Heart of Glass

Chapters 1-4

Barb interviews Edna Sparrow, who holds her phone close so the voice memo app catches every word. Edna describes sitting at a picnic table, drinking her morning coffee, watching the sun come up like she always does, when her dog O'Henry started barking and digging at something in the sand. She thought it was driftwood at first, then a shoe. Random objects wash up on this beach all the time. But when O'Henry dropped it at her feet and she picked it up, her finger touched something goopy inside. She screamed bloody murder. Her identical twin sister Eileen heard her from halfway up the hill.

Barb asks if that's when they called 9-1-1. No, Edna called Eileen first. Eileen explains her sister is not good in a crisis, while Edna insists she needed to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing before wasting valuable resources the town barely has. The sisters share a house inside the private gated community called Legacy Sands, where they've lived their entire lives. One is a retired high school principal, the other still cuts hair at a salon on Main Street. Both have let their hair go gray, making them nearly impossible to tell apart now.

Barb asks about discovering the rest of the body. The dogs found it. When Edna called, Eileen brought Snickers down to the beach. The Bernedoodles started barking and going crazy, and that's when they saw part of a leg sticking out from behind the log. At first they thought it might be detached too, but then they saw the rest of the body and called 9-1-1. A tall man named Morris is untangling the dogs' leashes from a tree while the sisters bicker about who called emergency services and whether frazzled is a normal human reaction to holding a detached human foot.

Barb's mind drifts back to that day in June more than two decades ago when Principal Sparrow addressed her graduating class from a podium on the Seaside High football field. Some of you will leave this town for your next great adventure. Some of them wouldn't. Barb thought she'd be writing best-selling novels from a penthouse in Manhattan by now instead of churning out two-hundred-word articles for a small-town newspaper hardly anyone reads anymore. But her dreams died the same night Lorelei did.

The conversation shifts to feet washing up on Pacific Northwest beaches. Eileen mentions a documentary she watched explaining how feet encased in shoes can stay afloat during decomposition and wash ashore. Barb knows the show. Over two decades, nearly two dozen detached feet have been found along the coastline. None ruled foul play. Natural decomposition, accidental drownings, suicides. Sad but not suspicious. Today is different because not only was a detached foot found, the body it might have been attached to was found as well.

Edna says she thought they were finally past all this dark stuff. Seaside had finally turned a corner with new construction, young families moving in, and Wonderland's grand reopening. Eileen insists it's because Wonderland is reopening, drawing bad juju back. They should have torn it down completely after the scandal instead of selling the park to foreign investors. Eileen waves a hand, mentioning the Criminal Confessions documentary series coming out. She asks if Barb is going to be in the show. Barb corrects her that it's not a show, it's a documentary series. Eileen nearly choked on her muffin when she saw the next season will feature the Carnival Killer. Producers were hounding Barb for an interview.

Barb tells them she said no. Her actual words were much stronger, but she can't say that to the Sparrow sisters. They mention the producers asked Nicolette too. Do they know if she agreed? Barb blinks, says they don't get a chance to catch up that often. It's an understatement. She hasn't spoken to Nicolette in nearly twenty-five years. Eileen calls them poor girls, though both Barb and Nicolette are on the verge of turning forty. All that documentary will do is remind everybody that bad things happened here. Bad things did happen here, Barb thinks. It's only when the sisters stare at her in surprise that she realizes she spoke the words out loud. She clears her throat, says she usually enjoys watching Criminal Confessions but it's probably best she skip this season, then thanks them for their time.

The sisters wander off to chat with neighbors. The entire community of Legacy Sands must be down at the beach now, the flashing red and blue lights drawing residents out of their homes at a time when they'd normally be having coffee and watching Good Morning America. Golf carts are parked at the edge of the sand because the road leading down to the beach is quite steep. The gated community is made up of about seventy-five homes, most owned by retirees whose families have lived here for generations. Through the crowd, Barb catches a glimpse of the Seaside police detective who avoided her earlier. She'd like to tell herself it's because she's a plucky reporter fishing for information, but it's more likely because they'd gone on a few dates a couple months ago until she ghosted him. Dating is hell when you live in a small town.

She calls out to him. Cam. The detective's head turns, and when he sees her, he grimaces and looks away. She calls him again, louder. Cameron. Detective Wallace. With a sigh, Cameron Wallace finally turns around. He's dressed in plain clothes, mirrored aviator sunglasses, navy golf shirt, gray slacks, his gold shield hanging from a lanyard. It's clear why she agreed to go out with him. He's a single, good-looking dude, and there aren't many of those in Seaside with decent jobs. But physical attractiveness only goes so far. Six dates in as many weeks, then a couple of hours in his bed before she faked a work call and left in a hurry. The sex was actually great. The problem was he'd just made detective, and his sister was throwing him a party to celebrate. Barb scrambled around his bedroom half naked, plucking clothes off the floor. She'd accidentally thrown his old Nirvana T-shirt over her head. When she moved to take it off, he told her to keep it, that she looked sexy as hell. They haven't seen each other since.

Cameron's smile looks forced. Been a while. About two months, which included four unanswered texts and one long-winded voicemail asking what he'd done to upset her. The last one was a drunk dial he may not even remember making. Barb asks how he's been. Work's been busy. His voice trails off. He finally sighs and asks what he can do for her. The way he's saying her name is disconcerting, considering the last time they were together, they were naked and he'd said it very differently. In the reflection of his sunglasses, she sees her own face staring back, small and moon-shaped under her casual topknot. She wishes she was wearing lip gloss. She taps her voice memo app, holds her phone toward him, and asks if he can share any details about the body that was found. He says it's too early to comment. She asks if he has any idea how the woman died. Who said it was a woman? Actually, nobody, but she had to take a shot. She asks if she can take a quick look at the body. Hell no. They're prepping her for the morgue. So it was a woman.

