Chapter 8
I drive back from Gemma’s in a daze—operating on autopilot while my mind is stuck in her nearly empty apartment, where Ardell might still be.
Why did he act like another homicide investigation is unfolding? Didn’t he say it was an accident?
Ardell must know more than he is letting on.
Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Este.
The hairs at the nape of my neck prickle as I flash back to the figure from last night, outside Lemon & Fig, lingering in the dark.
I questioned whether it was real. It easily could have been a trick of the eye, a by-product of the headlights flickering across Park Avenue’s brick roads, shadows jumping as cars pass.
But now, the messages feel like confirmation of what I feared: The figure I saw outside Marcus’s window was real.
And if 310 is who I think it is, things are only going to get worse.
I pick up my phone and swipe the message away as I ease onto Isle of Sicily Road, slowing when I spot Ford McGinnis in his driveway.
He’s unloading his golf bag from the back of his SUV. He glances up as I stop and roll down my window.
“Hey, Este.” He lifts a hand in greeting, clubs slung casually over his shoulder.
In the afternoon light, he fits the pro athlete persona perfectly—sun-browned skin, movie-star smile.
But my eyes drop to his legs. And despite what Polly told me this morning, I notice how uninjured his knee seems. Not a brace in sight.
“Ford, hi,” I say carefully. “Nice to see you in town. Beau said you guys were going to play a round this morning, but then…”
“Just got back,” he says easily, shifting the bag higher on his shoulder. “Managed to get a few holes in, though.”
His tone is almost breezy. Like he’s not casually talking around the fact that everyone else has been at the police station about a murder investigation.
And I can’t stop staring at the knee Polly swore was hurt.
No limp. No hesitation as he pivots toward his front door.
Strong, steady, as if he could walk eighteen holes without breaking a sweat.
“I didn’t see you at the station earlier,” I say, keeping my voice light.
He pauses, and his face falls, like he’s working to affect a somber attitude about the day’s events. “I was sorry to hear about the waitress from the party last night.”
“She was a manager, actually,” I correct before I can stop the words. Once they’ve left my mouth, though, they feel defensive.
“Sure,” he says. “Really too bad.” He’s silent for another beat before he flashes me that famous McGinnis grin.
“My team talked to the police. We all agreed I should stay clear until they’ve got their facts straight.
If they need a statement, they know where to find me.
After the time my lawyers and publicity had last year cleaning up Heidi’s and my breakup, it’s better for me to keep a low profile. ”
Of course he lawyered up. That’s what pros do—protect themselves first. I should expect nothing less from someone who’s lived half his life in front of cameras. To me, in this moment, though, he looks like a man with something to lose.
But he’s hardly ever here. He’s smart not to risk his reputation on another scandal involving people he barely knows.
“Smart.” I nod, pretending to mean it. “Well, welcome home.”
“Good to be back,” he says, his smile holding steady.
But the dissonance clings to me like the humidity in the air. He’s too polished, too unbothered. And that knee? It was supposed to be injured.
His gaze lingers like he’s reading something I don’t want written on my face, and then he nods once, leaving me no choice but to keep driving.
When I come through the door, Beau is in the kitchen. “Are you hungry?” he asks. “Did you and Nora eat?”
“No,” I murmur as I angle my head to try to get another look at Ford and his driveway from the front window.
Beau walks over and gives me a hug. “You doing all right? You want to take the boat out?” he asks, like maybe some fresh air will help.
I look back toward the foyer, where Gemma stood yesterday.
“Este?” Beau is looking at me, and I can tell I’ve missed a cue. Something he’s said that I didn’t respond to.
“Sorry. What?”
“You want to go out on the boat?” he asks again.
I shake my head, my mind swimming through questions about Gemma and Ford, her apartment, and what anyone might know about what happened to her.
And when I come up for air, the 310 text messages clobber me again.
The thought of moving from where I’m standing seems perilous.
