Page 79 of The Followers

Liv almost said You look like her a lot, but caught herself. “I bet you do. You have sparkly brown eyes, too.” She jumped as her phone vibrated in her back pocket. She wiped her hands on the dishtowel and pulled the phone out to see a text from Molly.

I’m on my way to pick up the girls.

Are things OK?

I told Scott I wouldn’t talk about it with anyone else. Sorry. But yes, things are okay for the moment.

Heat flooded Liv’s cheeks—a hot shame that Scott had told Molly not to talk about it with her. As if Liv had done something wrong, overstepped her bounds as a friend. Which she had, of course.

She set her phone back on the kitchen counter and ruffled a hand through Chloe’s hair. “Your mom’s on her way here to get you.”

“Oh,” Ella said behind her, sounding disappointed.

“I want to stay longer!” Chloe said.

“You can come back another time,” Liv told them. “How about we make a plate of cookies to take home?”

Chloe clapped her hands and jumped up to run into the kitchen.

Just after they had piled a plate high with warm cookies, there was a knock at the door.

“Ella, you finish putting the last few on the plate, okay? I’ll go talk to Molly.” Liv dusted her hands on her shorts, then walked to the door. Hopefully the girls would stay occupied long enough to get at least a moment alone with Molly.

Liv opened the door and blinked, confused. She saw Molly, her eyes red and puffy, a tentative smile on her face.

And next to her, a tall, broad-shouldered man with sandy blond hair.

Scott. Sam. Her breath caught and she felt a spark of panic. Then she told herself he wouldn’t recognize her. It had been ten years. She looked completely different. She smiled, as if she knew nothing about him, nothing about what had happened between him and Kristina years ago, nothing about what had happened between him and Molly tonight.

His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. “Olivia?”

forty-two

You never see someone’s true colors until the road gets rocky. It’s easy to put on a good front when life is smooth; but when it gets rough, that’s when true character is revealed.

@InvincibleMollySullivan

Scott had the strangest expression on his face, Molly thought. As if he had stumbled across some long-forgotten artifact, buried for a thousand years.

“This is my friend Liv,” Molly told him. Maybe he was still dazed from their conversation.

But Liv seemed dazed, too. An old flame, perhaps? No, the energy crackling between them didn’t seem like the energy of attraction. It was white-hot. Angry.

“Olivia,” Scott said again, his voice flat and hard, his eyes locked onto Liv’s face. She looked frozen, her eyes two dark spots, her lips a vivid red. “You’re Olivia, right? Kristina’s...”

Liv didn’t respond. She seemed stuck in some kind of cement, turned to stone.

Molly’s heart started pounding. “How do you know her?”

But Scott didn’t answer. His voice sharpened as he demanded of Liv, “Why are you here? What’s going on?”

“I already told you, she’s watching the girls,” Molly said.

Then she remembered Ella and Chloe, who were watching from the middle of Liv’s living room, eyes wide. “Go get in the car, girls,” she said to them, trying to force a smile. It felt foreign on her face.

Neither girl moved. Chloe was smiling, oblivious to the tension, her clothes covered in something beige and sticky. Ella’s gaze snapped between her father and Liv, the plate of cookies in her hands tipping toward the floor.

“Ella!” Molly said, her voice coming out sharper than intended. Ella startled, but she righted the plate. “Go wait in the car, please, and share a cookie with Chloe. We’ll be right out.”