CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 7
Doesn’t Everyone Know You Shouldn’t Drink the Water on Vacation?
“So, let me get this straight,” Harper says as we hike up the stone-strewn path to the hot tubs where Emma asked me to meet her. They’re near the top of the steep hill above the villas, and I feel more winded than I should as I grip the guide rope and push my calves up, up, up. “Tyler Houston’s probably been sending her threatening messages, and that’s been going on for a while, including the other day when the last note said someone was going to die at the wedding and then on the agenda a murder is announced?”
I gulp in some air and almost swallow a bug. Gross.
“Yes, but she doesn’t know who’s sending the messages. We don’t know for sure that it’s Tyler.”
She glances back at me over her shoulder. She seems unbothered by the climb, which shouldn’t surprise me but somehow does. “But she did sleep with him?”
“Yes. Years ago.”
“And he’s pissed about her marrying Fred?”
“Yes.”
“And Fred owes him money?”
“Yes, but that was from before Emma and Fred got together.”
Harper shakes her head, then turns back to the path. Her hair’s up in a tight bun, and she’s wearing a jungle-print sheer kaftan over her bathing suit. She looks elegantly perfect as always, and if she weren’t my sister and my favorite person in the world besides Emma, I’d probably hate her. 35
“Do you think someone wants to kill her?”
I shudder with a sense of déjà vu. I’ve been asked this question before, and the answer turned out to be yes.
But the problem when you do what I do for a living is that you’re always seeing murder around every corner.
It doesn’t mean it’s there.
But it’s not not there either.
“I think we need to take the threats seriously until proven otherwise.”
“Good idea.” Harper stops to read a sign. It’s two white hands—one pointing toward the TENNIS COURTS and one toward the SERENITY POOLS . “And someone’s also threatening her on Twitter?”
“Yeah,” I say as I pull up next to her. “Give me your phone and we can look together.”
She gives me her best Who, me? look. “What makes you think I have my phone?”
I put my hands on my hips, resisting the urge to bend over and breathe upside down like I used to do in gym class. “Did I just meet you yesterday?”
“Okay, fine.” She pulls it out of her pocket and hands it to me.
I go to the handle Emma told me about and read the posts. I flick through to the oldest, which was the same week we got the green light for the film.
@Emmaswooden Emma Wood has been cast in When in Rome. What a waste. The fandom deserves better!
@Emmaswooden Who’d she sleep with to get this job? @AnonPLZ you must know!
@Emmaswooden I bet it’s Tyler Houston. That guy’s a creeper of the first order.
@Emmaswooden Rachel Brosnahan deserved that part, but she would never!
@Emmaswooden Seems like Emma Wood is up to her old tricks on set. Sleeping her way right to the bottom.
@Emmaswooden Fred Winter can do better! Our Connor deserves a *real* Cecilia.
@Emmaswooden I wouldn’t marry him if I were you. You’ll regret it.
And on and on. None of the tweets are particularly vicious given what Emma normally has to put up with online. But she’s right, there’s something insidery about them. Something targeted.
“If it wasn’t for the other things, I’d say these were lucky guesses,” Harper says. “But with the other notes...”
“Why would anyone announce that there’s going to be a murder, though?”
“To instill fear. Like that Agatha Christie book.”
“ A Murder Is Announced .”
“What happened in that one, again?” Harper asks.
“Someone publishes an ad in the local paper saying a murder will take place at a certain time and location, and then it does. Miss Marple is staying in the town for a spa treatment and she gets involved in solving the case.”
“Naturally. But spa treatment? That’s a little on the nose given where we’re headed.”
“No one dies at the spa.”
“That’s so reassuring.”
“At least we’re not the target this time.”
Harper taps me on the shoulder. “ I was never the target.”
“Fine.” I hand her back her phone. “I wonder, though...These messages started before it was public that she and Fred were dating. So if it is Tyler, that wasn’t what set him off.”
“Or he knew about it already.”
“That’s possible.”
“The tweets make him look bad, too, though. ‘Sleeping to the bottom’? Would a guy write that about himself?”
“I agree with you. There’s something feminine about the tweets, as Miss Marple might say.”
“Or someone wants it to look that way.”
“Right. Well, we’re not going to solve it this minute. We should get to the hot tubs.”
Harper blows a curl off of her forehead. “I’m not going to want to get into a hot tub after this.”
“It’s what the bride wants.”
“I’m not even in the wedding party.”
“That wasn’t my decision.” I tug on her sleeve. “Come on, let’s go. Emma will be annoyed if we don’t show soon.”
“How much further?”
“Not far now.”
“Okay, Papa Smurf.”
We give each other a sad smile—this was a thing we’d do with our dad when he forced us to go hiking as kids. 36 Then we continue up the path, my calves protesting, and after a few more minutes of exertion, we get to the outdoor spa.
It’s breathtaking—a set of dark wooden pools wedged into the hillside with an unobstructed view of the Descanso Beach Club and its private beach. It also feels eerie because there’s no one on the beach, just a few boats bobbing in the bay, the blue beach umbrellas snapping in the wind.