“Well, I’ve been meaning to put gas in it. I’m going to run it over to the station,” Beau says. “I’ll be back in a few.”
With that, he kisses me quickly, then heads down to the dock. I step toward the sliding doors that lead to our backyard and the view of the lake, watching him lower the lift and pull the cover off the boat.
That’s when I notice what’s not on the pool deck. The chaise near the outdoor shower is empty. I head outside to be sure, checking for where Beau might have discarded his clothes from last night. There’s nothing.
But he was drinking and smoking cigars at the club until the early morning hours. So where is everything?
As I’m following the question back inside, the boat engine revs to life down by the dock.
I walk around the rooms, scanning them for more information about what time Beau got home or where he came in. Or maybe more to the point: What the hell happened last night?
The living room looks normal, though. So do the master bathroom and the guest bathrooms. But when I pass the laundry room, a small puddle in front of the washing machine stops me midstep.
Without a second thought, I lunge toward the machine, pulling open the door only to find Beau’s dry-clean-only blazer is slumped in the bottom of the washing machine.
The faint scent of soap rises from the drum.
What the fuck?
I’m so transfixed by the lines of the fabric sagging in a crumpled mess in the stainless steel drum that the sound of my own phone ringing startles me.
It’s Nora.
“Hey.” I pick up, still dazed, unable to take my eyes away from Beau’s ruined suit.
“What the hell happened with Beau?”
I shake my head for a second, reminding myself that my best friend is not a mind reader, she’s probably calling for an update on Beau’s trip to the police station.
“Chief Kennedy called in everyone who stayed late last night. Autumn, Beau, Tippy, Shep. He called Ford, too. But Ford didn’t go. Do you think that’s weird? Can people opt out of a police interview like that?”
“I don’t actually know,” she says. And then I think she says, “Can I do anything to help?”
But I don’t realize that my mind has wandered back to the washing machine drum until Nora says my name.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Este?”
“Fine.” I snap out of it and try to perk up. “Sorry.”
“Want to grab a drink at the Racquet Club?” she asks.
I want to say yes. I know I should. Dulling the edges with a drink would be easier than standing here, staring at Beau’s suit in my washing machine.
Easier than the sharp feeling in my chest and the certainty that something isn’t right.
I want to go to the club and spill all of this to Nora, but I don’t even know what this is.
Figuring that part out first feels like the most important thing.
I can’t move. My feet feel cemented to the laundry room tile—a tile I chose when we bought the house, ceramic discs in a cool-toned blue meant to catch the sunlight streaming in from the lake.
I recall how opulent it seemed at the time that even our laundry room had a lake view.
But standing in front of the washing machine now, all I can feel is the water pooling beneath my feet.
When I finally lift my gaze, my eyes drift toward a window. Beau and our boat are nowhere to be seen. I turn my head back toward the waterlogged suit in my washing machine. An uneasy feeling creeps up the back of my neck.
“Este?” Nora says again.
“I can’t,” I hear myself say. And I think it’s the first time in our friendship that I’ve blown Nora off.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I have a headache. I’ll call you in a while.”
“I can bring wine over to your place if you change your mind.”
There’s something almost lonely in her voice, and it hits me: I’ve been a shitty friend for not asking how she’s taking the news. “Are you okay, Nora?”
“I mean, I’m sad. Gemma was so nice.”
“She was.”
The finality of the past tense hangs in the air a moment. But I can still see Gemma through the years in my mind.
“Why don’t you call me later if you need me?” Nora suggests in a rush and hangs up.
God. She’s probably retraumatized. I’m an asshole.
I promise myself I’m going to check on her in an hour.
But I can’t call her back now. I’m stuck between my own grief and something new. Something that feels insidious and wrong.
Why did Beau wash his suit?
I reach into the washing machine drum, feeling an urgency that edges toward panic. Last night, the blazer felt soft to the touch, but the expensive material has gone coarse and dry under a cycle of water and some plant-based powdered laundry detergent.
