looked so exuberant and glowy in those videos.

The last one filled me with the strangest emotions.

Did I want another baby? I didn’t. I sure as hell didn’t.

But was that somehow wrong? Should I want another one?

Why did motherhood look so easy for her when it broke me on a daily basis?

Of course now I know it wasn’t easy, but the images and the feelings those images and videos conjured inside me are impossible to shake.

There’s the pasture where Gray and Rebecca renewed their vows a couple of years ago with a Midsummer Night’s Dream– themed wedding ceremony and a dinner for fifty people at a long wooden table in a field.

The children were all dressed as woodland fairies.

Bex wore a crown of pink and white roses and peonies.

They released thousands of fireflies into the night.

Tripod, the three-legged goat, was the ring bearer. He had wings.

The ranch comes into view and it’s bigger and more gorgeous than it appeared in pictures and videos.

It’s truly massive, set back against the red rock walls of the canyon.

I know from my research that this part of the property is located in a small oasis.

A creek flows beneath here, allowing for more trees and plants and the vegetable garden where Rebecca famously grows her organic heirloom tomatoes and the strawberries and blueberries she turns into perfect pies.

Everything around me feels so alive, so vividly real after years of scrolling through filtered images and staged moments. The ranch pulses with a raw, untamed energy.

I know from my research that the front gate to the ranch is on the other side of the property, at least a half mile away in the opposite direction.

So far, I’ve encountered no one, a lucky accident for sure.

It’s time to ditch the car and move around on foot.

It will be easier to avoid detection that way.

I park next to one of the rustic cabins beyond the wooden barn where Gray met his disturbing end.

I can’t even look at it right now. The entrance is cordoned off with police tape, though there’s no officer stationed there.

The lack of a more active investigation tells me something I already knew: The police believe they have their prime suspect.

They just have to find her.

I hurry down the perfectly manicured stone path to the wraparound front porch adorned with flowering annuals and hummingbird feeders.

Adirondack rocking chairs dot the surface and I picture Bex out here rocking while nursing her twins, two babies at once, as natural as can be with a child hanging off each breast, more motherly than the Madonna herself.

In this fantasy, a third child stands nearby sipping from a fresh-squeezed glass of lemonade they made from lemon trees in their garden.

These images waft through my brain as if they’re my own memories and not some parasocial creation or, more likely, something I saw on her account.

But the fantasy is punctured by more evidence of an investigation. Yellow police lines stretch across the porch, warning me away.

I hesitate for the first time. Am I really doing this? Am I writing myself into the story like this? Because once I open that door there’s no turning back. I can walk away right now, get in the car, drive to the hotel, and go to the airport. I don’t have to be here.

But then I think of Alice and Bex’s other kids. I think of Bex too, not Bex now, but the Bex I met on the first day of college, the bright-eyed exuberant teenager who wanted to, as she said, grab the world by the balls and hang on until they fell off.

I duck under the tape and pull the key out of my pocket.

The air inside the house carries a faint scent of cedar and sage, mingling with the warmth of sunlit wood.

The interior unfolds like a page from a designer magazine brought to life.

Polished hardwood floors gleam under the soft glow of wrought iron lanterns hanging from exposed wooden beams overhead.

The only evidence of an investigation are large dusty footprints marring the floors.

It’s as though even the police were scared of puncturing the perfection.

Bex’s straw hat hangs by the door. It’s such a staple of her uniform.

Bex is rarely without it, even inside the house.

It became so popular that some company created a Sommers Garden Hat and sold it on Amazon.

Her lawyers, Olivia maybe, must have had it taken down because weeks later the same hat appeared on Bex’s own website at double the price and sold out in three days.

The centerpiece of the living room is a grand stone fireplace, its hearth adorned with neatly stacked logs and an ornate wrought iron screen.

Above it, a massive elk antler chandelier dangles from the vaulted ceiling, casting intricate shadows across the room.

Plush leather armchairs and a weathered leather sofa beckon invitingly around a sturdy coffee table crafted from reclaimed barnwood.

From the living room, I wander into the kitchen. The space seamlessly blends modern convenience with rustic allure. Rough-hewn wooden cabinets line the walls, their rich grain glowing under the soft, ambient light filtering through large windows that frame sweeping views of the landscape.

It all looks and smells expensive up close, but somehow in the pictures and videos it looks simpler. It takes a lot of money to make life look this ruggedly homesteading chic and effortless.

A massive farmhouse sink sits beneath a window ledge adorned with fresh herbs growing in terra-cotta pots. The only sign of the absence of people is that the herbs are in need of watering. I turn on the tap and find a teacup to fill with water.

I glance uneasily at the gleaming freezer and think about the rumors that whoever killed Grayson sliced off a particular body part and put it in this appliance. The door is covered with more police tape. Looking closely, I can see the fingerprints marring its surface.

Despite the small signs of investigators milling around in here, it feels and looks like a soundstage.

How many cleaners must Bex have in here on a regular basis to keep it looking like this with six children?

My own house is consistently coated in sedimentary layers of dust, Legos, food, and sometimes even pee, since we happen to be potty training.

Even when we had someone coming in to help us clean, the sanity lasted all of twenty minutes.

Either Bex has the best-trained children in the world, or they never actually use this space.

Something snags at the back of my mind as I think that.

What if they never truly use this space?

I suddenly remember a sponsor booth set up at the MomBomb conference.

The woman manning it had accosted me as I walked by.

“Want a flyer? We have a QR code for a free three-hour rental,” she’d shouted at me in an urgent tone.

Behind her was a massive banner with a photo of a pristine-looking kitchen and a well-coiffed woman baking brownies.

“Rental for what?” I’d asked politely.

“For your dream kitchen. We also offer dining rooms, kid rooms, and bathrooms for skincare and morning routine videos. Also nighttime routines. All the routines.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. “You’re renting rooms? By the hour?”

“We’re renting the dream,” she said again. Dream seemed to be their company’s go-to noun.

“How much?” That seemed like the next-best question. How much did it cost to rent a dream?

“Oh, it varies. There are discounts if you need an entire day for a shoot and of course you can bring in your own photographers and videographers, but we also have a package where we can supply those for you. So all pricing is customized and you can sit down with one of our consultants right now if you like. We currently have properties in twenty-seven cities in fourteen states, but we are expanding every week. So many businesses are going remote that we are taking over old office space and creating the sets. Such a great idea, right?”

I still didn’t fully grasp what was happening until she offered to show me their promo video on her iPad.

That’s when it hit me. They were renting houses and rooms for influencer backdrops.

If you didn’t have the perfect kitchen or bathroom or child’s bedroom to take your pictures and videos in, then this company would supply them for you.

It was like Airbnb for influencer stages, or like a seedy motel that rented by the hour, but instead of getting illicit sex you got to pretend your life was just slightly more beautiful than it was in reality.