Finally, after two years, the woman had gathered the courage to quit the group.

It wasn’t a cult, she explained again, as if trying to convince herself. After all, they didn’t commit any crimes, and they weren’t even some sort of fanatic religion. It was a diet group.

“Then why are you here?” Abby muttered. Because obviously, the woman knew the truth. It had been a cult. A cult didn’t necessarily follow a religion. And often, it wasn’t illegal. All a cult needed was a very devout following centered on one thing. Sometimes it was a religious belief. Sometimes it was a person. And yes, sometimes it could even be a diet.

Some cults caused no damage. But often, they became destructive. And usually, all it took was that the leader would become, as the woman in the forum put it, difficult.

Abby skimmed the posts that followed, noting the name of the group. The addresses of its two hubs in New York. The name of the founder. The number of members. Every bit of information the woman offered. She stored it all in her ever-growing document detailing dozens of cults in the area.

She added the locations to her online map. Two red pins, among many others, all over New York State and adjacent states as well. It looked like any other Google map, and to a random viewer, the locations seemed like any other point of interest. A restaurant, or a shop, or a favorite park. But for Abby, each pin represented a small cancerous growth.

One day she might be called to one of these places. And she’d be prepared. History would not repeat itself, not if she could help it.

CHAPTER 5

The school bus dropped the kids by the East Elmhurst Playground in Queens. There, he knew, the group of children split. Only a couple of them turned north, up 101st Street. The two, Nathan Fletcher and Daniela Hernandez, weren’t friends, but they had that strange connection children at school bus stops had. They walked home side by side in companionable silence. And after one block, Daniela reached her home, and Nathan continued alone another block.

He knew all that because he’d watched it transpire several times.

It took Nathan, with his short eight-year-old legs and his dreamy pace, two minutes to walk the remainder of the way.

That was the only window of opportunity.

Originally, he’d figured he would park nearby and wait. But he quickly saw the problem. In this suburban neighborhood, an unknown car parked at the curb would be noticed. People might take a minute to glance inside, maybe get a look at the driver. He couldn’t let that happen.

So instead, he decided to drive around the block and wait for the school bus to show up.

Round and round and round he went. The school bus was late. Or maybe, for some reason, it had been very early, and he’d missed it. He’d driven around the block three times already, getting familiar with its little peculiarities. Hello, tree that looks like a woman. Nice to see you again, misspelled graffiti. Fancy meeting you for the third time, faded plastic Halloween pumpkin.

Someone could notice the car circling the block. Was that too paranoid? Gabrielle had once written, Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you, and he loved it so much that he’d printed it and hung it above his bed. Sure, he knew it was a quote from Catch-22, but for him it would always be a quote from Gabrielle’s Instagram post in the summer of 2018.

He thought of Nathan riding the school bus. His emotions about the kid were complicated. In some ways, Nathan was part of his own family. One day he would be. But of course, Gabrielle had mentioned more than once that Nathan was by far her favorite man in the universe. And that was . . . well.

It was complicated, that’s what it was.

There! That yellow color of the school bus. Four kids this time, not five as usual, and his heart skipped a beat as he scanned them. But there was Nathan’s blond hair and Avengers backpack. He exhaled, trying to figure out the best way to handle it. He couldn’t just drive slowly after them. The kids would surely notice him, and he didn’t want that brat Daniela seeing his face. On the other hand, if he went on another drive around the block, he’d miss his window of opportunity.

He decided to stop by the curb and check his phone. Just a guy texting a message to his wife.

Except instead, he opened the Instagram app and saw that Gabrielle had posted a new story. His finger hovered above her icon, almost tapped it, an instant reflex. No. No time.

He closed the app and started scrolling through his contacts, up and down, while glancing at the kids walking farther and farther away. A few teenagers were playing basketball on the court a dozen yards from his car. The ball went bounce-bounce-bounce, and his finger slid the screen along with the rhythm of the ball. Strange, the things the body would do when you didn’t notice. Were any of the teens paying attention to the cars around them? To one guy sitting in a vehicle, mindlessly fiddling with his phone?

No, they were too intent on their game.

Using the time to review his plan one last time, he glanced at the McDonald’s bag on the passenger seat. A Happy Meal with a burger with no vegetables. Gabrielle’s March 17, 2019, Instagram story—The hell with eating healthy today, I’m getting a quarter pounder with extra cheese, and Nathan is having his usual, a burger with absolutely no vegetables.

He practiced his greeting. “Hey, Nathan,” he said to himself. Getting the words just right, with a tone of familiarity. A greeting to someone you’ve seen a few times in the past.