Follow Me

by Kathleen Barber

  Despite the postexercise endorphins in my system, I felt a twinge of loneliness as I climbed the steps to Cat’s building. I really hated being alone. I’d been that way ever since I was a baby—my mother loves to say I only learned to crawl so I could follow my sister around. And after Maggie was promoted to her own bedroom, I used to sneak in and sleep on the floor by her bed, curled up on her pink shag rug alongside the cat. I no longer slept on the floor like someone’s pet, but I’d never gotten over my dislike for being alone.

  So I was lonely without Cat around, sure, but as much as I hated to admit it, I missed Max. I missed eating home-cooked meals at his side while listening to his impressive record collection, and I missed nestling into the crook of his elbow and snacking on his brilliant concoction of Tabasco-dressed popcorn while we watched television. I missed the feel of his soft lips on mine, the way his mouth always tasted faintly of cinnamon. I missed him pressing his face into my hair and telling me I was beautiful.

  But could I ever forgive him for keeping those photos a secret? How could he not have told me about them? And what kind of website had they been on? Something gross, he had said. I should have pressed him on that. When I first moved into the basement apartment, I hadn’t always remembered to draw my curtains before undressing—years of living far above the street had made me lax about such things—and what if this creep had seen? What if he had posted naked photos of me?

  I shivered and wished desperately there was someone I could call. A side effect of only showing the best and most beautiful bits of my life to everyone meant that I felt like I couldn’t reveal my messier, more complicated emotions to anyone other than a trusted few. But I’d lost Izzy to Russell, Nick to his own hang-ups, and Cat to work, at least temporarily. The only other person I could think to call was Maggie, but I knew how that conversation would go: she would imply this was my fault for sharing too much online, and then she would start telling me about something adorable her children had done, and I would hang up the phone feeling vaguely envious, even though there was no way I would trade Maggie’s life for mine. Me as an accountant in Ohio with two children under the age of two? No, thank you.

  You’ll have Cat back soon enough, I told myself, stepping into her apartment. You can hold it together for a few more nights.

  I was about to drop Cat’s extra set of keys on the front table when I heard footsteps. I froze, every nerve in my body signaling danger.

  Was someone in Cat’s apartment? Had my stalker followed me there?

  I dismissed the notion as ridiculous—besides, I was certain I had just unlocked the door, and Cat didn’t have a creepy Ryan with an extra set of keys. Unless … When Cat had come home the night before her trial, she had needed me to let her in. She said she must have forgotten her keys back in her office, but what if she had dropped them along the way home? What if someone had found them and used them? Or … what if someone had stolen them from her purse?

  Don’t be absurd, I thought. It’s most likely that Cat’s work thing ended early and she’s home.

  “Cat?” I called.

  There was no response. There was nothing at all. I relaxed, determining I must have imagined the earlier sound. I set down the keys and crossed to the kitchen. I was lowering the salad onto the counter when I heard another noise, a thump. I froze. Where did that come from? Was that inside the apartment?

  “Cat?” I tried once more, my voice just a squeak now.

  A floorboard creaked. Awash in panic, I thought, Someone is in the apartment.

  I spun on a sneakered heel and raced out of the apartment, barely pausing to grab the keys off the table as I did so. I flew down the exterior stairs, my feet slipping on the wrought iron, and burst onto the sidewalk, fumbling with my phone to call Cat. I was panting and must have looked totally wild, because an elderly couple walking a Yorkshire terrier actually crossed the street to avoid me.

  “Hello?” Cat answered.

  “Where are you?”

  “New York,” she said slowly. “Audrey, are you all right?”

  “I just came home from Pilates and heard someone in your apartment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I heard someone in your apartment. I thought it must have been you, but it’s obviously not,” I said, my voice rising with each syllable. “Jesus, Cat, do you think my stalker followed me to your place?”

  “Stay calm,” she commanded. “Did you look through the apartment?”

  “Hell no. I’m not trying to get murdered.”

  “I just … Audrey, don’t panic. I’m sure it’s nothing. Just—”

  I hung up on Cat and dialed 911. It wasn’t nothing. There was someone in that apartment, undoubtedly the same someone who had been in my apartment. Someone was after me.

  * * *

  THE TWO POLICE OFFICERS who responded to my call were both overweight, middle-aged men who obviously thought I was some hysterical girl, afraid of her own shadow. I went over the sounds I had heard once again, struggling to keep my voice calm, trying to force them to take me seriously, even though one of them was blatantly ogling me in my cropped exercise shirt and mesh-paneled leggings.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, miss,” the one who was exhibiting a modicum of professionalism said. “There are no signs of a break-in. Nothing appears to be out of order.”

  “But I heard something,” I insisted. “Footsteps. Creaking.”

  “These old buildings can be funny,” he said kindly. “Maybe you heard the downstairs neighbors. You mentioned you’re staying here because of some problems with your apartment. Maybe you’re more on edge than usual.”

  “Of course I’m on edge,” I said, frustrated. “Someone is stalking me. Wait, did I tell you about the pho—”

  “There’s no evidence of an intruder,” the other one interrupted, tearing his eyes away from my chest. “The door wasn’t forced open, and we found no open windows. I don’t believe anyone was there.”

