Chapter 13
Liam is already up — I hear him in the kitchen, quiet, making coffee with the careful movements of a man trying not to disturb.
I lie in bed for one more minute and I think: today.
Today I lose my best friend. Today I find out what happens when you corner something that's been hiding in plain sight for three years.
I get up. Shower. Dress — jeans, a black sweater, flat shoes. Nothing that says this is a special occasion. Just Sunday. Just brunch.
Liam hands me coffee at the counter. He's dressed too — jeans, jacket, keys already in his hand.
"I'll go to Pete's," he says. "Call me when it's done."
"Thank you."
He hesitates. Then he puts his hand on my shoulder — not a hug, not a kiss, just a hand. Warm pressure through the sweater. "You're brave, Danielle."
"I'm angry."
"That too." He drops his hand. "Good luck."
The door closes behind him at 8:52. I watch from the window as he walks to his car, gets in, drives away. Then I turn to face my apartment.
The ranunculus are still white on the coffee table. The bread I baked last night is sliced on a board. Coffee is ready in the pot. Seven mugs on the counter — I had to borrow three from the cabinet above the fridge, the ones we never use.
It looks like I'm hosting brunch. I am hosting brunch. Just not the one Kate expects.
* * *
9:15. A knock. Rachel — first to arrive. She's wearing a gray coat and her hair is down and she looks like any other woman on a Sunday morning. Except her jaw is set and her eyes are scanning my apartment the way mine scanned Kate's — looking for exits, angles, the geometry of the space.
"Living room?" she asks.
"Yes. Couch faces the door. She'll walk in and the first thing she sees is whoever is on the couch."
Rachel nods. "Good. We sit. She stands. Natural power position for us."
9:22. Nina. Still in her jacket from the drive. She hugs me — quick, tight. "Did you sleep?"
"Some."
"Me neither."
9:28. Lauren. Blazer, of course. Laptop bag over her shoulder — the exposure package, ready. She sets it by the couch without a word.
9:31. Sadie. Red curls pulled back. Camera around her neck — I look at it and she catches my expression. "Not to photograph her. To photograph us. After. If we want."
9:35. Amy. Quieter than the others. She takes the armchair by the window and folds her hands in her lap and breathes slowly.
9:41. Cara. Last to arrive. She stands in my doorway for a full ten seconds before stepping inside. I touch her arm. "You don't have to say anything. Just being here is enough."
"I know," she says. "I want to say it though. I need to."
* * *
9:47. Seven women in my living room. Coffee poured. No one is eating the pastries. The bread is untouched. We're all looking at each other with the particular stillness of people waiting for something inevitable.
"Phones silent," Rachel says. Everyone reaches into pockets and purses.
"How do we want to be sitting when she walks in?" Lauren asks.
We arrange ourselves. Rachel on the couch, center. Sadie and Nina flanking her. Lauren in the armchair to the right. Amy and Cara on the loveseat. Me — I'll be at the door. I'll let her in. I'll walk her to the living room. I'll be the last thing she sees before she sees them.
"What if she runs?" Nina asks.
"She won't," Rachel says. "She'll want to know what we know. That's her nature — she collects information. She'll stay to assess the threat."
"And if she cries?" Cara asks.
"Then she cries," Sadie says. "But we don't stop."
9:53. Seven minutes.
I go to the kitchen. I grip the counter. My fingers find the piping bag I left in the drawer — the practice one, pre-loaded with royal icing from yesterday. I squeeze it once. Hard. The icing breaks through the tip and blots onto the counter in a shapeless dollop.
Not a rosette. Not a shell. Not a border. Just pressure released.
I wipe it with a paper towel. I put the piping bag back.
I'm ready.
* * *
10:00 AM. My phone buzzes. Kate: Downstairs! Buzzing up
I press the intercom. "Come on up."
The building door clicks. I hear it through the intercom speaker — the distant thud of the lobby door, then footsteps on the stairs.
Third floor. She takes stairs instead of the elevator because she says it's her only exercise.
I've heard her say that a dozen times. Laughing. Self-deprecating. Kate.
Knock knock. Her rhythm — always the same. Two quick raps with her knuckle.
I open the door.
She's standing there with a paper bag from the bagel place and her smile and her gold hoops and that vanilla perfume and she looks exactly like my best friend. Exactly like the woman who held my hair and drove two hours and ugly-cried at my wedding.
"Danny!" She leans in for the hug. I let her. One last time. Her arms around me, her chin on my shoulder, the warmth of her body against mine.
"Come in," I say. "I made coffee."
"You're an angel." She kicks off her shoes — the way she always does, flats toed off at the door, lined up neat. She pads in sock feet toward the kitchen.
"Actually," I say. "Let's go to the living room. I set up in there."
She turns. Paper bag in hand. "Oh fancy."
She walks ahead of me. Three steps down the hallway to the living room. She turns the corner.
She stops.
* * *
The paper bag doesn't drop. That's the detail I notice — the photographer's eye, catching the wrong thing. She doesn't drop the bagels. She holds them. Her hand tightens on the brown paper and the bag crinkles and she holds them against her chest like a shield.
Six women on my furniture. All looking at her. All silent.
Kate doesn't scream. She doesn't run. She stands perfectly still in my living room doorway and her eyes move — fast, systematic — from face to face. Rachel. Sadie. Nina. Lauren. Amy. Cara.
I watch her process it. Watch the recognition land. Not all of them — she might not recognize Cara or Amy immediately. But Rachel. She recognizes Rachel. I see it in the micro-flicker of her left eyelid. The smallest twitch.
"Danny?" Her voice is careful. Controlled. She doesn't turn around to face me. "Who are these people?"
I step around her. Into the room. I stand in front of the coffee table, facing her. Between her and the door would require passing all of us.
"Sit down, Kate." My voice doesn't shake. I'm surprised by that. "Or Vanessa. Or Megan. Or Jess. Or Hannah. Or Brooke. Whichever name you'd prefer."
The bag crinkles again. Her knuckles white against the paper.
She doesn't sit. She doesn't leave. She stands in my doorway and she looks at me and for the first time in three years I see something behind her eyes that isn't warmth or performance or charm — just calculation.
Pure and fast. The same look a camera has when it's autofocusing — searching for the sharpest point, the thing to lock onto.
She's deciding what to do.
"Okay," she says quietly. And she walks to the single empty chair — the dining chair I placed across from the couch, facing all of us. She sits. She puts the bagels on the floor beside her.
"Okay," she says again. "Tell me what you think you know."
Rachel looks at me. The room looks at me.
I take a breath.
"I'll start."