Barb looks over to where an ambulance is reverse parked onto the beach. The back doors are open, and the tarp-covered body is being lifted onto it by three EMTs. The front of the gurney hits something, and the jostle causes a lock of stringy black hair to spill out from under the tarp. Barb's breath catches in her throat. Kylie? Kylie Kahl has been missing for six years. The reality star was known for her long black hair, though it wasn't her natural color. The TikTok sensation who starred on a reality show called Trophy Wives vanished on a hiking trail in Seaside a couple months after the first season premiered. Despite a massive manhunt funded by her billionaire husband, she has never been found. She was twenty-six when she went missing. She'd be thirty-two now. Conspiracy theorists on Reddit had differing opinions about what might have happened to her.

Cameron says as soon as they know something, they'll put out a statement. His jaw is tight. Barb asks about her approximate age. Was she young? Old? He can't comment. Any distinguishing characteristics? Tattoos? Birthmarks? Kylie had one tattoo, a finely inked word running vertically down her neck from her earlobe to her collarbone like a dangly earring. Serenity, in cursive. She'd made a whole TikTok about it a month before she was never seen again.

Cameron pulls her over to a quiet spot. He says they're doing their best to keep this out of the press, an order directly from the chief. It's bad enough there's a crowd of people with their cell phones out because the timing is terrible. With Wonderland's soft opening tomorrow and the official grand reopening to the public happening this weekend, the last thing the amusement park needs is to give the public any reason to stay away. What hurts the park hurts the town. Seaside PD is probably going to refrain from commenting until next week, and even then, this is a fire they'll want to put out quickly.

Barb says she's got it, but he has to give her something she can write up. Otherwise the public speculation will be much worse. Cameron sighs, glances around, takes off his sunglasses, and looks down at her. She forgot how blue his eyes are. He says he can tell her this. Instinctively Barb leans in, catching a whiff of his aftershave. The same stuff he wore during their brief time together. Spicy, clean. She inhales, wondering how she could have written him off so quickly. He tells her to come closer. She leans in. The detective bends down slightly, his lips brushing the hair near her ear as he lowers his voice. A shiver runs through her. He wants his fucking T-shirt back. Detective Wallace takes a step back and puts his aviators back on, his volume returning to normal. He tells her to feel free to quote him on that. Barb.

Even though it happened twenty-five years ago, Barb still remembers everything about the night Lorelei died. The pine-scented crown air freshener mounted to the dashboard that gave Nicolette a headache. The cartoon hot dog dancing on the screen during intermission. The sounds of heavy breathing coming from the backseat where Lorelei was making out with a man twice their age in a car so big it took up nearly one and a half parking spaces at the drive-in. The well-preserved Lincoln Continental was a showy ride. It seemed like a strange choice of vehicle for a serial killer. A week after she was last seen at the Starlight, Lorelei's body was found floating in the flooded cranberry bog a quarter of a mile from the drive-in. The next day, Samuel Figg, who by then had been dubbed the Carnival Killer, confessed to her murder along with four others.

When Barb's mother woke her up to tell her the police were downstairs because Lorelei had been murdered, her first thought was, Good. It was a terrible thought, one that formed while she was still half asleep and well before she understood her mother wasn't being dramatic just to get her out of bed early. Becky Bonifacio did tend to say things like that. The house is on fire! Get up! But not this time. Nevertheless, the guilt and shame that hit Barb later would stay with her for the next two decades, shaping her as a person in every imaginable way. The police officers told Barb she was very lucky. It could have been her. Now, sitting across from her therapist, Barb is thinking about those words again. Dr. Leto charges two hundred dollars per session to help her process her trauma, but he hasn't been able to help her heal from this. But that might be because she hasn't told him everything, and probably never will.

Dr. Leto says he's not surprised today's discovery of a dead body would trigger these memories. He peers at her from behind rectangular-shaped spectacles, asks what she's feeling right now. Barb plucks a Kleenex from the garishly colorful box on the coffee table between them. She says the police told her she got lucky. As if she was supposed to feel grateful that her best friend got killed instead of her. Dr. Leto's brow furrows. He assumed they were referring to Samuel Figg's physical type, because the other victims looked more like Barb than Lorelei. Barb says obviously she's glad she didn't get murdered by the guy who turned out to be a serial killer. But is there any nice way to say gee, thanks, without sounding like a dick?

Her monthly sessions with Dr. Leto take place in a room at the back of his townhouse. It's a warm and comforting space, filled with worn leather chairs and items thrifted from antique stores and Marvelous, the therapist's Siamese cat. Marv doesn't see well, but he hears everything, and whenever Barb's upset, he'll plop into her lap and purr until she calms down. She strokes his fur. Right now, Marv sounds like a rusty motor. The part that people don't understand when they tell her she's lucky, or that it could have been her, is that it was never going to be her. She twists the tissue into a thin rope. She was never the girl who got asked to homecoming. She was never the girl who got invited to the cool parties. She was never the girl whose picture appeared in the yearbook more than once. She was also not the girl who caught the eye of the man at Wonderland who had no business looking at girls their age.

Lorelei was the third victim in a killing spree that started in Sacramento, passed through Portland and then Seaside, and ended when Samuel Figg was caught.

Chapters 5-8

The girls spot him from across the crowded midway at Wonderland, licking their ice cream cones on the last Saturday of summer break. He’s sandy-haired, clearly a tourist, and at least ten years too old to be in high school. Lorelei guesses California, and they all nod in agreement. Barb figures he’s twenty-eight, maybe thirty, while Nicolette teases her about her crush on Mr. Hawksfield, their twenty-six-year-old English teacher and yearbook advisor. Barb feels her cheeks flush and focuses on her melting chocolate ice cream, the second scoop proving to be a mistake in the oppressive heat of the amusement park.

