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I don’t think it’s even eight o’clock in the morning, and everything is on fire.
This is not fine.
As I stagger out of bed and hoist my pajama pants up to head for the bedroom door with a light touch for Elle’s shoulder, Rick babbles in my ear.
“Mr. Marshall?” he says breathlessly. “You need to get down here. Right now.”
“Where the fuck is here?” I demand, heading down the hall to make that damnable ringing stop. Who the hell would show up at my door instead of just sending a text?
“The office. Not ours, but Marissa Sullivan’s office—”
I yank the door open while Rick keeps talking.
I almost don’t recognize the man on my doorstep.
I’ve only met him once via video call.
Mr. Carlton, the private detective.
He’s a slim man in a suit, neat and precise. Not at all the image of the grizzled PI you’d expect. He glances at the phone against my ear and smiles thinly, keeping silent as he mouths, Good morning, Mr. Marshall.
He offers me a manila envelope under his arm.
I nod tersely, take it and pry the prongs open, and spill a stack of pages and photographs into my hand.
Then I stop cold.
What Rick just said clicks in my brain through the chaos swirling around me.
“She did what?” I snarl into the phone. “Repeat that.”
Even as I’m talking, I’m leaning into my office next to the front door, fumbling around with a hidden pocket safe to find my checkbook.
My heart is fucking pounding hard enough to drive nails. I need something to keep my hands busy, anything, so I rip off a check for probably three times the amount we agreed on, thrust it at Carlton, and slam the door in his face.
I don’t have time for niceties right now. Not after what Merrick’s just said.
“Miss Marshall. Clara,” Rick repeats breathlessly. “She left on her own to meet Miss Sullivan. She asked me to drive her, and I said you wouldn’t be happy about that, so she took an Uber.”
“Shit.” That bullheaded, impetuous woman. We’re too much alike, my aunt and I. I slump against the wall, holding the phone against my ear with my shoulder, rifling through the pages. “Call Deb. Her apartment’s closer to Marissa’s office. Get her over there ASAP. I’ll be there soon. We need to do damage control—”
I freeze.
While I’m talking, I’ve been flicking through the pages of the PI’s report, absorbing his summary.
Marissa developing a drinking habit after her father’s death. Her drinking affecting her publishing operations, sending everything into decline. It’s clear now why she blames Little Key and wants to absorb it, taking what she feels is her birthright to compensate for the failures she feels drove her father to his early death.
More about her surviving mother, Yvette Sullivan, Lester’s widow. She’s apparently estranged from Marissa. No contact in years, not since before the drinking started. Yvette currently lives in a rural town in Minnesota, retired and raising chickens, according to her Instagram bio.
But that’s not what makes me stop cold.
It’s a fuzzy photo taken in what looks like Bainbridge. Marissa would live somewhere like Bainbridge, I suppose.
Which is where Rick is meeting her.
In my car.
It’s a rainy night. Probably right after he dropped Elle and me off for our movie date.
