Chapter Twenty-Six
TWENTY-SIX
I reach out to press snooze on my alarm before I remember it’s Saturday and I didn’t set one. My phone is still trilling away, so I pull it from its charger and answer it without thinking. “Hello?”
“Fliss?” A fuzzy voice comes down the line and I peel my eyes open to glance at the caller ID. Dad.
“Hey.” I sit up, eyes widening as I realize Izzy isn’t in the room. How did I not hear her get up? Was she sick again? I try to keep my voice light. “How are you guys?”
“Finally got a break from the storm, but the weather still isn’t great,” he says as I slip out of bed.
He hasn’t opened by saying the neighbors snitched on me, so that’s a good thing.
“Listen, a handful of boats are running, but just to transport cargo and let some of the staff get home for now. The airline said we can get a flight home tomorrow, so I tried to bribe our way onto a boat, but no one is having it.”
“Dad, it’s fine, we’re looking after each other,” I say quickly, peering into the bathroom and Dad’s room. No Izzy, but the other bed has been stripped, and I feel a sense of relief. She must be up and about. “Honestly, I know you’ll be home as soon as you can.”
“I will, I promise. You want me to talk to your mom?”
“No, I’ll do it. We are fine,” I say, poking my head into the kitchen, where the whir of the washing machine becomes more obvious.
“Okay. How’s the program going? One week down already!”
“It’s been good. Actually, I’m researching the self-portrait we found, like you suggested.”
“You are?” I pause as Dad’s voice softens. “That’s really cool, Fliss. I knew you’d come round to art eventually. Maybe you can tell me about it when we get home?”
“Sure.” I smile. He sounds all sappy now, but wait until I tell him exactly what I’m researching.
“Brilliant. Listen, do you want me to call Izzy’s mom and explain what’s happening? She wasn’t too happy last time I spoke to her.”
God, no. “No, don’t worry,” I say aloud. “She’s got a lot going on at the moment. I’ll fill you in when you get home. I’ll get Iz to call her later and check in.”
“G—I—ur mom—ater.” The line distorts his voice. Something about Mom?
“Dad? You’re breaking up.”
“Is—at—etter?” he says loudly, as though he can shout through the bad line. I stifle a laugh.
“Dad, go and enjoy the rest of the holiday. Say hi to Kim from me. I’ll call Mom later, and I’ll text if I need anything.”
“Okay, Fliss,” he says, and I can hear a smile in his voice as the line clears again. “And I’ll tell Kim. She’ll like that.”
I roll my eyes. “All right. Bye, Dad.”
“Bye, honey.”
I enter the empty living room, grateful that Jen and Noah cleaned up last night.
I smile as the memory of the kiss comes flooding back, and I do a goofy little twirl while I’m alone.
My knees ache at the movement, and I see little bruises have blossomed across them.
I should give them a proper clean in the shower, make sure there’s no more glass, but for now I drop onto the sofa and scroll on my phone—no text from Noah, but there is one from Izzy.
Izzy: Gone to get breakfast, back soon!
It’s timestamped almost twenty minutes ago, so she must be on her way back by now. I send a reply to let her know I’m awake, and she immediately gives it a little thumbs-up and responds.
Izzy: Home in 5
I drag a blanket over my legs and snuggle down into the sofa, reaching for the remote on the coffee table.
There’s something next to it—a small, intricately folded piece of red paper that resembles a flower.
I can’t stop the grin that spreads across my face as I pick it up.
I know who left it there. I debate texting him, but he said he would text me, so I decide to wait.
I prop the flower on the arm of the sofa and turn on the TV, smiling over at the flower between every channel flick.
I settle on an ancient ’90s show on Freeview called Baywatch, about hot lifeguards who solve crime or something, when I hear a key turn in the lock.
“Honey, I’m home! Sorry I was ages—one of the roads was blocked off, so I had to walk the long way round,” Izzy calls as she shuts the door behind her. She sounds in better shape than I do, which is absolutely typical of her. I’m exhausted. “And I have apology food.”
“I’m in here,” I reply, and my eyes widen as she appears in the doorway, sunglasses still on and brandishing a brown fast-food bag and two tall paper cups. “Are you an angel?”
“Apparently not,” she says sheepishly, coming to join me on the sofa.
“Ford sent me a very thoughtful text this morning, asking how I felt after I was so violently sick last night.” She grimaces and hands me a drink.
“His exact words, no less. I just don’t get how I ended up being that bad.
Maybe that orange liqueur doesn’t agree with me? ”
I put my phone on the table, then take a straw from her and tear off the paper wrapper. “I have something to tell you.”
“You do?” Izzy rips open the paper bag and places it between us. The smell of hash browns makes my mouth water.