The dynamic between the three friends is sharp and familiar. Nicolette snipes at Barb about her weight, and Lorelei jumps to her defense with equal venom. Barb reflects on their roles: Nicolette is the beauty, Lorelei the brave one, and Barb the brains. Nicolette’s mood swings are legendary, and she lashes out without consequence, a privilege Barb attributes to her prettiness. Nicolette’s home life is a wreck. Her father, Richard Montes, is a member of the Devil’s Dukes motorcycle club, in and out of prison, and her mother, Deanna, is a bitter alcoholic who resents Nicolette’s youth and beauty and the presence of Nicolette’s half-brother, Ray, a reminder of her husband’s infidelity. Lorelei, by contrast, never knew her father. Her mother, Renata, recently married Burt Kieswetter, and Lorelei despises her new stepbrother, Marty, an awkward, gassy eighteen-year-old who lives in the room next to hers.

Marty appears at Wonderland, loping around by himself. Barb feels a stab of pity for him, knowing how hard it is to be a new resident in a town that welcomes tourists but views newcomers with suspicion. As the yearbook photographer, Barb has gotten to know him and secretly thinks he’s all right, though she’d never admit it to Lorelei. Nicolette continues to mock Barb, claiming she has chocolate all over her face just to mess with her. Lorelei, reapplying lip gloss, keeps an eye on the mystery man, who is now watching them. A boy their age named Jonathan, a Wonder Worker, hauls a bin of trash across the midway and waves to them. The girls have a theory that working at Wonderland curses you to spend your life in Seaside, a fate they all desperately want to avoid. They have big dreams: Barb wants to be a rich and famous commercial novelist, Nicolette dreams of being a movie star, and Lorelei wants to be a fashion designer.

Marty approaches them, snapping a candid Polaroid before they can react. Lorelei snaps at him, but Marty is unbothered, explaining that he had to give his digital camera back to the school and prefers his Polaroid because the unedited photos are genuine. He offers the photo to Barb, who is surprised to find it’s a good shot, capturing the three of them with the Wonder Wheel perfectly centered. The stranger from California is also in the frame, looking directly at the camera. Nicolette takes the photo and tries to use the camera, but her attempts are blurry or poorly framed. Barb pockets the Polaroids for her pin board. Marty mentions he can get them into the drive-in for free, but Lorelei mocks him, pointing out that they have no way to get there and that he has no friends. Barb feels a stab of guilt but acknowledges that Marty makes it easy to treat him poorly with his khaki shorts, plaid shirt, and awkwardness.

After Marty lopes off, Lorelei complains about him, revealing she found her panties under his pillow and that he claimed they must have been mixed up in the laundry. Barb questions why Lorelei was in his room looking under his pillow in the first place. Before she can answer, Nicolette announces that the man Lorelei has been eyeing is finally coming over. The man approaches, smooth and sinewy, with chin-length sandy hair, ripped jeans, scuffed Vans, and a vintage Blondie T-shirt. He looks Lorelei up and down, ignoring Barb completely. Lorelei asks how old he is, and he grins, revealing a chipped front tooth, saying he’s old enough to know she’s too young for him. He glances at Nicolette, who smirks, and then at Barb, but his focus remains on Lorelei. He introduces himself as Sam and tells Lorelei she’s beautiful. Lorelei cocks her head and says they’ll see how it goes.

In the present day, Barb sits in the Green Bean coffee shop, sipping a latte and observing the busy room. The shop’s opening has divided the town, with old-timers resenting the craft coffee menu and younger residents loving the atmosphere. The shop suggests Seaside is evolving, but the unidentified body found at Legacy Sands suggests otherwise. The police have released no name, only confirming the investigation is ongoing. Barb overhears a saying: Seaside’s gonna Seaside. Her phone buzzes with a text from her editor, Greg, asking for an update on the Wonderland profile. She lies and says she’s waist-deep in it, though she’s only written four sentences, having been distracted by her better-paying side gig. Greg needs a thousand words and photos by 8 p.m. for the print edition. Barb realizes writing a piece celebrating Wonderland’s future without mentioning its past will be challenging, but she sends a thumbs-up emoji and returns to her article, which stands at seventy-five words.

A familiar voice interrupts her. Cameron Wallace, a detective, stands at her table, smiling. He’s the last person she expected to see, and his smile makes him look different. He apologizes for how he acted at Legacy Sands, admitting he was rude. Barb is taken aback. She accepts his apology and acknowledges her own fault in how things ended between them. Cameron says he’s started seeing someone and thinks it’s best they don’t hang out, though he wants to be friends. Barb is hit with a pang of regret, realizing she sabotaged a potentially good relationship by ghosting him. She thinks about her father, who left her family for a new wife and stepdaughter, and her fear of letting people in. She questions her therapist’s advice: what if you don’t want anyone to see who you are? Before Cameron leaves, she tries to ask about the body found at Legacy Sands, and he laughs, slipping on his sunglasses.

Barb gets a call from her contact at Seaside PD, Alice Chu, who speaks in a whisper. The police have no ID on the body found at Legacy Sands, meaning the victim is from out of town. They’re running prints and DNA and checking with Portland and Seattle, but no hits yet. Barb knows that if the victim were local, someone would know someone who knows something. The identification process is slow, and the thought leaves Barb with a chilling realization about the victim’s anonymity. As Barb pauses her reality show, Alice admits she’s also a fan of Trophy Wives, the trashy reality show Barb’s watching. They bond over the show and the snarky blog Reality Bitch. Barb smiles, knowing she’s the one who writes that blog. Alice mentions her boyfriend, Owen, whom she met on a Reddit sub for jigsaw puzzle lovers and met in real life at a puzzle swap meet. The conversation highlights Barb’s hidden connections and the small, unexpected ways people in Seaside are linked.

