Chapter 10
Eight Days Before the Hurricane
“You’re like a baby Picasso,” I say, walking into Nora’s sunroom. She’s sitting by the windows, stretching canvases in the afternoon light.
After Will died, Nora moved into this rental on Trismen Terrace.
A two-story French provincial with a lake view on a quiet dead-end street.
A picturesque clean slate. She turned the sunroom into her studio.
And while I don’t think he’s the reason she picked this house, it doesn’t hurt that Marcus lives nearby.
With Gemma’s murder making every evening hour of the news, I hardly think about setting the two of them up anymore. Today, I’m mostly here to check on her. But I also need to talk her into going with me to Lemon & Fig.
“Shit.” She looks up. Her oversize shirt is soft with wear and splattered with stray brushstrokes and flecks of dried paint. “Sorry, I got distracted.”
Her voice sounds distant, and I cock my head at her. “You okay?”
It’s been five days since Gemma was found, and the news still hangs in the air like a fog, a gloomy reminder of how quickly misfortune can snatch any of us away.
“I like stretching canvases, makes it easy to turn my brain off for a little while. And the news is so…” She makes a vague gesture with her hands.
“Did you see they’re calling Gemma’s death a homicide?
The news said the cause of death was strangulation.
They think the body was staged to look like a hit-and-run. ”
The word hits my veins like ice, and my heart dips between anger for Gemma and something too close to fear.
There’s another killer in Winter Park.
I look at Nora, sitting on the floor, her posture a little slack. I lower myself to sit beside her and put a hand on her back. “This is a lot. I’m sorry.”
“It’s…” she starts, but there’s a lost look in her eyes that won’t let her finish the thought.
It’s not okay. I don’t expect her to say it is. Some things defy acceptance.
“It’s total bullshit,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says before her eyes search mine. “But how are you doing? She was your friend.”
My throat tightens.
Was.
Gemma was the only person from California I let back in.
We lost touch after everything collapsed—or exploded.
I can never really put my finger on which.
When she found me last year, I thought I could dip a toe in the past without the whole wave crashing back.
I told myself it was harmless. I structured our friendship around helping her—coffee and job hunting.
I let myself believe I was in control of how much of California I let in.
Like my old life could stay in a little box under my bed.
But now I’m watching my phone for fresh outreach from a 310 area code like at any minute the device could detonate.
And when I’m not worrying about that, I’m wondering about how the hell Beau got blood on his pocket square the night Gemma died. I’ve thought about confronting him—normally, that’s exactly what I’d do. But something keeps stopping me.
Fear. Denial. Maybe both.
There’s no chance Beau had something to do with Gemma’s death.
But if the blood could be a lead for the police, I can’t rule out the possibility that Ardell would take a harder look at Beau.
Or start asking questions about the fact that I was in Gemma’s apartment the morning she was found.
The police were so quick to pin Will’s murder on Nora, we’d probably jump to the top of their list of suspects after that.
I look at Nora, who I’m supposed to go to a HIIT class with, and sigh. “I know we said we were going to work out today. But what if we skip? Let’s go to Lemon & Fig and get a drink.”
As Gemma’s last known location, the restaurant has been closed off for a few days. But Marcus was given the green light to resume operations yesterday.
And I want to go there to look around.
“Oh, sure,” she answers, picking at a loose thread from the edge of some canvas. “We’ll just skip? Because everyone knows Kyle J is the forgiving type. Remember when Tippy tied her shoe during a warm-up and he made her do a five-minute plank? I thought she was going to pass out.”
The memory of Tippy’s trembling arms and her face splotchy with pain and pure regret makes Nora giggle. I smile. But thoughts of Gemma dull my laughter.
Who would strangle her?
“Kyle J loves being sanctimonious,” I say. “And next week, he’ll get to lecture us about discipline and keeping the promises we make to ourselves. Think of it as a gift to him.”
Nora looks down at the leggings in her hands, considering my case. “He does love lectures.”
I nod solemnly. “Honestly, denying him this moment of self-righteousness would be selfish on our part.”
Nora sighs, finally getting to her feet. “Fine. But if he makes us do extra burpees next time, I’m blaming you.”
“Good luck to him.” I stand. “I’ll be too busy pretending to faint.”
