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“Seriously, though, don’t think you’re doing this just for Miles,” she says. “If Royal doesn’t have any actual skeletons in his closet, you’re helping clear an innocent man. If nothing else, you’re satisfying your own curiosity—okay, fine, our curiosity. Also, if we get arrested, my husband will bail us out.”
I roll my eyes. “So, we’re reliving our dumb teen years.”
“Works for me!” She laughs, but then she sobers up. “For the record, I think once this issue with his father clears up, you’ll have a chance to talk it out with the rich idiot—if you want to.”
“I don’t.”
That’s a heaping lie.
Seeing Miles again is all I think about.
If he won’t come to his senses, a little closure would be nice.
That doesn’t make this healthy, though.
“If we do it, we need to be extremely careful, Pippa. We’ll do it for everyone else who works there. Cromwell-Narada has been on a steady decline since the stories broke, and I don’t want the junior marketers I helped losing their jobs over this.”
I shudder, thinking that Smokey Dave might never leave his house again if he has too much downtime.
“Can I ask you something, Jenn? If you’re so over Miles, why keep up with his company at all?”
I sigh.
She’s known me too long to buy any little white lies.
She also knew how intense my feelings for the jerky grumpwad were before I did.
“I’ll never be completely over him. If I can help with this, I have to. I don’t want this company failing. He’ll only blame himself. I know, I know it doesn’t matter. It’s not like he’s even called me since it happened.”
She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand.
“It gets better. Keep the vigil going. Brock and I went through pure hell for a while, too. Relationships are just hard, but if love was a cakewalk, it wouldn’t be worth it.”
“Can we get a drink before we do this?” I ask.
“I’ve never said no to liquid courage,” Pippa says with a smirk.
We haven’t checked into our room at the little lodge just outside the Hoh Rainforest yet, but we walk past the front desk, down a long hallway of transitional style worn wood and green hues leading to the main bar.
I’m about to enter, but Pippa grabs my arm. “Wait.”
“What’s up?”
She holds up her phone and looks at a woman sitting alone at the corner of the bar. “That’s her.”
Yep.
Definitely her.
She’s still wearing the same outfit, this white sweater with black stripes crisscrossing it.
“Game time,” Pippa whispers eagerly.
“Whoa. I’m not sure I’m ready for this. What about the liquid courage?”
“Jenn, you can’t miss the chance,” she hisses eagerly.
Unfortunately, she’s right.
My legs feel like cement as we move toward the classy bar and Ava Wickes comes fully into view.
She’s slouched over, staring at her drink, a black espresso martini that looks like it’s strong and probably not her first of the day. Her forehead creases as she rubs her face, deep lines carved by emotion rather than age.
She rubs her eyes like she’s trying to banish away a weariness down to her bones.
“She looks stressed for a lady on vacation,” I whisper. “Pippa, I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t bother her.”
“We so should. Get ready,” Piper whispers back.
I hold in a sigh as we sit down beside her, leaving just one seat empty between us.
We order a couple glasses of wine and pretend to talk about our dogs.
Pippa keeps nodding too sharply, jerking her head at the woman behind me, while I sputter through sips of wine and shrug every time.
So much for liquid courage.
But Pippa doesn’t let me flounder for long.
While she’s still laughing about Cream bringing me raw oysters from the beach last week, she turns her stool, looks over, and gasps slightly.
“Oh. Oh, hey! Don’t you know Michelle Wickes?”
Ava looks up slowly and blinks like she needs a few seconds to center herself. “Yes. She’s my oldest daughter. How do you know her?”
“We follow her TikTok,” I say from over Pippa’s shoulder. “Huge fans. Really.”
“I knew it! You were in her Insta stories this morning making coffee, weren’t you? Nice pumpkin latte!” Pippa gushes.
Ava pulls on a smile that doesn’t look totally forced. “That’s my little girl. Always posting stuff I tell her not to share with me. I’m too old to entertain the world, but you know how kids are today.”
“For sure. My kid sister’s the same way,” Pippa says.
I smile at Ava warmly. It’s easy to latch on to the one thing we might have in common.
I just wonder what her bright-eyed daughter will think if it turns out her mother’s a liar who’s being bribed to spread rumors about an elderly man who’s mentally incapacitated.
“I can’t complain,” Ava continues, lifting her martini. “Michelle’s social media is basically the reason we’re here. The resort comped us a tourist package for her to come out and do some videos. The fall nature walks in the forest are always a huge draw.”