“So anyway, what's your theory on what happened to Kylie?” Alice asks, and Barb can hear the eagerness beneath her friend's whisper. Alice has been low-key obsessed with the disappearance for six years. Barb has been high-key obsessed, the kind of obsessed that has her trading conspiracy theories on anonymous Reddit threads in the Trophy Wives sub, possibly with Alice herself without either of them knowing it.

Barb floats a theory she has been chewing on: what if the Legacy Sands body is Kylie Kahl? Alice inhales sharply, and then there is the sound of typing. She is in the case file. The victim is Caucasian, black hair, blue eyes, five-seven, one twenty. And she has had work done. A breast augmentation. Alice's voice rises a decibel. What if this is Kylie? It doesn't not fit.

Barb knows from Trophy Wives that Kylie was transparent about her cosmetic procedures. But hundreds of thousands of women get breast augmentations every year. Still, Alice is right. If the body had no implants, it would have immediately ruled Kylie out. Barb points out that breast implants have serial numbers. They can ID the body from that. Except they haven't removed them yet, Alice says. They haven't even started the autopsy. The cause of death is possible strangulation, but they won't know until the autopsy. Alice's voice cracks when she mentions the crime scene photos.

Barb presses about the foot, why it was detached. Alice does not know. The body was in the water for a while. Her skin is bad. Alice has only worked for the police department for a little over a year, one of three techies keeping the computers running, not a cop or a forensics expert, which is why talking about death makes her so uncomfortable. Barb asks her to forward the crime scene photos. Alice refuses, horrified. When Barb asks whether it is because she does not want to or does not know how, Alice snaps that she knows how to access every file, but she is not doing it. Barb offers to pay her double for crime scene photos and a copy of the autopsy report as soon as it is ready.

There is a long pause. Barb learned early on as a journalist that anyone can be motivated to give up information for the right price. Money works 99 percent of the time. It is the 1 percent that gets tricky. Alice put down a deposit on a preconstruction house in one of the new planned subdivisions when she got the job at Seaside PD, and renting while building is financially challenging. The Chronicle has an unofficial slush fund for expenses like this, though Greg gets irritated when Barb dips into it too much.

Alice relents, reluctantly. She will see what she can do. But Barb does not have permission to use the info until they make a formal announcement, which will not happen until after the weekend because of the park opening. Barb says she is aware. The doorbell rings. They disconnect.

Barb pads down the hallway, pausing to pluck a used dryer sheet off the floor, and shoves it into her pocket before opening the door. The man on her porch is six foot two with a shaved head and scruffy beard, muscular arms covered in tattoos from shoulders to wrists. He holds a pet carrier in one hand and a stuffed grocery bag in the other. His black T-shirt reads KILLER INK. She is eye level with his chest. It is Ray Montes.

He asks if this is still okay, alarmed. Barb claps herself on the forehead. She completely forgot she agreed to take in her neighbor's cat for the next couple of weeks while he has work done on his house. She steps aside so he can enter and greets Dexter, who meows from inside the carrier. Ray gives her the once-over and asks what she is wearing.

Her confusion lasts only until she catches a glimpse of herself in the entryway mirror. She is dismayed. When she did laundry earlier, she threw on the only clean clothes she had: saggy sweatpants and an old Garfield T-shirt that says BIG FAT HAIRY DEAL. Her hair is up in a messy bun with a cheetah-print scrunchie. Ray mentions that Megan at the pet store said Barb was the cat whisperer. Internally she groans. The cat whisperer has to be the unsexiest moniker for a single woman in her late thirties. She has not had a cat since Kiki died of old age two years ago. She tells him it is laundry day, a good thing she did not go out. Ray looks her up and down dubiously and says she is clearly in for the night. Barb smacks him on the arm.

She has known Ray her whole life, and he is one of only two people she has ever had a real crush on, though he has only ever thought of her as a little sister. It is nice to have him back in Seaside, but the circumstances of his return were sad. After a five-year military stint, Ray went to art school, got married, and became a successful tattoo artist. Then his wife passed away, complications from cystic fibrosis. He is now back in his childhood home across the street. His recently paroled father, Richard, lives in the small studio apartment above the garage. Since then, there has been a revolving door of women coming and going from their house, ages ranging from early twenties to late fifties. While it might be easy to assume the younger women were there to see Ray, it was not necessarily the case. Richard Montes has always had a reputation. Rarely has Barb seen the same woman twice. Not that she has been paying attention.

Ray hands her the grocery bag. Some women get flowers from their childhood crush; Barb gets a pooper scooper. He has also brought food, bowls, toys, and a clean litter box. He thanks her, explaining he will be staying in the house during the renovations, but Dexter cannot be there, and his dad is not a cat person. He looked into booking an Airbnb, but the prices have skyrocketed. Barb shakes her head. The Wonderland effect. She almost could not find a seat at Lucky's the other day, and it is only going to get worse.

A soft meow emanates from the carrier. Barb crouches down to unzip it. A large gray furry head pokes out, sees her, and immediately scrambles back inside. Ray tries to coax the Maine coon out, but the cat refuses to budge. Ray sighs. He should not complain. It is good for business. Every artist at the studio is fully booked this summer. His sister was thinking of finally getting her first tattoo, but being the smart-ass he is, he told her they could not accommodate.

