Page 88 of Someone Just Followed You

Maybe a pedo with two fake profiles. Maybe two pedos.

Either way, ONE SHIT MOM

My hand trembles. The phone slips from my grasp. And I listen to it smash on the tiles.

Chapter 103

Him

He stares at the bottle of tequila. He hasn’t surrendered yet, but he still might. Yeah, he’s been sober for five years, but he can still remember the bliss of intoxication like he’d sunk his last bottle yesterday.

Why the hell wasn’t Maple where he told her to go? His first message was strong. And he’d class his second as a thing of fucking beauty. She didn’t respond, but she didn’t need to. She just needed to read it. And when he saw that she was missing, he assumed that’s exactly what she’d done, and that she’d acted on it.

So like a schmuck, he drove for five hours straight. Excited, making plans; his palms sweaty on the steering wheel. He waited three hours in that place, asked around as best he could, but she wasn’t there. She’d never been there. He’d fucked up again. And the only thing left was to drive the miserable five hours back to his trailer.

He thought things couldn’t get worse, Maple missing and him not having a clue where she is, but now he’s being labeled a pedo on YouTube. Accused of sickening acts of depravity without an ounce of proof by a dude who claims to be her father but still fucking lost her.

The only good thing is that no one knows he’s Blake, including the feds. Fake name, untraceable VPN; it’s easy to cover your tracks these days.

He sighs and curls his fingers around the bottle of tequila. He knows it’ll be a step into hell. He’ll give up eating, stop washing. Work will dry up. He’ll sell the truck, his laptop, anything he can get a few dollars for. And he knows this because he’s traveled that road before.

But why not? It’s not like he’s got anything to stay conscious for.

A jolt of anger, of hope come and gone, spikes his bloodstream. He pushes the bottle away, grabs the four-pack of Dr Pepper beside it, suddenly needing the sugar rush that has saved him so many times before. He releases one, cracks the ring pull, and lifts it to his lips. As he gulps down the sweet, medicinal liquid, the fizz lodges in his chest, and he uses the pain to ground himself. He needs to believe there is still hope.

He picks up his phone, flicks through the different apps, fast, content blurring. Not sure what he’s looking for. Then he sees there’s a new TikTok from that kid, Maple’s friend. Dylan. He’s filming in a car, driven by that fucked-up father, Garrett. Dylan says they’re heading to Vegas. What the hell?

He crushes the can, sits up straighter. Maple was spotted at the Bonneville Transit Center downtown on Friday at around three p.m. with a middle-aged man.

Maple is in Vegas. While he was heading north to meet her, she was in his city. But not with him. With another man.

No, that can’t be.

Anger bursts out of every pore like flames.

He slams his palms against the table.

No! He won’t allow it. Maple is his. He needs to find her.

He pushes to standing, grabs the keys to his truck. Storms out.

Chapter 104

Dylan

@BillieEsuperfan16, TikTok

I know it’s great that Maple’s family can narrow down their search to Vegas, but do you guys know that sex traffickers use bus stations to recruit vulnerable women and girls all the time? I hate to say it, but I don’t think they’re finding her anytime soon #findMaple

Neither he nor Garrett talked much on the drive to Vegas, both too shellshocked by Detective Nicholls’ news. Coco isn’t a real person. Maple’s best friend is a fake. Her image belongs to a woman from West Virginia called Nikki Herrera, except Nikki is twenty-seven now, which makes the stolen images over a decade old. The FBI believe Coco is an older man, a pedophile trying to befriend kids online. Possibly the same person who pretended to be Blake. Possibly, but not definitely.

Because Blake raised one red flag after another – Maple’s mom was just too greedy to notice – while the man behind Coco has proven himself the perfect liar, able to deceive Maple every day for months. And highly skilled in AI technology.

It’s hard to believe there could be two predators hunting Maple. But Maple has two million subscribers, which would make it one sicko per million. And looking at it that way, it feels like an underestimate.

‘So is Maple here then?’ Aspen asks, as they walk into the bus station. Dylan’s noticed that she seems pissed at her dad, which feels wrong, with Garrett so stressed about Maple. But Dylan is permanently pissed with his own dad, so maybe he shouldn’t judge.

‘Um, no,’ Garrett mumbles. ‘But she was here, and now we’re going to find out where she went next.’