We’re not alone up here, though. Emma’s standing with her hands on her hips, wearing a white cover-up over her white bikini.
All white is the real theme of the weekend, not murder.
Ha ha, kidding.
It’s murder.
“Took you long enough,” she says.
“Please tell me one of those pools is cold,” I say, my face burning from the exertion.
“Yes, actually.” She points to the one that’s farthest away. “You’re supposed to do a circuit. Cold, warm, hot, and then the whole circuit again.”
“And the purpose of this circuit is?”
“Realigning something.”
I smother a laugh. She knows I’m not into all that chi business. “And if I don’t want to be realigned?”
She puts out a fake pout. “You’ll do it for me.”
“What about me?” Harper says.
Emma gives Harper her most charming of smiles. “You’ll do it for me, too, won’t you?”
Harper melts a little. I can’t blame her. Emma’s good at this.
She’s dazzling.
“Which one are we supposed to start with again?” I ask.
“Oh,” Simone says, coming around a corner of the path. “I thought I’d be alone.”
“I guess we had the same idea,” Emma says, but not in a mean way.
She likes Simone, she’s told me, even if she’s a bit harsh sometimes. But some women feel like they have to be in this business or they’ll be dismissed.
“Is she a bitch, or is she a woman?” Emma likes to ask, and it’s a fair question.
The problem is that Simone isn’t a nice person.
You don’t have to take my word for it. There’s at least one Variety article where she isn’t named, but the anonymous complainants are for sure talking about how hard she is to work for.
I mean, it could be another South Asian film director who got her start directing a big star’s first film, 37 but the odds are low.
“Sure,” Simone says, holding on to the ends of the towel she has draped around her neck. She’s got a red one-piece on that pops against her dark skin. She looks strong, too, with those long, lean muscles you get from Pilates.
In high school, she was the lead cheerleader and the captain of the debate team, and she ran around with a crowd that we called the “glitterati,” which was made up exclusively of current and future prom kings and queens. Her crew generated three actors you’ve heard of and one supermodel. To give you some idea of how extra they were, Simone is probably the least successful of her cohort.
“Hi, Simone,” I say.
“Oh, hi, Eleanor. I didn’t see you there.”
Right, sure, I’m invisible suddenly. Though that would be a cool power to have.
Or maybe not. I probably don’t want to hear what people have to say about me when they think I’m not there.
Besides, I already have my Amazon reviews for that.
“You remember Harper?”
She looks at her blankly, then nods slowly. “You all getting in?”
“I’m starting with the cold pool,” I say.
Simone frowns. “I think you’re supposed to do hot, medium, cold.”
“Emma just said the opposite.”
“Your choice.”
“ My choice, I think,” Emma says with a bright smile.
“What? Oh, yes, of course. You’re the bride.”
“Crazy, right?”
Simone takes the towel off her neck. “You think so?”
There’s an odd beat of tension I can’t place, and then it clears like the clouds racing across the sun. And maybe that’s all it was—a shadow.
But—and I know I’ve said this already—there’s a storm coming.
You can feel it in the air like an electric current.
“How do you think the movie will turn out?” I ask Simone.
“What? Oh, great, of course.”
“The dailies I saw looked good.”
I hate to admit it, but it’s true.
Simone’s cinematographer has a real eye, and the acting was good.
Not that I have admitted it to Simone. Just to you. And you’ll keep my secret, right?
“They sent you dailies?” Simone’s voice rises an octave.
“I’m an executive producer.”
She gives me a hard stare. “And you went to film school?”
“No.”
“So you watched the dailies why, exactly?”
“Was I not supposed to watch them?”
“You can do whatever you want, Eleanor, as has always been the case.”
I’m about to say something when Harper puts her hand on my arm to stop me.
Which is for the best. It’s Emma’s wedding, and whatever feud I have with Simone needs to be buried.
At least for this weekend.
Then we can go back to ignoring each other.
“I’d love to cool off,” I say, “so I think I’m going in the cold pool first, if you don’t mind, Emma?”
“I’m right behind you.”
“Suit yourself,” Simone says.
I turn my back on Simone’s disapproval and Harper follows me to the edge of the pool that is marked as COLD .
We strip off our cover-ups, and then something occurs that feels like it goes in slow motion but has to have happened in real time because we’re not in a Marvel movie.
Harper’s holding her cover-up, and the way she folds it releases her phone from her pocket.
Emma snatches it up from the ground and playfully holds it away from Harper over the water.
Harper snatches at it, but all she does is bat it from Emma’s hand.
Harper tries to catch it before it hits the water, but doesn’t quite make it.
It lands in the water, floating there before it begins to sink.
The water starts to spark and smoke, the air filling with an acrid stench.
We stand there staring at the dying phone for a moment, and then Emma lets out a dramatic scream that pierces the quiet day and sends a flock of birds into flight, their wings beating hard against the thickening air.
35 I bet you thought I was going to say that I do hate her sometimes, but I don’t . Truly.
36 If you know, you know.
37 It was a cheesy rom-com staring Fred. He went on to be a big star, and she lingered in obscurity directing Lifetime movies to pay the rent. I guess I’d be bitter, too.