I pull out the jacket, wondering if reshaping it on a hanger will give it hope for survival.
But the creases crushed into the once-smooth lapel aren’t a good sign.
I shake it out, hoping to loosen the wrinkles.
The fabric makes a snapping sound with every rough flap.
On my third and final thwack, something falls out of one of Beau’s pockets and drops to the tile in a limp, wet heap.
Draping the jacket over a hanger before I check the floor, I’m expecting a loose collar stay or errant golf ball marker.
Maybe a loose button popped off the suit. But it’s none of those things.
It’s Beau’s pocket square from last night. But the blue and white floral silk I helped him choose is soaking wet and marred with red splotches.
Blood.
My cheeks flush hot, and I snatch the pocket square like it’s a lifeline.
As if the answers to what happened last night might be woven into the fabric.
I study it carefully, picturing the way Beau folded it last night before tucking it into his blazer pocket.
I bought it for him a few years ago on some absentminded shopping day on Park Ave.
It’s such an ordinary accessory in my memory. But it looks completely wrong now.
The room spins a little as my brain races to conjure some reasonable explanation for how Beau got blood on it.
And why his suit is in the washing machine.
I go back to the other pieces of his outfit from last night, scanning for any more stains.
But there’s nothing. Then I remember how he seemed in bed this morning.
Like he hadn’t slept and something was churning behind his eyes.
No. That’s ridiculous.
I pull out my phone.
I used to be so good in a crisis, and I loved sleuthing.
When I worked for Simon, he would give me half of a name in passing conversation and ask me to find out where this vague, barely named person worked four years prior.
Or he’d ask me to schedule a lunch for him “at that place,” and I wouldn’t even blink as he’d add something unhelpful, like “The one I like with the salad? Near that landmark I can’t recall? ”
Back then, a quest to find certainty in a half-baked assembly of information was my idea of fun.
My years as a curious kid, sitting with my parents in university libraries, had taught me the value of archived records and the Dewey decimal system.
My love for cross-referencing categories and details until I could find precisely what I wanted deep amidst the dusty aisles of books that shaped my childhood on rainy New England weekends paid off mightily once I got to California.
Now, as I open Gemma’s Instagram page, I have to push my grief down. Somewhere in this grid of pictures and moments, there must be something that can explain what the hell happened last night.
I scroll past FitCheck selfies of Gemma dressed for work and an afternoon drive to the beach.
Gemma liked snarky internet jokes. She documented decorating her new apartment—the one that’s bare now.
She sometimes tried @livforpasta’s TikTok recipes and then took pictures of them—the wins and the fails.
She lived alone with a ficus named Albert, flourishing near a sunny spot at her bedroom window.
Instagram Gemma is the Gemma I know. Sharp, funny. But my mind flashes back to her empty apartment. Why didn’t she tell me she was moving? Did Gemma have a secret?
What if her profile persona is nothing more than some smoothed-over decoy? How well did I know her?
I want to throw my phone across the room and burst into tears for the friend who came here chasing a new life. I saw her yesterday, and today she’s gone. It’s cruel and almost too unreal to stomach.
It takes effort to keep scrolling.
I’m about to give up when my eyes catch on a picture of her sitting in a window seat.
She’s tucked into a bench seat as the light casts a glow over her features.
The ornate carvings in the window molding—detailed flowers and vines sculpted into amber wood—suggest she’s somewhere with old-world opulence. A hotel maybe? Or a library?
The picture’s time stamp is a week old and underneath it the caption reads, “When he catches you in the perfect light…”
“He”? There was a guy? She never mentioned that.
I shake my head to clear my mind, reminding myself there’s always a perfectly good explanation for things. There’s always an answer. But I don’t have one. Not one I like anyway.
Because the only answer I can come up with is that Beau knows something about what happened to Gemma last night.
I need to talk to him. If he knows something, he’ll tell me. Because from the day we met, Beau’s always been honest with me.