Chapter 22
Two Days Before the Hurricane
From the second Beau and I connected, I never looked back.
It was the first time I felt like I was half of a whole.
In the most formative relationships of my life, I was always something other than an equal partner.
A project for my parents—someone to mold and shape into their likeness.
A babysitting gig to Delia. And to Simon, I had been a shadow.
But as soon as I was Beau’s, he treated me like I was integral to his being.
Our lives braided together so quickly that the sensation of loneliness—something that had felt woven into my very constitution until that point—stopped being familiar to me.
But now, I feel the edges of isolation creeping back in.
When I got home from the pro-am tournament three days ago, Beau was gone, driving around for hours, he said.
“I hired a lawyer,” he announced when he finally walked through the door, his voice thin with defeat. “Not because I did anything, but because I don’t like how this is shaking out. I can’t let them—”
“You’re right.” I nodded.
Hiring a lawyer is the right move. The adult move. And I hate it.
Suddenly, my house looks more like a war room than the cozy custom masterpiece Beau and I had made it when we moved in.
There are his and hers offices in our house, which is hilarious, considering neither of us actually works anymore.
But when you buy a ten-thousand-square-foot mansion in a tax-friendly state, you’ve got space to fill.
There’s a home gym and a theater room. We’re one renovation away from a humidity-controlled cigar room.
But after years of never setting foot in his office, Beau has been spending all his time at his desk, on the phone with lawyers. Nora keeps calling, but I don’t know what to tell her.
All morning, I’ve been standing in my kitchen, staring into the middle distance like there might be some magical solution hidden in the dust particles.
The TV hums in the background as a woman talks through potential storm paths in that stern but bright tone they seem to reserve for disasters.
I’m not really listening. I’m watching Beau. He’s emerged from his office to pace the pool deck, on the phone with a fleet of attorneys.
And somehow, I miss him like we’re in different time zones. Or parallel universes.
And with Kristy rerunning the surveillance footage of him and Gemma like it’s the final touchdown of the Super Bowl, we’ve been lying low.
I find myself checking the doors and watching the street, half expecting my past to come rolling up our driveway. I should tell Beau about the texts, but I can’t. He already has too much on his plate. I can’t add the resurgence of my past.
I pause to watch the latest spaghetti models unfurl on the TV as the woman explains the system has officially been upgraded to a tropical storm with a name. Tropical Storm Gavin is bearing down on Florida in a hurry, seemingly determined to show me things can always get worse.
The last time Winter Park was in a hurricane’s path like this, Beau and I fled to higher ground, making an impulsive escape to Blackberry Farm. We packed a single bag and a bottle of Blanton’s, and spent two nights tucked into a luxury cottage in the Smoky Mountain foothills.
We played cards by the fire, sipping bourbon until we had drunk below the handwritten label. And I remember thinking we would always feel like that—insulated, free. That as long as we had each other, we’d only ever be one side quest away from safety.
We can’t go anywhere now, though. Ardell wants Beau to come down to the station today to answer questions about his connection to Gemma.
If Beau is under suspicion, leaving town would only make things worse. It might force the police’s hands in an arrest.
I have no choice left. I have to talk to the last person I’d ever willingly let back into my life.
I’m standing in the kitchen when Beau comes in to pour himself another cup of coffee. He crosses right in front of me. And I stand there, homesick for the people we were at Blackberry Farm.
“Este,” Beau says as he puts his mug down on the counter. His voice is low, but it sounds like a plea. He looks lost, and it makes every part of my heart ache.
For a second, I let myself pretend. That we’re the people we were in that cottage. That we’re only waiting out another storm. It feels good to imagine that’s true.
I cross the kitchen and wrap my arms around him, pressing my cheek to his chest. He holds me tentatively, almost like he’s afraid to trust it. Maybe we both are.
This is the safest place I know. But the safety is faltering under the weight of everything we’re not saying.
I pull back, and so does he. And the silence rushes in again.
Beau rubs at his temple. “We’ll figure it out. Okay?” he says, but I can’t tell if it’s true. “Ardell wants to talk at eleven.”
I look at the oven clock. Half an hour from now, Beau will be at the police station.
“My attorneys have agreed to the interview under the condition that we meet in a conference room, not an interrogation room. I’ll stick to the script they wrote, nothing extra.
If Ardell pushes, my lawyers cut it off.
Their whole job is to make sure I don’t hand the police anything they can twist.” He laughs, but it’s humorless.
“Basically, I sit there looking like a good citizen with nothing to hide while they run interference.”
The rich-person playbook. Don’t say a damn thing.
Beau’s attorneys will carry the narrative while he sits there looking respectable in a button-down that probably cost more than their monthly mortgage.
But how does that help Gemma?
I study his face, wondering who this man with the scripts and the lawyers is. Or is this who we are now? Burying the consequences of our choices under our piles of money?
“I want to talk about the surveillance footage.” I shifted, unable to conceal my impatience.
He’s been dodging my questions about the video since last night, an act that’s been helpfully aided by the nonstop calls from his lawyers.
Being an almost–murder suspect has made him very popular.
“Did you know you were on it?” I press.
“Marcus told me.”
“Funny.” I sniff, and my throat burns. “When I asked him about it at the dinner party, he swore the footage was nothing but shadows.”
Beau stretches his neck like this conversation is starting to chafe. But he doesn’t try to deny the implied accusation. They had discussed this. Had planned what they would say if I asked. Had carefully negotiated the right flavor of vanilla to infuse their coordinated responses with.
“Just read the script and keep your mouth shut. That’s what they told you, isn’t it?” I dig.
He raises a hand to silence the accusation. “Este—”
I slap an exasperated hand on the counter.
“Stop acting like I’m crazy for asking. This”—I gesture around the space between us and the state of our lives—“is crazy. Gemma is dead. And you’re on your way to the police station with a gaggle of lawyers to babysit your every word.
We’re so deep into crazy, we’ve franchised crazy and opened three new locations. So what else aren’t you telling me?”
He holds my gaze for a second, the weight of the world lost behind his eyes. And then he clams up again. A retreat so familiar at this point it’s almost more predictable than the man he was before Gemma died. The man I knew and trusted and believed above anyone else.
Breaking my heart one lie at a time.
“I can’t do this right now,” he says. “I have to go get dressed for the interview.”
He takes off toward our bedroom, leaving me in the kitchen. My cheeks burn red with anger, but I don’t waste one second coming apart in the kitchen. Even though I would really like to.
Storming toward the garage, I snatch my purse off the hook in the mudroom and pull out my phone. I can’t tell if I’ve lost my mind or suddenly tuned in to a level of extreme focus when I pull up the 310 number, and my thumbs start flying as I type out a message.
10:32 A.M.
Where are you?
If Beau won’t talk, I’ll take my chances with the man who taught me information is leverage.
A thought bubble appears almost immediately, and then I have my answer.
10:32 A.M.
Ritz Carlton. I’ll meet you in the lobby.