16 December, 2017—wee hours of the morning, after his dash of shame

If Hector could have run all the way to town, he might have, just to get away from the mortification of having his ma walk in on that. But alas, his legs could only cart him so far before he realised he was in his boxers, running practically barefoot, because thongs didn't count, and all his work was still in Dad's office.

"Fuck!" he screamed into the air. This was not at all planned or even thought out. One could even say his little brain had taken over.

It took him a while to gather the courage to walk back home after that. As he placed one foot in front of another, he tried very hard to come up with explanations he could use to placate his equally horrified mother.

"It was an accident." He kicked at a dry patch of grass.

No, that won't do. Sleeping with Devi was not an accident.

"It was ... it was ... the late night ... and ... and, we got carried away ... " He mulled the possibility while making a mental note that some fences around the farm needed fixing.

Shit. That wouldn't do either. For them to get 'carried away' there had to have been a prelude, no? Heightened sexual tension, lingering looks that said 'I can't believe you're so beautiful,'; heavy I-can't-help-myself flirting; touch that'd send shivers or butterflies ... something. Surely, there was none of that. Surely! He didn't even like Devi that way. Did he?

Do I? He stopped in his tracks and stared at the brown cows over the rolling hills. "Nah!" he said to the cows and continued down the slope toward his home. "How about"—He chewed his lips as the house loomed ahead of him. "How about ... I say Devi came onto me? She kissed me, which she did—and that, that I was a—" A what? Red-blooded male? Horny bastard? Reluctant participant? What?

"Argh!" He screamed again, pulling at his hair. Why was this so hard? None of those were true, none except maybe the second excuse.

"Fuck it. I'll just tell her we're both adults!" He threw his chin out and strutted back to the house.

Back at the house, he wouldn't even get a chance to half-mumble those 'I'm a grown-up,' words. Not when something else, something far more pressing had transpired over the internet exactly when he was getting it on with Devi in the dark, something that had rippled wider and wider while he ran to avoid facing his ma.

By the time he reached home, just as the sun was breaking through the horizon, hell was breaking loose.

Someone out there knew she was alive, and they'd just broadcast it to the world—anonymously, of course. And boy were the gossipmongers salivating at the prospect of it and what it meant for the publishing industry and the author herself.

The discourse alone would require one to spend hours on social media.

As Hector slipped quietly into the house from the laundry, which his mother rarely locked, he heard Devi ask, "How could this happen?!"

How could what happen? He poked his head out into the corridor, spotted it empty, and rushed to Ma's room hoping to find his overnight bag just inside the door.

"Who could do this?" her voice faintly floated down the corridor. It sounded panicked. Angry.

Wonder what's happened? He pulled a trouser and a t-shirt on and made his way through the house towards the new end. The women did not sound like they were yammering on about the awkward horizontal tango they'd taken part in or witnessed. Thank god.

"Who else knows I'm here?" Devi's voice sounded stressed. "Knows I'm alive?"

"Who doesn't?" Eve's voice came out clipped. He could imagine his mother's chin jutted up righteously. Perhaps she had even folded her arms, like an angry, disapproving little beaver. "There's us, Hilde—you remember Hilde, Hector's girlfriend? Then there's the nurse and I'm sure other staff from the hospital. Not to mention the locals. It's not like you arrived on our beach unnoticed. From what I heard, the whole town was there. "

"But none of them knew who I was!" Devi's voice climbed an octave or two. "All they saw was a battered body they thought dead. None of them knew it was me. Surely."

Someone knows Devi's still alive, even after we faked her death? Hector's ears burned red hot. It can't be Brady, can it? He recalled the papers Brady had once brandished haughtily in front of his face. Brady was the only other person he could say knew for certain Devi was alive.

Hector inched closer to the door that was slightly closed and blocked most of the room. The only person he could see inside was the back of the nurse.

"Sorry, I couldn't sleep after—" she was saying. "I went on my social media and just out of curiosity searched you up and that's what came up."

"Thank you. Of course, I'm not blaming you," Devi sounded very upset. If Hector didn't know better, she sounded close to tears. "It's just. This is bad. This is bad ... were you able to reach him?"

"I tried Hector's phone. It's going straight to voicemail the last hour."

Hector's ears perked at his own name from Chaya's lips. She was trying to reach him? For what? He stepped close to the door to hear better.

Eve huffed again. "The idiot left his phone behind."

"Idiot?" Hector mumbled. "Well, excuse me for not staying in the room with you there."

"Someone's in the corridor," Devi said suddenly.

Shit! Hector tried to run away as fast as he could before the door flung open.

"Hector, you're back," the nurse called after him.

"Yeah." He turned around, trying to act all cool. "I just got in and I heard arguing ..."

"Hector! Where have you been?" His mother appeared at the door, giving him one of her famous 'you're in trouble' looks.

"I ... uh ... Fresh air." He rolled on his heels. "What's happened? Why are you all looking tense? Who died?"

"No one's died!" Eve rolled her eyes.

"Someone's about to!" from inside the room, Devi replied.

"Okay. What's going on?" Hector took one step into the room and no more. They may have forgotten why he'd done a runner wee hours of the morning in his boxers and thongs, but he hadn't.

"Someone online is claiming I'm alive, and where. It's causing frenzy on every platform."