“Don’t freak out, okay? I don’t think you did drink that much, so I’ve been wondering whether someone did something to the sangria.” Izzy doesn’t reply, so I unwrap my breakfast muffin as I let her mull that over.
“What, like added some shots? If someone put vodka in there, that would explain the sick.” She winces.
“Did Ford really hold the bin as I chucked up in it?” I nod, my mouth full.
“God’s sake. Oh, and what’s this?” She turns her face so I can see her left temple.
The bruise has turned an ugly shade of purple, though the swelling has thankfully gone down.
“This is it with makeup on. You should have seen it this morning!”
“We couldn’t figure out how you got that. It was there when I found you passed out on the floor.” I take a sip from my drink, welcoming the sugar fix.
“Passed out…” Izzy pales. “On the floor?”
I fill her in on everything up until the point she remembers, which is Noah leaving. “Listen, Iz…I don’t want to scare you, but I do think someone might have spiked the drink, and not with vodka shots.” I wince at the look on her face. Typical Izzy, only sees the good in people.
“You mean drugs? But who would do that? We knew everyone here.” She brushes off my comment, biting off half a hash brown in one go.
“Not well,” I say. She doesn’t respond, instead focusing on the TV, where a blond woman is wrestling a fake octopus.
“We don’t know Jake and Jen at all, and we only met the others last week.
I got a bad vibe from Jake after I caught him smoking weed with Scarlett and Ford outside.
” A memory stirs. “Jake knows Ford, you know. He greeted him like an old friend.”
“I didn’t think Ford was from Blackwood.” Izzy frowns.
“Apparently they went to school together?”
“Huh. Small world.”
“Iz, do you actually know anything about Ford?”
She opens her mouth to argue and then closes it again. “Well, no. He doesn’t talk much, he just listens mostly.”
“Jake called Ford by his last name, Heywood. He never said he was connected to the Heywood Gallery, did he?”
Izzy puts her drink on the table. “No! You don’t think he is? He would be loaded if he was part of that family. It makes sense, though…He totally dresses like a trust-fund baby.”
“One of the articles I read this week said the Heywoods basically paid for that whole place, artwork and everything.” A connection would also mean Ford has links to The Four and hasn’t told us, but I don’t mention that now. “Why wouldn’t he tell us?”
“Maybe he doesn’t want his private life gossiped about,” Izzy says, but I can already see her daydreaming about Ford in the role of Rich Boyfriend.
“I guess. I won’t lie—if he is, then that makes me a bit wary of him. What if he’s hiding other things…?”
“Like what, drugging me?” Izzy says softly, reading between the lines of my comment. “Fliss, you need to stop profiling everyone.”
“I’m not!” I protest, my appetite dwindling. I put my muffin down, half eaten. “I’m just worried about you. You didn’t see the state you were in.”
“I know,” she says, looking down at her lap. “I’m so sorry, Fliss. I feel really horrible about it. I could smell the sick from your dad’s room when I got up, so I washed the bedsheets and cleaned up in there, and I’ll do whatever else I need to do to make it up to you.”
“Thank you. But you don’t need to apologize, Iz. You did nothing wrong. Whoever did that to you is the one who should be feeling bad.”
“Fliss, no one did anything. I hadn’t eaten dinner, and we’d had an emotionally turbulent week, so it just all went to my head.
I probably drank more than I realized, and you know I don’t drink wine successfully.
” She grabs the remote as the octopus reappears on screen.
“I can’t handle whatever this show is.” She turns the channel to the local news, where a woman stands in front of a cordoned-off street. “Hey, that’s where I just was…”
“Shush.” I grab the remote and turn the volume up as I see police tape.
“—the body of a young female was found by a dog walker in the early hours of Saturday morning. Police have yet to comment on whether they suspect foul play, but the deceased’s family has been notified.”
“Another murder?” Izzy’s eyes widen as she grips my forearm. “Since when did Blackwood get so dangerous?”
“They said it might not be foul play,” I reassure her, but my brain is already processing the scant information. Is this death linked to Helen? God, I just told Dad not to worry about getting home. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty.
My phone buzzes against the coffee table, and Izzy and I both look at it.
“Noah’s texting you,” Izzy says, but then her eyes light up as she forgets the TV and remembers what she saw in the kitchen last night. “Noah’s texting you.”
“And?” I grab my phone before she can, trying to keep the smile from my face.
“Come on, what does it say?” She leans over when I don’t answer, mainly because the air has been sucked out of my lungs. “Fliss?” I hand her the phone, and she glances at the message that’s been sent to the group chat. The cheeky smile fades from her face. “Is this for real?”
“I don’t know.” I look at it again, to make sure I’m not imagining it, but the words are the same.
Noah: Did you see the news? Jake just called me. The body they found was Jen’s. She was murdered.