21 Gemma
Gemma
“Girls! Stay downstairs,” Gemma ordered as she followed the rest of the group up the steps when the crash happened.
They, of course, ignored her. Gemma didn’t understand how she’d birthed two children who were so drawn to drama, but she’d long since learned that there was no changing them.
In another era, Vienna would have been an incredible investigative journalist. Gemma’s own little Lois Lane.
And Florence might have been an engaging on-camera reporter.
Instead they were producing clickbait, hawking lip plumpers, and figuring out how to make eye-catching logos on CapCut.
Oh well. She supposed she could have had two kids with zero ambition doing drugs and playing video games in a basement somewhere.
Telling herself they’d be fine with the other adults, Gemma veered off when the rest of them went up to the third floor.
She noticed Suzy did the same, but she didn’t have time to think about or care why.
After the Cole / Peeping Tom incident, Grant had moved all their things to two of the guest bedrooms, and she had something she had to take care of while everyone else was distracted.
The conversation downstairs had solidified it for her.
As much as she’d begged and manipulated and hoped to get them all invited to this place at this time, she now regretted it with every fiber of her being.
She’d thought that Lincoln was Grant’s only hope at getting back to where he used to be—at reviving his career. But this—this was a total disaster.
At least there was one thing she could fix. Or, more accurately, cover up.
She slipped inside the room she and Grant would be sharing and closed the door.
It was so dark thanks to the clouds outside she had to flick the lights on to get her bearings in the new space.
There was a king-size bed against the far wall, two cozy-looking chairs near the window, which would be great for reading, and a flat-screen TV across from the bed, hung over a huge dresser.
All the furniture was beachy modern—white slatted wood, pastel fabrics, silver frames.
Grant had placed their suitcases in front of the dresser, but her work bag wasn’t there.
Gemma went to the closet, which was down a short hall that led to the bathroom.
She yanked open the closet door and paused.
Her smaller bag—the one full of books and notebooks, paper and pens, was open on the floor of the closet. Why would it be open? She was sure she had left it zipped up tight. She flipped on the closet light and dropped to her knees to dig through it.
Her heart slammed against her rib cage.
“Mom?” Florence said from the doorway.
Gemma whirled, still on her knees, hand to her chest.
“You scared me!”
“Sorry.” Florence hugged that annoying yippy dog to her chest.
“Was somebody in here?” Gemma asked, pulling out the advanced reader copies of the books she was supposed to be working on and tossing them on the floor.
“Like who?” Florence’s tone was incredulous. Like who would ever be remotely interested in entering her parents’ room?
“I don’t know. Were you in here? Was your sister?” She bent forward and tried to see into the corners of the bag.
“Mom. We don’t want to read your stupid work books,” Florence said, the eye roll implied.
Gemma sliced her finger open on a piece of paper and winced.
She stuck the fingertip in her mouth and looked up at her daughter, standing there in short shorts and a cropped red sweatshirt that read “Lifeguard” in big white letters across the front, even though her daughter was no such thing.
She wasn’t even a strong swimmer, a new terrifying thought that had only just now occurred to her with the ocean potentially encroaching outside.
“What do you want, Florence?”
“I just—” Her daughter’s face fell, and Gemma immediately felt bad for snapping. But this was not the time. She needed to be alone so she could search her bag. Figure out if someone else had been through it. Florence literally never initiated conversation with Gemma. Why now of all times?
“Never mind. Forget it.”
As soon as Florence turned to go, the guilt took over. Gemma scrambled to her feet. “Honey, I’m sorry. I just—”
But Florence slammed the door, and then the only sound was the shouting upstairs and the rumbles of thunder and the shrieking of wind.
The world seemed to be pulsating around her.
She felt like she could scream. Maybe she actually was going crazy.
Maybe this would all end in her being committed.
Or thrown in jail. Her throat felt tight, and her eyes stung.
Then she turned around and dove back on the floor, shaking the entire contents of the bag onto the hardwood. The last thing to fall out was a padded envelope addressed to her, along with the very specific, handwritten directions on where to place each of seven little blue note cards.