Chapter 5
Luke didn’t have another appointment he had to get to. He’d simply needed to get away from Amayah.
He instantly felt guilty for lying to her. But how could he tell Amayah that she was affecting him in a way that made his whole world feel off-balance?
He’d never experienced anything like it before.
All he knew was that he needed to get away before he said or did something stupid.
God, forgive me for the lie—even though I don’t deserve it.
He paused his thoughts and frowned. He didn’t usually talk to God like that.
Sure, he was a believer. A Christmas and Easter Christian. A Chreaster, he’d recently heard it called.
But today was the first time in a long time he actually had the desire to talk to God as if they had a true relationship. Had Amayah had such an effect on him that quickly? Was that just the way she was, some kind of superpower—super influencer, maybe he should call it—that she held?
Luke sat in his car for nearly a full minute before turning the key. His hands gripped the steering wheel as warmth slowly crept back into the frigid interior.
The attraction he felt for Amayah was not only surprising, but it was also off-limits.
Amayah wasn’t anything like he’d thought she would be.
He hadn’t planned for the way Amayah’s voice softened when she spoke about her grandma. Or the way her eyes carried quiet conviction instead of practiced polish.
This assignment was supposed to be easy—and the perfect way to advance his career and make his parents proud. Being a journalist hadn’t impressed his father, who was the police chief in the small Minnesota town where he’d grown up.
But if Luke could be an investigative journalist and bring down corrupt people who took advantage of others? Maybe his dad would finally look at him like he was a man.
The two had a strained relationship ever since Luke had found out when he was eighteen that he was adopted. Though he knew his parents loved him, he still felt as if they’d lied to him . . . for his entire life.
By the time he’d learned he was adopted, his birth mother was dead. He’d never even had the chance to meet her. To ask who his dad was. In his free time, he’d researched her, trying to learn more. But there was nothing remarkable to discover—only sadness.
He exhaled sharply and unlocked his phone, scrolling through Amayah’s social media profile until one particular video loaded—the one with over a million views.
In this clip, she stood in front of the door to an abandoned church.
Her voice sounded reverent as she spoke about second chances.
“This door has been closed before. Not because it was forgotten—but because someone needed time to begin again. And there’s something holy about that pause, about the quiet before God makes all things new. ”
He watched her as she spoke. There was no forced perfection. No robotic scripting.
Just sincerity woven into every word.
Luke frowned again.
Are you this real, Amayah Harper? Or are you just that good at being fake?
He wasn’t sure. He’d gone into this assignment with a certain set of expectations.
Now everything felt as if it had been turned upside down.
His phone buzzed.
It was Linda Bartzwatz, his editor.
Linda wasn’t just his editor. She was a legend.
Years ago, she’d broken the corruption story that toppled two city officials and won her a Pulitzer—an investigation she’d chased for eighteen relentless months while everyone else wrote her off as obsessive.
Luke had devoured every article, every late-night phone interview she’d done afterward, awed by the way she peeled back lies until the truth had nowhere left to hide.
She was the reason he’d wanted to be a journalist in the first place, the reason he believed truth could still change something.
Landing a job with her two years ago was a dream come true.
He swiped to answer. “Cross.”
“I’ve been waiting for an update,” Linda snapped. “Did you make contact with Amayah yet?”
“Yes. I did the first part of my interview today.”
“And?” she prodded. “Any cracks in the halo?”
A pause stretched between them as he considered what to say. Finally, he said, “No. Not yet.”
She grumbled her disapproval. “Well, keep digging. We need what’s behind the glossy persona—the parts Amayah doesn’t want the world to see.”
“I understand.”
“We need to save others from another Celeste. Don’t get blindsided by the sweet exterior—not if you have any hopes of advancing here at the paper.”
She sounded so dissatisfied, Luke felt his chances of getting that promotion slipping away.
“There was one thing . . .” he blurted.
“Spill it.”
He hesitated. Should he share? In some ways, telling Linda what he saw on that kitchen table felt like a betrayal to Amayah.
