“Hey,” Simon greeted me at the door of his Bel Air estate. He was wearing dress pants, but his white button-down shirt was partially unbuttoned. He smelled good and his arms felt warm around me.
But as I leaned in for a kiss, my hands moved on impulse, trailing my thumb over to the space between his hairline and the corner of his eye.
Only I knew the touch was betrayal in its quietest form. Because as my thumb brushed Simon’s skin, I wasn’t thinking of Simon at all. I was picturing Beau and that crinkle by his eye when he smiled.
Chapter 10
Eight Days Before the Hurricane
“You’re like a baby Picasso,” I say, walking into Nora’s sunroom. She’s sitting by the windows, stretching canvases in the afternoon light.
After Will died, Nora moved into this rental on Trismen Terrace. A two-story French provincial with a lake view on a quiet dead-end street. A picturesque clean slate. She turned the sunroom into her studio. And while I don’t think he’s the reason she picked this house, it doesn’t hurt that Marcus lives nearby.
With Gemma’s murder making every evening hour of the news, I hardly think about setting the two of them up anymore. Today, I’m mostly here to check on her. But I also need to talk her into going with me to Lemon & Fig.
“Shit.” She looks up. Her oversize shirt is soft with wear and splattered with stray brushstrokes and flecks of dried paint. “Sorry, I got distracted.”
Her voice sounds distant, and I cock my head at her. “You okay?”
It’s been five days since Gemma was found, and the news still hangs in the air like a fog, a gloomy reminder of how quickly misfortune can snatch any of us away.
“I like stretching canvases, makes it easy to turn my brain off for a little while. And the news is so…” She makes a vague gesture with her hands. “Did you see they’re calling Gemma’s death a homicide? The news said the cause of death wasstrangulation. They think the body was staged to look like a hit-and-run.”
The word hits my veins like ice, and my heart dips between anger for Gemma and something too close to fear.
There’s another killer in Winter Park.
I look at Nora, sitting on the floor, her posture a little slack. I lower myself to sit beside her and put a hand on her back. “This is a lot. I’m sorry.”
“It’s…” she starts, but there’s a lost look in her eyes that won’t let her finish the thought.
It’s not okay. I don’t expect her to say it is. Some things defy acceptance.
“It’s total bullshit,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says before her eyes search mine. “But how areyoudoing? She was your friend.”
My throat tightens.
Was.
Gemma was the only person from California I let back in. We lost touch after everything collapsed—or exploded. I can never really put my finger on which. When she found me last year, I thought I could dip a toe in the past without the whole wave crashing back. I told myself it was harmless. I structured our friendship around helping her—coffee and job hunting. I let myself believe I was in control of how much of California I let in. Like my old life could stay in a little box under my bed. But now I’m watching my phone for fresh outreach from a 310 area code like at any minute the device could detonate.
And when I’m not worrying about that, I’m wondering about how the hell Beau got blood on his pocket square the night Gemma died. I’ve thought about confronting him—normally, that’s exactly what I’d do. But something keeps stopping me.
Fear. Denial. Maybe both.
There’s no chance Beau had something to do with Gemma’s death. But if the blood could be a lead for the police, I can’t rule out the possibility that Ardell would take a harder look at Beau. Or start asking questions about the fact that I was in Gemma’s apartment the morning she was found. The police were so quickto pin Will’s murder on Nora, we’d probably jump to the top of their list of suspects after that.
I look at Nora, who I’m supposed to go to a HIIT class with, and sigh. “I know we said we were going to work out today. But what if we skip? Let’s go to Lemon & Fig and get a drink.”
As Gemma’s last known location, the restaurant has been closed off for a few days. But Marcus was given the green light to resume operations yesterday.
And I want to go there to look around.
“Oh, sure,” she answers, picking at a loose thread from the edge of some canvas. “We’ll just skip? Because everyone knows Kyle J is the forgiving type. Remember when Tippy tied her shoe during a warm-up and he made her do a five-minute plank? I thought she was going to pass out.”
The memory of Tippy’s trembling arms and her face splotchy with pain and pure regret makes Nora giggle. I smile. But thoughts of Gemma dull my laughter.