  “You think I’m making this up?” I demanded.

  “No one thinks you purposefully made anything up,” the first officer said gently. “I’m sure you heard something that frightened you. But, miss, there’s no one here. Try to relax, get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  “Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “Thanks for the help.”

  “Just doing our job, ma’am,” he said, giving me a quick nod. “You have a good night.”

  As I watched the utterly useless police officers depart down Cat’s front steps, my fingers itched to call Max. He would believe me. He would know that I wasn’t just being jumpy. He would whisk me away to safety, put his comforting arms around me, and help me forget all of this mess.

  But what the fuck was he doing with those photos?

  I had to know more about them, had to figure out where they had come from. I grabbed my laptop from where it sat open on the coffee table and sank onto Cat’s large couch. Max said he stumbled across them while doing a reverse image search, so I tried to re-create his steps using the profile picture from my Instagram account. I didn’t get any immediately obvious results, so I began trying other combinations: my Twitter profile picture, other images I’d uploaded to my various accounts, plus adding in search terms like my name, “summer,” and “candid.” No matter what I tried, Google only returned the expected results in the form of my own social media, the Glamour piece, some other articles that mentioned me. I was still combing through pages of results, looking for anything that might be close to what Max had described, when my computer’s screen suddenly went dark.

  Shit.

  All at once, I remembered leaving my charger at Max’s apartment when I’d rushed out of there last week. I’d been sharing Cat’s since I’d been at her place, but of course she had taken it with her to New York. Stupid, I chastised myself.

  Leaving my brick of a computer and my phone on the couch, I stood and crossed to the corner of the room Cat used as her home office. I turned on her desktop compu
ter, exhaling with relief when I saw it wasn’t password protected. I opened Google and resumed my search. I couldn’t rest until I had some answers.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  HIM

  Where did she go?

  She’d been there, on the screen, looking a bit pale and worried. It was an expression I’d seen more of lately, ever since I had left my mark on her apartment. I’d gone too far that night; I understood that now. I’d wanted her to understand how deeply I loved her, how crazy she made me, but that hadn’t been what had happened. I had to do something to atone, something to set things right. Something that would make that sweet mouth curl into a smile once more.

  I looked into her distraught face and saw her aquamarine eyes were brimming with tears. Daggers stabbed through my heart, and I knew I needed to do something right away. I’d jumped up from my couch and rushed out to buy her another impressive bouquet of orange flowers. I would surprise her with them that night. Maybe I would even leave her a little note, a bit of poetry perhaps. I was thinking over my options as I picked up my laptop again, the flowers at my side, only to find that she was gone.

  I immediately grabbed my phone to check her Instagram, sure there would be a Story about an exercise class she was taking or a friend she was meeting, but there was nothing. She was uncharacteristically silent. A flicker of disquiet sparked in my stomach.

  She must be in the shower, I told myself. She’ll come back soon.

  But she didn’t. Hours passed and Audrey didn’t reappear. I remained glued to the couch, staring dumbly at the blank screen while the flicker in my stomach turned into an inferno. Where had Audrey gone? Had she discovered the RAT?

  You ruined this, my family’s collective voice said in my head. You drove her away.

  Aly appeared in my mind’s eye, her eyes narrowed as she nodded sagely, agreeing with them. You’re not fit to date anyone.

  Sabrina, her hair longer and redder than it had really been, appeared beside her, laughing. Pathetic.

  “Leave me alone!” I bellowed, upending my coffee table, sending the coffee cups and container of animal crackers atop it flying. The mugs shattered; loose legs and torsos scattered everywhere.

  It was physically painful to admit, but my abhorrent family was right. It was my fault. It was always my fault. I drove everyone away: Sabrina, Aly, Audrey, all the minor players who had left me in between. What was the common denominator there? Me. It was fucking me.

  I picked up my laptop, where her screen was still black in the RAT desktop, and shook it, screaming, “Where did you go?”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CAT

  The man across the aisle from me loudly cracked open another pistachio, his twenty-sixth. I’d been glaring at him since the third, hoping the intensity of my stare would shame him into eating a quieter snack. Instead, he reached for another.

  Sitting alone in the Acela’s Quiet Car, scowling at a stranger and counting nuts, was not how I envisioned my return to DC after the Phillips trial. Then again, it wasn’t technically “after” the Phillips trial. The rest of the team remained in New York, preparing for the next day’s work, while only I returned in shame. I blanched as I remembered what had happened in court that morning. It had been time for me to speak, making a jurisdictional argument that was technical and a bit dry, but nonetheless important. As I rose from my chair, nylon-clad legs shaking underneath my skirt suit, I heard Connor whisper, “Go get ’em, Harrell.”

  I took a deep breath and glanced down at my notes. On the table beside my legal pad, my phone screen lit up, Audrey’s name visible. Messages started appearing on the screen, one after another. I tried to ignore them, tried to focus on my notes, but the word “help” caught my eye.

  “Catherine,” Bill whispered to me. “You’re up.”

