Chapter 7
Rachel texts me Thursday afternoon.
I'm at yoga. Or rather — I'm sitting in the parking lot of the yoga studio waiting for class to start, because Sophie is already inside saving me a spot and I need three more minutes before I can walk in there and perform normal.
I'll be there, I type back. Where are you staying?
How many of you are coming?
A pause. Then: Five, for now. Me, Cara, Danielle, Amy, Lauren. Nina might fly in Saturday. Sadie has a work thing but she's on call.
Five women flying to Atlanta. For me. For this.
Priya? Rachel again. Bring everything you have. Texts, screenshots, anything Sophie's given you with a return address or a phone number. Cara said you saw the hard drive files. We'll go over everything together tomorrow night.
Okay.
And tonight — yoga. Be normal. You're doing great.
I put my phone in my bag. Check my face in the rearview mirror. I look the same. Same brown eyes, same messy bun, same person who walked into this yoga studio six weeks ago and met a woman who remembered her name the following week.
Inside, the studio smells like eucalyptus and heated rubber.
Sophie's in our usual spot — third row, left side, near the window.
She's already on her mat, stretching her hip flexors, wearing those leggings with the mesh panels and a sports bra that shows her shoulders.
She looks up and smiles — wide, real, warm.
"Hey! I thought you weren't coming."
"Running late. Work thing." I unroll my mat next to hers.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Fine." I sit down. Start stretching. My hamstrings are tight from sitting at my desk all day staring at spreadsheets I couldn't focus on.
"You seem tense," Sophie says. She reaches over and squeezes my forearm. Brief, casual, friendly. "Let the class work its magic. Forty-five minutes and you'll feel like a new person."
The instructor starts. The first fifteen minutes are floor work — cat-cow, child's pose, gentle twists. I breathe into each one. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The heat of the room softens my muscles. My mind wanders.
I look at Sophie in downward dog beside me.
Her form is good — practiced. She's been doing yoga for a while.
In Portland, she said, she went to a studio called Breathe.
Mentioned it once. A detail offered casually, the way liars build their cover stories — small truths scattered among the architecture of the lie.
Or maybe she genuinely did yoga in Portland. Maybe that's real. Not every single thing about her is manufactured. Some of it — the body, the habits, the way she moves through a sun salutation — that's hers. Vanessa's. The woman inside the alias.
I wonder what else is real. The oat lattes? The bee-printed gardening gloves? The way she laughs — that specific bark of laughter when something genuinely surprises her? Is that rehearsed or is that her?
Does it matter?
"Warrior two," the instructor says. "Sink into it. Feel your thighs burn."
I sink. My thighs burn. Sophie catches my eye across our mats and makes a face — exaggerated agony, tongue out. I smile back.
That's real. My smile is fake, but her comedy?
I think that's real. And somehow that makes it worse.
If she were performing every single moment, she'd be a robot and I could dismiss her.
But she's a person. A person who makes genuinely funny faces during warrior two and who likes oat lattes and who keeps files on women she plans to destroy.
Class ends. We roll our mats. Sophie hands me my water bottle — she picked it up before I noticed I'd left it — and we walk to the parking lot together.
"Are you free Saturday?" she asks. "I was thinking we could check out that new brunch place on Highland. The one with the avocado toast that everyone's posting about."
Saturday. The group arrives Friday night. Saturday they'll be at the Airbnb planning. Saturday I'll be in a room with five women who've been where I am.
"Saturday's tricky," I say. "Matt and I might have plans."
"Oh no worries! Sunday?"
"Let me check and get back to you."
"Sure." She unlocks her car — a gray Civic, unremarkable, the kind of car no one remembers. "Hey — are you sure you're okay? You've been quiet this week."
"I'm fine. Really. Just a stressful project at work."
She tilts her head. Studies me for a moment. And something flickers in her eyes — fast, barely perceptible. If I weren't watching for it, I'd have missed it. A calculation. An assessment.
Then it's gone and she's smiling again. "Don't let them work you too hard, flavor queen. You're too good for them."
She gets in her car. Drives away. I stand in the parking lot with my rolled-up mat and my water bottle and my heart slamming against my ribs.
She noticed. She noticed I'm different this week. She's trained to notice — four years, nine cities, seven women. She knows what withdrawal looks like because she's seen it before. The moment the target starts pulling back. The moment the game starts failing.
I get in my car. Call Cara.
"She's suspicious," I say without preamble.
"What happened?"
"Nothing specific. She asked if I was okay. She looked at me — differently. Like she was checking."
"That's normal. She's hyper-attuned to her targets. She reads people for a living — her living." Cara's voice is calm. Steady. "Did you do anything that would confirm it? Did you pull away from plans? Change your tone?"
"I said Saturday was busy."
"That's fine. People are busy. One no doesn't mean anything. Just — don't string multiple no's together. If she texts again tonight, respond fast. Be warm. Use emojis."
"Emojis."
"I know. I know how stupid it sounds. But the small signals matter. She's reading everything you send."
I drive home. Matt's car isn't in the driveway yet. The house is empty. I stand in the kitchen — no lights on, just the late-evening sun coming through the west-facing window — and I reorganize the spice rack.
I don't need to. The frequency system works.
But my hands need something to do while my brain processes the fact that tomorrow night, five strangers will be in an Airbnb ten minutes from my house, and they will lay out evidence that my only friend in this city is a serial predator, and I will have to decide what to do about it.
My phone buzzes. Sophie: Home safe! That class KILLED my quads. Worth it though. Same time next week?
I type back immediately. Warm. Emoji.
Absolutely! My quads are screaming ?? See you next Thursday! ??
Sophie: Love you, P! Sleep well ??
I set the phone down. The turmeric jar is in my hand — bright gold, the smell of earth and warmth and something faintly bitter underneath. I put it between the paprika and the sumac. Take it out. Move it next to the ginger.
It doesn't matter where it goes.
Tomorrow the group arrives and everything changes and the careful organization of my new Atlanta life — the garden plot, the yoga class, the friend who calls me flavor queen — all of it gets taken apart and examined for what it really is.
I hear Matt's key in the door.
"Hey," he calls. "Sorry I'm late. Traffic was insane."
"It's fine," I call back. "I just got home too."
He appears in the kitchen doorway. Sees me with the spice jars spread across the counter. Raises an eyebrow.
"Again?"
"It wasn't right."
"It's never right." But he says it gently. He knows this about me — the rearranging, the restlessness. He thinks it's a quirk. He doesn't know it's a symptom.
"How was yoga?" he asks.
"Good. Hard."
"Sophie there?"
"Yeah."
"She texted me about some event at the garden next week. A seed swap? Want me to sign us up?"
I look at him. My husband. Tall, sandy-haired, still in his work shirt. Standing in our kitchen asking an innocent question about a seed swap organized by a woman who has a handwritten file on our marriage in a binder.
"Sure," I say. "Sign us up."
He smiles. Pulls up his phone to text her back. And I watch his thumbs move across the screen and I think about tomorrow — about Rachel, who's been doing this for two years. About how tired she must be. How much she must want it to end.
One more night. One more night of normal.
Then the cavalry arrives.