The Follower Kate Doughty (general ebook reader .txt) 📖

media, or Jada?” Cecily laughs, changing the subject. Rudy is relieved to stop talking about the account.

“I caught them making out in the study yesterday,” he says, looking pained. “Normally, I’d tease her into the ground, but . . .” He trails off. That wouldn’t feel right. “I’m happy for her,” he says finally.

Cecily nods. “I’m happy, too,” she says, but her voice has a softness to it. It reminds Rudy of something their grandmother used to say about bittersweet things: one part happy, two parts sad. He supposes that’s the best he could hope for right now.

The next morning, Rudy wakes up before the beginning of renovation work to do some research. He is revisiting old clues to see if he’s missed anything when he comes across the copy of the yearbook where he first saw Alex Grable’s picture. And there, on another page, is a second picture. A picture that looks strangely familiar. A smiling African American girl with the name Kendra King. It takes him a second to realize why the photo is so notable, and then it hits him: Those are Jada’s eyes. That’s Jada’s surname.

Is Kendra a relative of hers?

He bounds downstairs and shows the book to Amber. She scrutinizes the photo.

“It has to be someone related to her, right?”

Amber scrunches up her face. “I mean, she does kind of look like Jada . . .”

“Could you ask?” Rudy says. “Please?”

Amber hesitates.

“All I want you to do is ask her,” he says. “That can’t—it can’t hurt anyone, can it?”

Amber doesn’t answer.

“Amber, we need to follow every lead we find. What if something happens at the open house? Or after? We need to figure something out. Please. Just . . . just say you’ll ask her. If any of her relatives went to school with Alex Grable. Please.”

Amber considers for a long while. “All right,” she says finally. “But I’m just asking her once. If she says no, that’s it. I’m not going to force her . . .”

Rudy nods. “Deal.”

Amber’s clearly unhappy, but she takes out her phone and snaps a picture of the yearbook, sends it to Jada. A few seconds later, a ping comes in.

“It’s Jada’s aunt,” Amber tells him. “She says she’ll ask about it. So I guess now we wait.”

They spend the rest of the day painting. Rudy wants to be the one to paint the master bedroom—it doesn’t feel right to let his parents do it—but Amber offers to help. He lets her, and together they paint over what he wrote: This is my house now, bitch.

They finish quickly and decide to tackle the turret room next.

Rudy lugs the buckets of robin’s-egg blue paint up while Amber checks her phone to see if Jada wrote back.

“Nothing yet,” Amber reports a moment later.

They crack the lids off the paint and begin working. Rudy thinks that this is going to make him feel good, victorious, even—after all, they’re finally destroying something from this house. But as he watches the ferns and trees disappear behind Better Home Magazine’s color of the year, he can’t help but feel strangely sad. And then strangely panicked, like he’s missing something.

One evening later that week, after a particularly exhausting day of renovation work, Rudy and Amber catch the strains of a conversation through the dumbwaiter. A familiar name reaches Rudy’s ear, and he opens the doors so the sound can echo through. Cecily steps into the hall and moves to join him.

“Listen, Mr. LaRosa, we’ve run the numbers, and . . . pay you any more than we . . . savings . . . didn’t think . . . medical bills . . .”

Cecily looks toward Amber and Rudy. Guilt is strewn all over her face. She buries her one good eye in her hand.

“Oh, Cecily, don’t—” Amber starts.

Rudy shushes them, but Joseph’s answer has already been muffled.

When Mr. Cole answers, the relief in his voice is palpable. “Thank you, I—”

“It can’t be Mr. LaRosa, can it?” Cecily asks.

Rudy shakes his head. “If he did this, why would he help us? Why not just let us crash and burn?”

Amber looks troubled. “We might just crash and burn anyway.”

From that night on, she and Rudy start drinking espresso like water and staying up late into the night to screw in baseboards and touch up paintjobs with their parents and Joseph. Slowly but surely, impossibly, the house begins to come together.

And before Rudy realizes that the time has passed, it’s the day before the open house. And he and Amber have special plans for the night.

Once the renovation work has ended for the day, Rudy and Amber knock on Cecily’s door. Their sister is in bed, staring at her phone in the half-light of the room. “Hey—did something happen?”

“Not exactly,” Rudy says. He fumbles for the words. “Uh, we . . .”

“We know that you said you weren’t ready to see anyone,” Amber says quickly. “But—but that was almost a week ago, and—”

“Amber,” Cecily says with a warning tone.

“I invited Jada and Bella over to hang out,” Amber blurts out. “Now, we can keep them out of here, they don’t have to see you—but—” Her voice breaks. “They really, really want to. But only if you’re ready.”

Cecily freezes. Rudy watches the expression in his sister’s one remaining eye transition from nervousness to shock and then, finally, to something he can’t place. She swipes a tear away, and when she speaks it’s in a whisper. “All right.”

“All right?” Amber asks, and in the blink of an eye she’s darted over into Cecily’s bed and smothers her in a hug. “I’m so excited—we can do movies, and board games, and—”

Over Amber’s shoulder, Cecily glances at Rudy.

He mouths the words “thank you,” and she gives him an unsure smile back. He wants to share their enthusiasm, but he can’t stop thinking about the open house.

Amber pulls away and starts excitedly detailing her plans for the evening. Cecily seems to be warming to the idea of seeing her friends. The girls continue to chat, but he’s distracted with his own thoughts. He’d hoped that by now they would have