  I lifted my gaze sharply, reminding myself of the import of what I was about to do, but my concentration was shot. I couldn’t stop thinking about that “help.” Did Audrey need me? Did this have something to do with the noises she claimed she’d heard in my apartment? I had assumed they were Max, depositing his flowers or whatever he had decided to do, but what if it wasn’t? What if Audrey was in trouble?

  The argument I’d exhaustively practiced left me; it simply vanished from my head. I felt Bill’s eyes burning holes through the back of my suit jacket, no doubt wondering why he had entrusted something so important to such an awkward loser.

  Cat got your tongue? Emily Snow taunted.

  I opened my mouth and forced out words. They weren’t the words I’d planned to say, and my voice was thin and tremulous, like that of a child rather than a competent professional. More than once, the judge had to ask me to speak up. When I flubbed a case holding and the judge interrupted to correct me, I knew it was over. I wanted to melt into the floor. It took every ounce of fortitude I had to finish the argument. As I returned to my seat, I looked to Connor for sympathy, but he couldn’t even meet my eyes.

  And the worst part was that when I checked my phone and read Audrey’s text messages, they were just something about not being able to sleep and needing to talk about Max.

  Goddamn Audrey.

  She was my savior and my executioner. Without her, I never would have gotten along in the sorority, never would have had any friends or any fun. But without her, I might have succeeded today. If she hadn’t distracted me at the last minute … She knew how important this trial was to me. She knew, and still she texted me with this self-obsessed nonsense. I didn’t know why I was surprised. Audrey always thought about herself first and foremost.

  She would never change. So I had to.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  AUDREY

  I was exhausted. After last night’s scare, I hadn’t slept well, and had claimed a migraine headache so I could leave work early and spend several more hours unsuccessfully scouring the internet for amateur paparazzi photos of myself. I sent Cat another text, begging her to call so I could talk this through, and then opened a bottle of wine I found in her kitchen. I drank one glass of the velvety cab before pouring a refill and carrying it upstairs to the bathroom. I drew a warm bath, sprinkled in some lavender bath salts I pilfered from her cabinet, and then eased into the claw-foot bathtub, exhaling audibly as I leaned my head against the gentle slope.

  I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but all I could think about were those damn photographs. I’d been unable to re-create Max’s reverse image search, and I couldn’t decide whether that should reassure me or not. On the one hand, it was a relief to not find any creepy stalker pictures of me on the internet. On the other hand, where the hell had they come from? If I couldn’t find them in a concentrated search, how could Max have innocently stumbled upon them? Either he did a much more intensive dive into my online footprint than he wanted to admit, or he was lying about their origin.

  Beneath the warm water, my skin prickled in gooseflesh, and I gulped at the wine and returned to the question that had been nagging me ever since I first opened that folder. What if Max took those photos? It was so hard to believe that someone who looked at me as sweetly, as tenderly as Max did could be the one stalking me. But was that any harder to believe than his story about how he’d found them and enlisted the help of some superhacker?

  I knew I was too emotionally invested in this and needed someone to help me think rationally. I needed Cat. Impatiently, I glanced to the floor for my phone—surely Cat would return my text messages soon—and realized I’d left it downstairs.

  I was debating getting out of the tub to fetch it when I heard the unmistakable sound of a door closing. My spine went rigid and my mind imagined a hundred different horrible scenarios—most of which involved my meeting a bloody end at the hands of my stalker, Rosalind-style—before I realized who it must be: Cat. She must have seen my messages and recognized how much I needed her. I relaxed. Thank God for Cat.

  “Cat?” I called.

  She didn’t shout hello, but I could hear her moving through the apartment downstair
s.

  “Cat?” I tried again. “I’m up here!”

  Footsteps sounded on the spiral staircase, and pitch-black fear oozed through my veins as I realized they were too heavy to be Cat’s. You’re wrong, I told myself. It has to be Cat. You locked the front door. The footsteps continued, each footfall sounding heavier and less like Cat than the last, until they came to a halt outside the bathroom door.

  I was paralyzed, afraid to even blink. There was no more movement in the hall, but I could hear breathing—no, panting. Someone was panting outside that door. The wine turned unpleasantly in my stomach. Whoever was in the apartment was now between me and the only exit.

  Get out of the bathtub, my mind screamed at me. That door is going to open in five seconds and you are going to go the way of Janet Leigh in Psycho if you don’t get out of the bathtub right fucking now.

  And then what? Even if I were able to leap from the tub and lock the door before the heavy breather in the hallway threw it open, then what? I would be trapped inside Cat’s bathroom with no cell phone and no way out.

  The doorknob clicked slightly, a soft but ominous sound, as though someone had gripped the handle on the other side but not turned it.

  Yet.

  Forget thinking three steps ahead. Survival was all that mattered. Mind nearly blank with terror, I flung myself out of the bathtub. Lavender-scented water splashed over the tiles as I lunged for the door, and my feet slipped out from underneath me. My knees smacked the ground hard enough to bring tears to my eyes, and I cried out in pain. My hands flew to my mouth, as though they could shove the noise back in, as though there might remain some mystery about where I was. The doorknob turned, and I squeezed my eyes shut in a panicked, pointless attempt to prevent the inevitable.