Barb lets out an obligatory chuckle and asks how Nico

Chapters 9-14

Six Years, Three Months, Two Days

Kylie Kahl lies on the bare wood floor of a cabin in the woods, stretching. She has been trapped here for six years, three months, and two days. More days than not, she wishes she were dead. Her first months of captivity, she didn't bother exercising. She assumed she would either be rescued or killed. She didn't understand there was a third option: that he would simply keep her forever. There is no television, no radio. Just a stuffed bookshelf with board games, puzzles, and worn paperbacks. A stack of old leather journals she's read multiple times, presumably written by her captor. Shoeboxes filled with hundreds of Polaroids of people who didn't seem to know their picture was being taken.

She points her toes, flexes her feet, repeats the motion ten times. She was a spin-cycle girl back home, even in the running to be a Peloton instructor once. But there's no exercise equipment in this five-hundred-square-foot shack, so she makes do with push-ups, planks, lunges, squats. Her closet back in Toronto is bigger than this cabin. Assuming Freddie hasn't filled it with some other woman's things. She can't think about Freddie too much. It upsets her, and when she's upset, the days stretch longer and the nights grow worse.

The workouts are fine, but it's the stretching she craves. She needs someone to pull her arms back until her chest opens completely, the way Ingrid used to do before she was dragged away. Her body feels condensed, as if the time spent here has eliminated the spaces between her bones. It would be better not to know how long she's been here. But he counts. And he tells her. Every morning. He's fastidious about their routine, and it never deviates. Once a month, he brings her a box of L'Oréal Excellence in shade two, soft black, because he doesn't like her natural light brown hair growing in more than half an inch. He sits and watches her apply it.

Every morning, when he comes in to cook her food, he says, "Good morning, Kylie. It's Tuesday. You've been here for six years, three months, and two days." Every morning, she tells him to fuck off. Sometimes she varies it, tries "Go to hell" or "Suck my dick" just to amuse herself, to see if she can provoke any reaction. His body language never changes, and his face is always covered with a cheap paper mask from the dollar store, the kind with elastic strings for the ears. The first one he ever wore was Thing One from Dr. Seuss. Waking up to huge round eyeballs and wild blue hair staring at you is terrifying. Yesterday he was the bunny from The Secret Life of Pets. She doesn't care for the bunny. Those teeth are too white, too long, angry and threatening. Sometimes he's Han Solo, otherwise known as a very young and very handsome Harrison Ford. She doesn't mind Harrison at all.

She scissors her legs, and the chain cuffed to her ankle scrapes against the wood floor. She used to hate that sound, spent weeks trying to move without making it. Now she's used to it. Used to the birds in the daytime, the wolf howls at night, the gurgling creek nearby. Used to the squeak of the cabin door and the shuffle of his feet at the stove. The chain scraping is just one song on the album she calls Kept in the Cabin: A Selection of Greatest Hits from the Idiot TikToker Who Posted Where She Was Going to Her Ten Million Followers and Got Fucking Kidnapped.

And Freddie, that motherfucker. Her husband has a billion dollars and can't find her. Did he even try? Or is he on his yacht with that ex-girlfriend who started following him on socials only after he got rich? Maybe you never forget your first love. But you should never forget your first wife. Freddie Tan is still her husband, even though their marriage started as one of opportunity for both of them. They love each other, but not in the way a husband and wife are supposed to. They're best friends. Their relationship is based on kindness, mutual admiration and respect. They genuinely like each other, and once she started filming Trophy Wives, she realized how healthy her marriage was compared to the others on the show.

Take Cecily Monaco, who slept with the landscaper half her age to humiliate her husband into signing divorce papers. Brianna Ryan's husband threatened to divorce her if she didn't snap back to her pre-baby body within three months of giving birth to twins. Sofia Maxwell's husband is mentally checked out, never looks at his wife despite all her plastic surgery. And Cole Lennox's marriage might be the most toxic of all. Kylie has never been around two people who resent each other as deeply as Cole and Jordan Lennox, but who pretend to love each other when cameras are rolling. Cecily may have won Emmys, but Cole deserves the acting awards. Jordan is not a good guy. Kylie clocked it the moment they were introduced and he held her hand too long, his finger tickling the inside of her palm. Is Cole still married to him? Kylie can't ask her captor to google it, not that he would anyway.

Her abs burn from the scissoring, but it's a good burn. She's always been athletic, naturally fast. She set a regional record in high school in Wisconsin for the eight hundred meter. She remembers the wind on her face crossing the finish line first, her ultraconservative parents cheering, her little sister Kaycie tackling her in a hug. You won, Ky-Ky! You won! I love you so much. She misses her family. She just wants to go home. She knows she could outrun him if she could get out of this chain and out of this cabin. She could run all day if she had to. But there's only one way out of the chain.

She rolls onto the damp futon mattress and stares at the axe hanging on the back wall near the fridge, just out of reach, always out of reach. Then she looks at the bloodstain on the unvarnished floor, huge and round and dark, left behind by the other young woman whose foot was hacked with that axe when she refused him. Kylie will never forget how that foot looked, dangling from Ingrid's leg at an unnatural angle, attached only by a ligament or two, the sound it made dragging across the floor. You can never refuse him. He doesn't mind what you say. He only minds what you do. On days when he tells her to take a bath in the rusty tub where the water never gets warm, she knows what it means. She knows what comes next. There is no point fighting.

She wonders about Ingrid for the hundredth time that week as she pulls the thin, scratchy blanket over her body. Did she survive? Maybe he dumped her somewhere, still alive, still wrapped in that bandage, for someone to find. Or maybe she bled to death in the woods without saying goodbye to anyone who loved her. Kylie will never ask him. She already knows the answer. He may be fastidious, polite, routine. But he is a monster.