"Even the morning shows are picking it up," Chaya added.

"Every Tom, Dick and Harry is talking about it ... Look." Devi held Chaya's phone out to him. "Chaya saw this just before they—"

'They caught us.' She did not need to say it. It was written on her face the same as 'You and I need to talk,' was splashed all over his ma's demeanour. Hector avoided the latter's gaze as he approached the bed and took the phone, quickly scanning the material.

@notaDeviDhungelfan: You heard it here 1st. Devi Dhungel's alive, well & hiding in picturesque coastal town, hrs from Sydney till her book launch! Who wants to knock on that door, burst her bubble? #youainthot #DidDeviDhungelfakedherdeath #DeviDhungelAlive #DeviDhungelstunt #consipirarylover #marketing #writingcommunity #bookstunt

@awoody87: Devi Dhungel missing or dead! Who cares? She was just another opinionated, self-absorbed author who never paid it forward. #helpthelittleguys #payitforward #rudeauthors #writingcommunity

@askaboutwriting: OMG. I hpe she's still alive. That poor woman, all this time, floating out in the sea! I hpe she met some hunky farmer! #farmerlife #countrygal #I❤DeviD

@user1234567to10: If she's alive, why not come forward? Tell the world, here I am. Get a life you lot. This is just the publishers trying to drum up marketing so they can rake in $$$ with her upcoming book #readtheroom

@crymeariver: She wasn't that good a writer anyway. No great loss there. Just a hyped-up POC who had fame go to her head. #gladshesgone

@devidhungel2008: I don't know who this person is, but she's using my name. Give it back, Devi! It's my name.

@slatergalhere: I know someone who knows this author, and all I have to say is she's a selfish cow. Promised my friend help with her book and threw it in the trash. Good riddance. #worldsabetterplace without her, trust me.

And many, many more.

When he'd had enough, he passed the phone back to Chaya. "When did the first comment go out?"

Chaya scanned her phone. "Couple of hours ago."

"So much for keeping this quiet." Eve crossed her arms and glared at him and Devi from a distance. "What are you going to do now?"

What do I look like? A PR manager. Hector glared at his mother. "At the moment, it's just a rumour. Who cares? The most this nobody knows is that that the police haven't found her body yet."

"You have no idea how social media works, do you?" Devi asked. "These nobodies have lots of power."

"It's a bunch of people talking to one another about you. Who cares?" Hector shrugged again. "I don't get why you're panicking over what an anonymous person claims online. Just go about your day like nothing's happened."

"Easy for you to say," Eve mumbled.

"It'll die soon," Hector reassured. "Bored people have nothing to do but speculate. I'm sure whoever this is, is probably just saying this because a body hasn't been found and they've seen the search teams slowly comb the coast for days. No one other than us four, Hilde, Lewis, and Brady know the truth. And it's none of us, I'm sure."

"Ha!" Eve suddenly said. "Brady knows, so the world will know."

"He won't say a word," Hector mumbled.

"And you know this how?" His mother squared off against him.

"Who's Brady again?" Devi asked.

"Only the town's biggest loudmouth who runs the so-called Town Tattler—a gossip paper if you will." Eve pouted, daring Hector to contradict her.

"Hector?" Panic rose in Devi's voice. "She means that reporter, doesn't she?"

"It's not Brady. He wouldn't do this. It's not his style." But Hector was as sure about it as he was about where he sat with Devi or his mother after the morning's events. I'm a grown man, he repeated to himself. I shall do what I please.

"And what if your ma is right?" Devi asked. "What if this is Brady's way of cornering you into giving me up? He was there that night you moved me out of the hospital in that body bag."

"A body bag?" Chaya curiously peeled her attention away from her phone.

"Long story." Devi waved her off. "But seriously, Hector. What if he's behind this @notaDeviDhungelfan account? They said knock on the door like they know where I am."

"He wouldn't ..." but Hector knew better than to keep reassuring without rock-solid proof that Brady Moriarty wasn't behind the anonymous account @notaDeviDhungelfan.

Chaya's phone pinged then, and she glanced at the notification. "Uh, Hector." Her eyes went wide. "Whoever this @notaDeviDhungelfan is, they know more than we think. They just published another comment."

"What does it say?" he asked, for once paying attention to the petite nurse.

"Devi Dhungel, come out, come out, wherever you are—spelled using only 'U'—Don't make me come over & blow that odd little cliff house down. Tell the world the truth. 24hrs or I pin your location for all to see. #DeviDhungelsstillalive #Imthebigbadwolf." Chaya blanched as she looked up from her phone.

"The cliff house." Eve Martinez turned to her son, no longer gloating. "They know she's in our house. Who else knows Devi's in our house, other than us and Brady? She is the biggest news right now. He prints this first, he makes it big."

"Hector?" Devi peered up at him too, eyes wild with fear.

Hector turned from one woman to the next. "I'm sure it's not Brady."

"How do you know?" Devi went white as a ghost. "He publishes this, and I'm dead meat."

"Stay calm. It's not him ... You'll see. Everything will be all right." He held his palms up and backed out of the room slowly so as not to spook the three women. "I'll just ..."

As soon as he was out in the corridor once more, Hector ran out of the house for the second time that morning with an urgency he'd never felt before. "I'll be back!"

(...Continued in part b...)