I don’t even know if Beau is at the club, but I’ll have to worry about that later. I need to get out of here.
“Ford certainly was forgetful today,” Carol offers from the doorway.
There’s a skeptical look on Dowling’s face. She’s definitely going to ask Ford about this. But she hands over a box of tees.
“Thanks,” I squeak as I turn to exit the same way I came in.
“We’ll let Ford know you stopped by,” Carol calls behind me in a way that makes the menace crystal clear.
“What the fuck?” Nora murmurs as we fast-walk away from Ford’s house and toward her car.
“I bet somebody’s finally going to remember to fix that latch now” is all I can get out.
As we tumble into Nora’s car, I’m breathless.
“Well, that couldn’t have gone worse if I had lit a match,” I mutter.
Nora swivels in her driver’s seat to look at me. “Are you ready to tell me what we’re looking for?”
The car falls quiet again. Carol has exactly what she needs to ruin me, and I have nothing. Something about Ford’s neat rows of white tees feels like proof that Gemma wasn’t his secret, which means I’m back where I started—chasing a ghost.
“I mean—I’m already in up to my eyeballs on all of this, but you’re not.” I think of all the possible evidence I’m holding on to. “I can’t tell youthisthing, because it could hurt you. And I don’t know where this leads.”
“I’m a big girl, Este.” She turns in her seat to fully face me. “I’m a whole-ass widow and I’m not yet thirty. There’s not a lot that scares me anymore.”
“If what I have means something,” I go on, thinking of all the Gemma pieces I’ve found, “and I tell you what it is, you could be an accessory. I could get you arrested. We could end up trading HIIT classes for prison-yard calisthenics.”
“Okay,” she deadpans. “So I get arrested. We’ll trade lipstick tips through plexiglass. Tell me anyway.”
“How will I visit you in jail if I’m already behind bars?”
We hold eye contact for a long beat, because she has to be sure.
“Tonight,” she adds, “we’ll google how to make prison wine. Maybe prison champagne, if we’re ambitious.”
“I really do love you,” I whisper, tears threatening.
“Spit it out, Walker.” She waves for me to hurry up. “I can’t take the suspense.”
“I found a bunch of stuff that I think might be Gemma’s,” I blurt. “Some of it from Lemon & Fig and some of it…” I take a big breath. “Some of it is from the Hall House.”
She looks stricken.
“I really didn’t want to tell you that part. You deserve for the rest of your life to be mess-free.”
“No one gets mess-free,” she says softly.
And I can see that the myth of my perfect life is fading away for her.
“Beau and I are not some perfect couple,” I say. “He’s hidingsomething from me, and I can’t figure out what it is. But”—Ireach into my purse and pull out the pocket square I’m still harboring—“I found this, and he says the blood is Gemma’s.”
There’s a hiss in the air as Nora lets out a big breath.
“I thought Ford was involved,” I continue. “Or maybe knew something about what happened to Gemma. And now Carol has enough dirt on me to bury me.”
“That’s not true.”
“You know how quickly people can turn on someone around here. Especially vandals who break into their neighbors’ garages. She might pin me to the top of Ardell’s suspect list with the gossip firestorm this could kick off.”