The lock turns. The cabin door opens. Her body tenses instantly, and she throws a hand over her face before the sudden sunshine can blind her. He shuts the door behind him but doesn't approach. She slowly moves her hand away. Even from across the cabin, his tall frame looms, blocking her escape, trapping her here forever. "Good morning, Kylie," he says pleasantly. He is always pleasant. She has never heard him raise his voice. He walks to the stove and lights it. "You have been here six years, three months, and three days." "Asshole," she replies. He's wearing an Incredible Hulk mask today. Or Frankenstein. Hard to tell. Either way, it's a relief. She doesn't know if Ingrid meant to rip off the mask during their struggle, but she knows the mask snapped off, and now Ingrid is gone. The day he doesn't wear one, the day she sees his face, is the day he'll kill her. He cracks eggs into a frying pan, and she hears the sizzle. Then he glances back at her, and under the cardboard mask, she senses he's smiling. "Why don't you take a bath?"

Change Is Here

The Saturday print edition of the Seaside Chronicle costs three dollars, overpriced for such a thin newspaper. There have been discussions about eliminating it, but Greg, whose family founded the paper sixty years ago, has stubbornly held out. The older residents still like the tactile feel of paper, and they're the ones who subscribe. The rack at Lucky's diner is nearly empty, which says something about the breakfast demographic. As Barb waits for a table, she counts more than two dozen customers reading her profile of Wonderland, which spans the front page under the headline SEASIDE'S NEXT ADVENTURE. Cheesy, but that was the vibe Greg wanted. Wholesome. Optimistic. Sweet. Much like the face of the teenage employee in the photo Barb captured at the park.

Normally Barb grabs whatever table is free, but today she has to check with the hostess. Rabia looks overwhelmed, estimates twenty minutes. A voice near Barb comments on how busy the place is. Barb turns to find Megan Lyle standing with her parents. Megan was a year behind her in high school. Like Barb, she's spent her whole life in Seaside. Unlike Barb, she seems completely fine with it. With her dated haircut and penchant for gossip, Megan is the epitome of a proud Seaside girl. They're friends now, sometimes hit the Tango Tavern together on Saturday nights. But not in about a month.

Megan's father reminisces about the eighties, when Seaside was the number one tourist destination in the Pacific Northwest, every restaurant packed from May to September. Megan's mother scowls and says it will be again now that the park is open. The Lyles have owned the Pet Barn forever. Mr. Lyle says they're too old to wait this long for anything. The hostess signals their table is ready. Megan tells her parents she'll catch up and stays with Barb.

She's been meaning to check in, she says. How is Barb doing with everything? Wonderland, the documentary, Samuel Figg. Barb is grateful Megan doesn't use the nickname "Carnival Killer," which makes Figg sound more interesting than he was. Barb mentions the producer hounding her for an interview she doesn't want to do. Megan says she wasn't called, thanks god, but she heard Nicolette agreed to sit down with her. Ridiculous. Nicolette will shit on Seaside. Megan never liked Nicolette, but Barb doesn't blame her.

Barb asks if Megan wants to see that band they like at the Tango tonight. Megan's cheeks redden. She has plans with the guy she's been seeing. She was going to talk to Barb about it. It's Cameron Wallace. Barb waits for the punch line. Surely Megan wouldn't date someone Barb's been with without telling her first, certainly not this soon. That would violate girl code. But there is no punch line. Based on Megan's body language, if she were a dog, her tail would be tucked between her legs. It's been going on for a while.

Barb says that's great, because she has to say something. Cam and she were obviously super casual. Megan exhales with relief, says that's what he said too. She really likes him. She thinks he could be the one. Barb forces a smile and says she's happy for them. Except it's not great. She's not happy. Lies, lies, lies. Megan invites Barb to meet up with them tonight at the Tango. Barb can't think of anything she'd rather do less than sit across from Megan and Cameron in the honeymoon stage, canoodling all night. She says next time, keeping her smile plastered on.

Megan changes the subject, mentions she saw Ray the other day. He told her Barb is taking care of Dexter. Barb gives her a look. Thanks for telling him she's the cat whisperer. He already thinks of her as a sister. Megan says he doesn't think of her as a sister, trust her. Besides, his sister is an asshole. Barb snorts. Megan turns toward the dining room where her father is beckoning. She holds up a finger, glances back at Barb. Didn't Barb ever see Nicolette in that horror movie, the one where she plays the dead best friend who comes back as a ghost? She was awful. Barb can't disagree. Only Nicolette, who always wanted to be an actress, would take a role where she could essentially pretend to be Lorelei. Self-awareness was never her strong suit. If it was, things might have turned out differently.

Rabia leads Barb to a vacated seat at the counter. Not her favorite spot. She has a full view of the dining room, but people can see her too, and it feels like everyone is staring. Not in the usual "Hey, I know you" way. Daniel Hawksfield is watching from his table, seated with his wife and kids again. When they make eye contact, the expression on his face is jarring because she knows exactly what he's thinking. Hawk is worried about her. Barb looks away first.

She asks Rabia what's going on. Rabia hands her a menu and asks if she didn't hear. The first trailer for that serial killer show came out this morning. Noni, behind the counter, says it's got everyone in a tizzy. Don't watch it, honey. Barb already lived through it. Once is enough. Of course Barb will watch. There's no option not to. Noni fills her mug. Barb takes a look at the laminated menu and is shocked to see it's completely different from the one she's been ordering from for ten years. It's been redesigned, with a new section called Healthy Options. Gluten-free vegan pancakes at Lucky's? After the disappointing fake f

Chapters 15-19

Alice Chu arrives at Barb’s house unannounced, dressed in Owen’s oversized clothes with a tray of coffees from the Green Bean. She has been working as Barb’s contact inside Seaside PD under an arrangement that makes her anxious, casting nervous glances over her shoulder. Barb lets her inside, noting the street is empty, even Ray’s house which has been crawling with workmen all week. Alice pulls a letter-size envelope from her waistband. She mentions she should have called but was in a hurry since Barb’s house is on the way to Owen’s. She notices Dexter, the large Maine coon, and mentions she is allergic.