“I’ll go change,” Nora says. “Two minutes.”
As she heads to her bedroom, I wander back toward her living room, brushing my hand across her white sectional. Everything in Nora’s new house is white. The couch, the drapes, the ceramic chandelier. Like she’s trying to bleach out the grief.
Maybe one day she’ll be ready to add the color back in.
A pile of postcards from Mia is stacking up on the counter—Istanbul, Paris, Kyoto.
Will’s first wife, Constance, thought it best to escape the confines of Winter Park for the summer, taking Will’s daughter, Mia, on a monthslong excursion to anywhere but here.
They’ll be back in time for school to start, and in the meantime, Mia sends messages from all corners of the world.
I look past the postcards to my purse. Inside, there’s a plastic sandwich bag that holds Beau’s bloodied pocket square. I’ve taken to carrying it everywhere. It feels safer to have it close, even if I don’t know what “safe” means anymore.
I pull out my phone to search for the news article Nora mentioned, and I quickly find the headline: Park Avenue Death Ruled a Homicide. The words hook into me.
Someone strangled Gemma. California is trying to reach me.
It feels connected, and something like a current is surging beneath my feet, like the past is coming to suck me back in. To finish the job it started years ago.
I catch a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye.
“Fuck!” I jump, putting a hand to my chest.
Nora rounds the corner, dressed and ready. “What’s wrong?”
“You can’t sneak up on people like that!”
“Okay, testy.” She rolls her eyes. “Let’s go get you a drink.”
Nora’s quiet on the short drive over, and when I turn on to Park Avenue, the air in the car thins.
I know from news reports that behind Marcus’s restaurant—in the narrow alley reserved for food delivery and staff parking—Gemma was found on the cracked pavement.
Razor’s edge.
The storefronts of Park Ave are all charm, though.
Even the Lemon & Fig dining room is bright and ordinary when we walk in.
Like this whole place refuses to accept someone was murdered just a few yards away only days ago.
Marcus clocks us the second we walk into the club dining room.
He’s cleaning glasses at the bar with a distant look in his eyes.
The TV behind him is tuned to a golf tournament, and from across the room, the way the TV backlights him makes the grief in his face more pronounced.
He’s got his work smile on, but it’s tenuous.
He meets us at the bar with two flutes of champagne before we can ask.
“Hey, Marcus,” I say. “You doing okay?”
He nods, but something about it feels false. “The vibes of this place are eerie. Everyone’s pretending like nothing happened, but I had to clean up a bunch of police tape to open the restaurant yesterday.”
Nora shivers.
“Gemma liked Lemon & Fig,” I offer, but it feels so futile. “She always said you were one of the best chefs she’s ever worked with.”
Sadness tightens his eyes. “I’ll go grab you guys some menus,” he says softly, rapping a hand on the bar.
He doesn’t need to bother. Nora and I could recite the menu with our eyes closed, but I get the impression he needs a minute. Maybe a minute to himself or a minute away from the shaken look on Nora’s face.
As he disappears, my eyes drift toward the window, to the exact spot I saw the shadowy figure the other night. It feels like the person I saw—or at least, I thought I saw them—might still be standing there. But all I can see now is sunlight washing out the red-brick roads.
Nora and I sip in silence for a few more minutes. And I can’t stop thinking about the police tape Marcus mentioned, how close it was to where we’re sitting now.
Finally, I set my glass aside. “I’m going to run to the bathroom.”
There has to be something here that will make sense of what happened to Gemma. To put an end to whatever this is before it gets worse.
But what’s worse than your husband having bloody clothing the day after your friend is murdered?
As I slip through the hall that leads to the kitchen and a tiny break room, I’m checking over my shoulder. Marcus probably wouldn’t love to know I’m snooping around the employee areas for evidence.
I slink through the swinging door and find a small collection of shelves with a row of cabinets above them and an old-school time clock mounted on the wall. The dust on the clock suggests years of neglect, but I get the sense from the varying conditions of each cubby that they’re still in use.
Each one bears a label-maker sticker on its door, announcing its owner.
My breath catches when my eyes land on the locker in the top-right corner. The sticker on the bottom of the cubby: G. Klein.
The space is a little too deep to see inside, and my pulse quickens as I put my hand in the small compartment to search. But I come up empty.