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“Rhiannon recruited me to come here,” Sarah repeats. “Meaning…she broughtbothof us here. And now she’s in Gillian’s life, too?”
She walks Lenna through how Rhiannon tracked her down about six weeks after Gillian disappeared. At the first meeting, she says, Sarah wanted nothing to do with Rhiannon’s proposal to come to Halcyon. “But…after she left, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. A fertility collective. Maybe I’d get to have my baby. I felt afraid to try again. I wasn’t sure if I could do it by myself.”
“When was this?” Lenna whispers.
“September.”
Lenna does the quick math—she had left LA by then to live with Daniel outside the city. So Rhiannon was alreadyhere,at Halcyon, recruiting people?
“Rhiannon said nothing about knowing me when she talked to you?” Lenna asks.
Sarah shakes her head. “But you two worked together, is that right? And Gillian was…trying to horn in on your friendship, I guess?”
“Did Gillian tell you that?”
“No. I read it on Gillian’s Instagram way after the fact, after she died. Gillian talks about two friends she wanted to get to know, L and R. I’m assuming you’re L.”
“And Rhiannon is R?”
“According to Gillian, Rhiannon was the reason she faked having that job. She wanted to get close to Rhiannon. But then Rhiannon rejected her, and Gillian never got over it. She could hold a grudge.”
Lenna nods. She remembers that grudge. “But this is so strange. Did Rhiannon know what happened to Gillian when you guys met?”
“I have no idea. She made it out like it was all happenstance. Like she’d…read about me, or asked a neighbor, just knew I was suffering but maybe not why. Certainly not that sheknewyou or Gillian or had any personal stake in what happened.” Then she pauses. “Although…she did say this one weird thing. Like she knew what I’d done. Or at least that’s what Iheard,I thought, but then I just told myself I was going crazy.” She shudders. “But…maybe I wasn’t.”
Lenna sinks to an overturned milk crate. Jacob’s legs hang limply between her own. He has passed out against her chest. “Do you think sheknows?”
“I have no idea,” Sarah murmurs. “What about when Rhiannon invitedyouhere? Did she make any references to Gillian? Or me?”
Lenna glances at the house once more. It would be so much easier if Rhiannon were with them to explain herself. “I mean, she mentioned your name, said you were pregnant…but I knew you as Sadie. Sarah’s a common name.”
Sarah looks down. “I changed it, after I came. On the news, Iwas called Dr. Sadie Wasserman. Not Sarah. It concealed me, a little.”
“Do you think Rhiannon knew more than she was letting on?” Lenna thinks about the shock on Rhiannon’s face earlier today, when Lenna said she hung out with Gillian after Rhiannon left.Sarah had a friend named Gillian, too,she’d said.But she died.Did she really not know they were the same person when she’d been the one to recruit both Lenna and Sarah?
“Has Rhiannon given you any indication while you’ve been here that she knows more about you than she let on?” Lenna asks next.
Sarah shrugs. “Not really. We aren’t particularly close, but she’s always been fine. Grateful, actually, that I joined. I always wondered if she got a cut of my community buy-in fees or something. And she’s been supportive about the IVF stuff. That’s why this doesn’t make sense that she’d be…I don’t know,conspiringin some way.”
Lenna chews on a thumbnail. “I thinksomethingis going on with her.” She mentions the whispered phone call. The lies she’s caught Rhiannon in. How sleepy she and Jacob have felt, maybe from the tea. Even the fact that Rhiannon promised to help her tonight…but she still hasn’t shown up.
Sarah crosses her arms. “Let’s go find her. Together. We need to figure out what’s going on.”
She drops her bags and starts off toward the house. Lenna hefts the baby higher in the sling as she follows, not knowing what else to do. They’re halfway through the door when they hear the scream.
It’s a child’s voice from inside one of the rooms. Lenna’s nerves snap. She starts to run down the hall as lights switch on and doors fly open. Lenna hears the nameRhiannon,and her stomach flips.
The kitchen is empty. She rounds the corner and heads downthe hall. Rhiannon’s door is open. Melissa stands just inside, blinking groggily. Teddy is pressed into her waist, sobbing.
“What is it?” Lenna cries. “What happened?”
Marjorie steps out of Rhiannon’s room, raising her palms. Gia follows her with a shrug, and Lenna bristles at her presence. Lenna peeks inside Rhiannon’s tiny space.
The wood floor is bare. A table lamp casts shadows across the furniture. The only sounds are Teddy’s whimpers.
“What’s going on?” Lenna asks the group. “Where’s Rhiannon?”
Gia turns to Lenna. For the briefest of moments, surprise registers on her face when she sees Sarah. But maybe Lenna imagines it, because in the next instant, Gia straightens. “Rhiannon’s gone.”
