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Jeez, I’d totally spaced on Syrah. “Sorry,” I mutter. “Um, things with him are fine. We get along great.” I cringe inwardly. Is that maybe a little too much? “I mean, we get along good. Fine. Fine and good.”
I want to smack my palm against my forehead and shout a successive stream of Idiot, idiot, idiot.
“Fine and good, huh?” Syrah asks, eyeing me suspiciously. “Sure sounds like it.”
She’s no fool; she senses that I’m not telling her everything. But I know my friendship with Bee is throwing her for a loop. She knows me well enough to know that I would never betray another woman by cheating with her man, particularly not a friend, so maybe she’s just chalking up my awkwardness to a harmless crush.
Luckily, the focus is pulled from my guilty conscience when Bee careens her way back into the den with a full-on food cart, one of the ones you get in fancy restaurants where they serve your meals under silver cloches and pronounce “confit” and “sauvignon” correctly.
“Okay, ladies!” she announces. “It’s time to stuff ourselves to the gills and start opening presents!”
“Finally!” Syrah exclaims, clapping her hands together. She throws herself onto the soft white carpet that forms the base of my sitting area and props her elbows on the wooden coffee table. “Which present are you going for first?”
Bee laughs. “Ah, I see the order has been reversed. So be it! Gifts now; food later.”
I reach for Syrah’s gift first. It turns out to be a double whammy: a gift for the baby (a set of three onesies) and a gift for me (a sexy leather bustier).
“That’s for your post-mom bod,” Syrah explains as I hold the bustier up to my chest. “You’re gonna have to find that baby a father at some point, right? Well, this will reel him in hook, line, and sinker.”
I’m glad she doesn’t notice the look Bee shoots me from across the coffee table. Blushing furiously, I thank Syrah with a flying kiss and reach for the next present.
Most of them are for the baby, all of which are expensive and smell of artisanal perfumes, but some are for me. Like a set of poetry books that I mentioned once to Dmitri I’d seen in a bookstore in London but was too broke to buy. I also get a sprawling collection of French creams and perfumes from Bee.
“You’ve done too much, Bee,” I protest. I’m giving her the full credit, all the while knowing that Dmitri is responsible for at least half these presents and the ideas behind them.
I’m not the only one who’s been catching spare scraps and assembling a collage, it seems.
“Nonsense! I’ve done just enough.”
“Wait!” Syrah says urgently, pulling up a thin red envelope wrapped in a dainty silver ribbon. Amidst all the excitement and chaos of unwrapping, it must have slipped under the coffee table. “You missed one.”
“Who do I have to thank for this?” I ask, looking between Syrah and Bee.
Syrah holds up her empty palms. “Sadly. I can’t take credit.”
“Neither can I,” Bee agrees. “Not sure I even noticed that one when the bellboy brought up all the goodies.”
I grin from ear to ear. The envelope has Dmitri’s fingerprints all over it; I’m just hoping it’s not the deed to another apartment. I pull out the glossy papers inside.
… Pictures?
My brain feels like it’s short-circuiting for a moment when I finally take in what I’m seeing. They’re not the glossy, professional prints I was expecting. They’re grainy and pixelated, zoomed in from afar. I’m looking at shady freeze frames from CCTV footage of a dark street in what I’m pretty sure is Chicago.
I catch sight of a street sign and confirm—definitely Chicago. As a matter of fact, that’s the street where…
And why does that car look so familiar…?
“Wren? Is everything alright?”
Is that Bee asking, or Syrah? My heart is hammering so hard against my chest I can’t distinguish between their voices.
I move to the next picture. This one is different. Clearer. I can see the two people sitting in the driver and passenger seat of the car that I could swear is the same one that?—
My blood goes cold instantly.
That’s why the car looks so familiar. When I remember that old Ford Focus, I see it only the way it looked after the accident. Nothing more than a glorified tin can, crushed and bent like the body of an accordion.
“Oh, God…” I whisper.