Then he remembered the mission at hand. He shouldn’t feel any superficial loyalties to a woman he’d only just met. He needed to be more focused and professional than that.
“I thought I saw a real estate contract at Amayah’s house, but I wasn’t able to see any details,” Luke shared.
Regret instantly filled him. But telling Linda this was the right thing to do.
Wasn’t it?
“A real estate contract?” Her voice practically smiled.
“I can’t confirm that, however,” he quickly added. “But that’s what it appeared to be.”
“I did hear from one of my sources that Amayah was seen meeting with a real estate agent last week.”
His breath caught. “What? You didn’t tell me that.”
“I was getting around to it. I wanted to see what you could dig up first.” She paused. “Follow this lead, Luke. This might be just what we’re looking for. Don’t let me down. Don’t let Hannah down.”
His jaw tightened when he heard Hannah’s name again. “I won’t.”
The call ended, but his editor’s words continued to echo in his mind.
He and Linda had talked ad nauseum about the importance of this article that would bring down an influencer who did more harm than good.
Influencer culture created significant psychological and ethical risks for those following.
Curated, filtered images and carefully crafted personas encouraged followers—especially young people—to compare themselves to unrealistic standards, leading to body dissatisfaction, lowered self-esteem, anxiety, and even disordered eating.
Other influencers promoted misinformation or harmful products, lacking expertise and endorsing everything from extreme diets to unproven supplements, which could have real physical and financial consequences for their audiences.
Some parent influencers even exploited their children’s privacy in order to gain views. It was disgusting.
Together, these issues fostered a culture of comparison and materialism, while encouraging overspending, envy, and a longing for unattainable lifestyles built more on performance than reality.
Someone needed to pull back the curtain. To call out the performance. To remind the world that compassion wasn’t the same as content.
And Luke was determined to be the one to do it.
For Hannah’s sake.
Hannah Roberts had been pure sunlight when she first walked into the newsroom as a rookie reporter—a little nervous, a little idealistic, but sharp and hungry to do work that mattered. Luke liked her immediately. Everyone did.
Then Hannah discovered influencer Celeste Rayne. Celeste with her ocean-blue feeds and glossy videos about “living brave,” “breaking free,” “becoming the most fearless version of yourself.”
At first, it felt like Hannah was simply inspired by Celeste’s videos. But the changes came fast—too fast.
Suddenly, Hannah had new clothes—purchased with affiliate links from Celeste’s websites. She even changed the way she spoke, almost as if she was imitating Celeste’s pattern of speaking. She stopped asking questions and started repeating Celeste’s mantras like gospel.
Several people at the newspaper had encouraged Hannah to take some time away from watching Celeste. But it turned out that Celeste had decided to personally mentor Hannah. Hannah wanted to grow a social media empire just like Celeste’s.
As part of this mentoring, Hannah was taking pictures to show her “best life.” She tried to take a ridiculous “edge-of-the-world” photo—one with her arms lifted toward the sky as she stood on a narrow rock ledge slick with winter ice.
She’d fallen and died as a result.
Luke had assumed Hannah would eventually come to her senses. Instead, she’d gone to the edge.
And then it was too late.
He glanced once more at Amayah’s video before locking the screen.
A new determination hardened inside him.
He couldn’t let selfish influencers hurt innocent, moldable people.
And Amayah just might be one of those influencers who presented a false narrative. Who encouraged her fans to make risky choices in the name of faith. To put themselves in dangerous situations because they’d been called to do so.
If she was exploiting her viewers, Luke needed to find out.
He couldn’t believe someone with her kind of success was living the way she was. No, he’d bet anything she secretly had a big house on the water where she escaped on weekends. Maybe this current house—her current lifestyle—was all just for show.
It was easy to be fooled by her, to be drawn in by her sweet smile. Even Luke found himself forgetting his purpose when he was around her, and that worried him.
The woman definitely had secrets, and he needed to find out what they were.
Amayah needed to be stopped before she hurt others.
Luke had to keep that as his focus.
For Hannah’s sake, he reminded himself again.