The Five Year Lie

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, emotional abuse, physical abuse, death by suicide, and sexual content.

Ariel stares at the photo of Drew and his foster home. She drops off Buzz at preschool, gets pastries for her uncle, and goes to work. Zain is late, which is unusual. Someone robbed and trashed his house the night before, but Zain still has the items stolen from Ray’s office. Zain learned that Drew spent time opening search warrants in 2016 and that a man named Drew Miller died in 2016. Ariel finds a news article about Andrew “Ernie” Miller, a foster father and Army veteran who suddenly died of a heart attack. The article describes the house in Drew’s photograph, in Lowden, Maine.

The novel flashes back five years. Brainz goes to the empty third-floor closet of Chime Co. and checks the status of Drew’s terminal. Drew has logged in as six different people. Brainz wants to expose him and figure out what Drew is doing. Brainz notices Drew looking at police warrants for Lowden, Maine, as well as LiveMatch software. Brainz gets a photo from security camera footage of Drew and uploads it to LiveMatch. This doesn’t reveal anything, but Brainz thinks it can’t be a coincidence that Drew is interested in Lowden.