In the living room, Barb reaches for the envelope, but Alice pulls it away. Alice admits this arrangement is stressing her out so much her doctor prescribed Lexapro, but Owen suggested reducing the situations causing anxiety rather than medicating it. Barb is confused about who Owen is, and Alice explains he is her boyfriend. The only reason she agreed to work with Barb was to earn extra cash for the new construction house, but now she and Owen are buying it together, so Barb needs to find someone else. Barb is taken aback, noting Alice just met Owen, but Alice insists it has been a few months and when you know, you know. Barb is internally thrown, comparing her own situation with Cameron Wallace, who invited her to a family party and sent her into a panic.

Barb pleads with Alice not to quit, admitting she has been pushy and they need boundaries. Alice acknowledges she is squeamish but genuinely likes working for PD and finds it interesting with good benefits. She tells Barb things are going well and she cannot risk getting caught and ruining it. Barb hides her disappointment and says this was never supposed to make Alice’s life harder. Alice thanks her and hands over the envelope, calling it a parting gift. Inside is the official ID and autopsy report of the Legacy Sands victim, which she did not want to email. She tells Barb it is definitely not Kylie Kahl but to wait until she leaves before opening it.

Barb restrains herself, saying it was always a long shot that a missing reality star would wash up on the shores of a retirement community’s private beach. Alice says it is not as ridiculous as Barb might think and tells her there will not be a press conference for a few more days. Barb assumes the family has not been notified, but Alice says they have and the announcement is being held until after Wonderland’s grand reopening to prevent leaks. She tells Barb she cannot write about this. Barb recognizes this as the same pressure Cameron Wallace applied and knows she needs to get something in the paper before anyone else. She proposes writing something like sources saying Seaside PD has identified the body but will not release a name until the family is notified, even though both know the family already has been. This would reassure the public without sharing details. Alice reluctantly agrees, noting everyone at PD knows the victim has been ID’d, so the leak could have come from anyone.

Alice sneezes repeatedly and says that is her cue to leave. As they walk to the door, Alice asks whose cat it is. Barb explains Dexter belongs to Ray Montes, her neighbor who owns Killer Ink tattoo studio on Main Street. Alice stops cold, realizing Ray Montes is Cole Lennox’s brother and that he lives in Seaside. Barb is surprised Alice did not know, given she claims to be a superfan, and points across the street to the rambler nearly identical to hers with the steel construction bin in the driveway, telling her that is where the Montes siblings grew up. Alice is stunned and asks if Cole ever comes back. Barb says never and that Cole will not even publicly say she is from Seaside, always telling people she is from Seattle. It bothers folks here, and many refuse to watch her show because of it. Alice wonders if Cole is ashamed, and Barb says she would have to ask her. Alice is dazed at being two degrees of separation from Cole Lennox, and Barb corrects her that it is actually one degree, because once upon a time they were best friends. When Alice asks what happened, Barb says Cole left her, went off into the world to live her dream life, and that she does not know if she will ever forgive her.

Alone again, Barb tears open the envelope and sees the victim’s name at the top of the report. Something about it is familiar, and she says out loud that she knows the name. Dexter lifts his head as she googles it. When the first image appears, her breath catches. She cannot believe what she is seeing. She thought the Legacy Sands woman looked familiar but assumed it was only because she resembled Kylie. Now she understands why Alice had that strange look when Barb called a reality star washing up in Seaside a long shot. The woman is not Kylie Kahl, but she was a reality star. Compared to Kylie, Ingrid Larsen was not nearly as famous. She was not a popular TikToker with millions of followers, and her show was nothing like Trophy Wives. Ingrid appeared on one season of a terrible competition dating show called Happily Ever After, where a dozen single women competed for the affections of one man who was supposedly royalty, though not a prince or duke but an earl or viscount from a small European country most contestants had never heard of. The season was filmed in a real castle, and Ingrid won, riding off with her royal fiancé in a horse-drawn carriage.

Barb scrolls through articles about Ingrid and the show, including a season recap on Reality Bitch written by one of Glynnis’s other freelancers. She is reminded the couple never lived happily ever after. The castle was only a rental, and photos in Us Weekly showed three-quarters of it was in disrepair and unlivable. The final blow came when Ingrid learned her royal fiancé was not royal at all and was completely broke. Turning to the autopsy report, Barb discovers Ingrid was not identified through fingerprints, DNA, or a matched missing person report. Just as Barb had suspected, police learned who she was through the serial number on her breast implants. Alice also included a copy of the missing person report filed in Oregon two months earlier by Ingrid’s mother. After her engagement ended, Ingrid moved back to her hometown of Cold Creek to live with her parents. That uncomfortable niggle returns, signaling Barb is missing something. Could Ingrid Larsen’s disappearance be related to Kylie Kahl’s? Both were on a reality show, both resemble each other physically though Ingrid’s black hair was natural, and both were in their mid-twenties when they disappeared. Kylie was last seen on a hiking trail on the outskirts of Seaside, and Ingrid’s body turned up on a beach in Seaside. It cannot be a coincidence. Barb considers floating these similarities past Cameron Wallace, who she is on better terms with now, to see what he thinks, even if he might say she is reaching or lacks objectivity because she is too obsessed with these reality TV women. Glynnis had told her it is not personal, but it is. Especially when your childhood best friend Nicolette Montes reinvents herself as Cole Lennox and becomes the biggest reality star on television.

