Nora processes for a moment. Then, she nods her head and throws her car into drive.
The sudden motion makes my stomach dip. “What are we doing?”
“We’re going to the club. If Ford doesn’t know what happened to Gemma, maybe someone at the club does.”
Chapter 20
When Simon fired me from Redwood—without so much as a warning shot—it left a mark I couldn’t shake. Not a bruise. Not a paper cut. Something deeper.
Losing my parents had taught me that control and permanence were illusions. Losing my job taught me that even the casual cruelties of the world can leave scars.
Simon split me in two with a note card. There was the life I had before I lost my dream job, and the one that started after.
That we were sleeping together when Simon terminated me made it personal in all the obvious ways. Not because I loved Simon. I didn’t. But I had trusted him. I never expected him to betray me so brutally.
The version of me that emerged after Simon was someone who met everyone with healthy skepticism. I was still me, but the softest parts of me stayed under lock and key. I chose my friends more carefully—often individually selecting underdogs who knew the sting of vulnerability the way I did.
The ones who proved themselves? I kept them like blood oaths.
So when Nora agreed to dive headfirst into the Gemma investigation with me, I didn’t hesitate. Loyalty recognizes its own.
Too bad loyalty isn’t the same thing as a strategy.
Because as we walk into the Interlachen pro-am charity tournament, I realize we have zero plan for how we’re going to smoke out Gemma’s killer.
Through the window, I can see players and an event tentdotting the golf course. And in the member lounge, a rainbow of golf polos packs the room. Voices rise beneath the glow of the TVs mounted behind the bar. The turnout is larger than I expected.
“Ladies!” Someone near the window waves like we’re old friends.
“So good to see you here,” another trills, squeezing Nora’s arm as she passes.
“I’ve been meaning to call you about doubles,” someone else adds, leaning too far over their cocktail glass.
This is what it’s like now anytime we walk into the club. The crowd parts, but it’s not really out of deference. They want proximity. They want to be seen with us. Heads tilt toward us, laughter roars a little too loud, and I can feel the buzz ripple through the room like champagne foam. Everyone’s sugar-sweet, syrupy with compliments, but it’s the kind of sweet that leaves an unpleasant film in your mouth.
Fake.
I mumble to Nora, “If I shotgun a White Claw right now, you think that would be enough to make us misfits again?”
“Hey, Mrs. Walker. Mrs. Somerset.” Darl, one of the club’s longest-serving bartenders, waves from behind the bar, reaching a hand above the crowd to flag us as we approach. With his free hand, he reaches for a pair of champagne flutes, already knowing.
“Hey, Darl.” I smile, happy to be speaking to someone genuine. But I shake my head at the glasses before he can fill them. “No champagne for us today, I’m afraid.”
And that’s when I get my first view of a weatherman waving his hands over a map on the TV, describing a tropical storm beginning to spin toward the Florida coast.
“While it will still be days before this system makes landfall, we’re keeping an eye on the storm’s path as it enters these warmer waters,” the weatherman says, circling a red-and-orange bloom of storm activity on a giant map.
What fresh hell is this? I already feel like I’m living in a natural disaster.
“That’s the last thing we need,” I say with a sigh. The man in the blue sports coat is still at it, tracing the fiery cluster of radar echoes with a hand and describing a system gathering momentum in the Atlantic.
I’m so fixated on the screen I almost miss Detective Ardell walking through the bar in golf attire. I’m so used to seeing him stuffed into suits and starchy button-downs, the golf getup almost feels like cosplay.
“What’s he doing here?” I whisper to Darl as Ardell turns toward the doors that lead outside.
“He’s been here all day,” Darl answers, looking in Ardell’s direction. “He’s Mr. McGinnis’s guest for the tournament today.”
I freeze.