A new section begins with an epigraph from Tracy Chapman’s “Starting from Zero” and a transcript from Criminal Confessions, Season 7: The Carnival Killer, Episode 2, an unedited interview with Samuel Figg at the Washington State Men’s Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Producer Jana Jones, off camera, states Figg was convicted of murdering Evelyn Duncan, Crystal Fankowski, Lorelei Glass, Karla Twain, and Gina DiMaggio. She asks which one he did not kill if he claims he did not kill all of them. Figg says the third one, Lorelei. When Jones asks why he confessed to her murder, Figg explains they found her picture in his car and interrogated him for two days, refusing to believe anything he said, so it seemed easier to say he did it. Jones presses him on his endgame and agenda, and Figg says she called him and he has no agenda, only stage four lung cancer and the knowledge that he is going to the Bad Place when he dies. When Jones asks who killed Lorelei if he did not, Figg shrugs and says he has some thoughts but suggests they take their time, saying he has never been one to rush.

Cole Lennox spots a man with a fancy Nikon camera just as he ducks behind a dumpster. She identifies him as Asher, six-two, fit, tanned, dressed in black with short blond hair, and notes he might be good-looking if he were not such a leech. She tells him it is too early and she has not had her coffee, then starts walking down Queen Street, sipping from a reusable tumbler and grimacing at the eight-dollar venti triple-shot soy latte from Starbucks that still tastes burnt. She thinks she could have stayed home where a commercial-grade Jura coffee machine sits unused because neither she nor Jordan ever learned to use it, that was always Stefano’s job, but Jordan had to let go of their personal chef when his bank accounts were frozen. Cole decides her best move is to live normally and be seen doing it because Quan is paying close attention and contract negotiations for next season are starting soon. She desperately needs the gig. Trophy Wives launched everything she has built, from brand partnerships to her spray tan line to a small role in a horror movie nobody watched. Without the show, she goes back to being a nobody, and it is hard to be a nobody once you have been somebody.

Asher’s flash bursts at the side of her face from ten feet away, and he asks for one without the sunglasses. She tells him to get hit by a streetcar and die. He raises an eyebrow and asks if Jordan’s criminal activities are keeping her up at night. She does not answer. Asher leaps in front of her but keeps his distance because if he bumps into her she can have him arrested, and he knows that. He tells her he warned her years ago that Jordan would screw her over and that he always sensed something shady about him. Cole maintains her pace, her Gucci boots clicking on the sidewalk. She reflects on how pretentious it is to think of her clothes by designers’ names and tries to remember when she picked up the habit, possibly around the time she met Jordan’s parents. When he picked her up, he looked her up and down and asked if she had anything else to wear. She was offended because her dress was Banana Republic, brand-new and a splurge, but he insisted on stopping at Holt Renfrew on the way to the country club, and by the time she shook hands with Jordan’s intimidating father she was dressed head to toe in Dolce & Gabbana paid for by Jordan, costing more than her rent. The Guccis hurt her feet, but she cannot take her car because she cannot be photographed behind tinted windows. She is no longer a normal woman. Normal women are not ripped apart on gossip sites, scrutinized in TikTok videos speculating about their plastic surgery, or followed by paparazzi.

Asher asks how their white-collar criminal is doing and whether Jordan is still protesting his innocence, and more importantly whether she is. Cole shoots him a dirty look behind her sunglasses and tells him to shut up, that they both know he does not care. He asks how much Jordan allegedly stole, eight or ten million. The rumors are growing, but the actual amount is $1.1 million, peanuts compared to other high-profile embezzlement schemes, diverted from his family’s charitable foundation for personal use. She cannot say that because nobody wants to hear her husband only stole a million dollars. Asher tells her she is smarter than to stick with him and deserves better than the slimeball she married. She thinks of the Instagram comments tagging her since the season finale, the Trophy Wives subreddit they are told not to read, and the latest Reality Bitch blog post eviscerating her weekly with a personal vendetta. According to the gossip site, she is either a criminal like Jordan for helping launder money or the idiot trophy wife who did not know. Either way, the consensus is Cole Lennox deserves everything happening to her. Maybe they are right, maybe her karma is bad, just not for the reasons they think. A scandal makes for a compelling storyline, which is the only way to secure another contract. A trophy wife can get away with a lot, but being boring is not one of them.

She picks up the pace, enjoying watching a paparazzo walk backward, but Asher does not trip. He is good at this, as is she, and they have done this choreography many times. He pleads for one smile, saying he has to eat like everyone else. She tells him to eat shit and accuses him of profiting off the misery of others. He sounds wounded and stumbles on a rock but does not lose his balance, reminding her he has never sold an unflattering photo of her and telling her to be nice. She reflects that there is little benefit for paparazzi to sell unflattering photos in the long run because flattering photos earn a celebrity’s trust and more opportunities, and nice photos are the only ones the better publications will buy. Asher pleads again for her to remove the sunglasses, and she finally obliges, though she was always going to comply, she just had no desire to make it easy. She warns him one shot, and he snaps two, as she knew he would. They pass a bus stop where three people watch curiously, and someone says her name like a question. She does not acknowledge it because just because someone recognizes her does not mean they are a fan. People are just as likely to hate Cole as love her, and she would hate herself too if she were actually the person she pretends to be on TV. It is not supposed to matter if people like her as long as they watch. All Quan cares about are subscription numbers. She is starring on the streaming service’s number one reality show, but ultimately she is nothing more than a metric. Her fame determines her value, and Asher’s photos keep her relevant.

She recalls her costar Cecily Monaco telling her years ago that they are all dispensable and must never get