Chapter 50 - Stella
Stella
Two months later, we meet at the Cactus Flower Market—the kind of place where every vendor knows your name if you’ve got the right last name.
Elaine’s in a cream silk blouse, sunglasses hooked into the collar, her lipstick the exact shade of malice.
She’s leaning against a counter at the fresh flower stall when I walk up.
She hands me a paper cup, still warm. “Prickly pear latte. I remembered.”
“Efficient,” I say, accepting it. “How’s your end?”
“Two more dates, one location.” She lowers her voice. “You’re getting close.”
I let my gaze drift over the stalls, the strings of lights, the couples who look like they’ve never had to wonder who their partner’s with at midnight. “Close enough.”
Her eyes search my face, looking for something. Maybe an opening. Maybe a crack.
“I won’t be a divorcée,” I say finally, the words clipped. Then, softer—but only just—“A “widow, maybe.”
The corner of her mouth lifts like she can’t decide if it’s a joke. “That’s dark, even for you.”
“Not if you think about it long enough,” I say, sipping the coffee.
Elaine studies me for a beat too long, her sunglasses still dangling from her fingers. “You really don’t scare easily, do you?”
I give her a small smile. “You’d be surprised what you can live through when the alternative’s worse.”
She laughs under her breath, the sound low and sharp, then turns toward the bouquet she’s been holding—white lilies, wrapped in pale green paper.
Her fingers adjust the stems, and a strand of hair slips forward.
She brushes it back with a sweep of her hand, and for some reason, my eyes track the movement longer than they should.
Her gaze flicks up, catching mine. Neither of us says anything, and the silence stretches just enough to notice.
She slides the lilies across the counter. “For you. Seemed fitting.”
I take them, feeling the weight and cool dampness against my palm. “Careful,” I say. “You might make me think you like me.”
Her smile curves slowly. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Carrington.”
But she’s still watching me as I turn away, like she’s trying to figure out which part of that was a joke.
I set the lilies aside on the counter and pulled the diary from my bag. The worn cover creaks when I open it. “Page forty-seven. The charity dinner in Norfolk.”
Elaine doesn’t have to look—she remembers. “He left halfway through dessert after a phone call, and told me he was going home sick.”
She leans her hip against the counter, sipping her wine like this is a casual conversation. “I assume he went home to you.”
For a moment, we just stand there—the clink of her glass on the granite, the scratch of my pen on paper. Piece by piece, it’s becoming a map, and I can feel the edges closing in.
Elaine nods toward the growing stack of cards. “When you’re done playing archivist, what’s next?”
I close the diary, smoothing my palm over the cover. “Next, we find the one thing he can’t explain away. The thing that doesn’t just ruin him, it takes him off the board entirely.”
Her mouth curves into that sharp smile again. “Now that sounds like the fun part.”
We sit there for a moment, the weight of what we’ve just agreed to settling between us like smoke. The room feels smaller, charged. Outside, the cicadas drone on, oblivious.
Her words hang in the air, the low hum of the bar wrapping around them like velvet. I don’t look away, not right away, because there’s something in her eyes that isn’t just about Donovan.
I reach for my drink, give myself the excuse of a slow sip, but I still see it—the way her posture leans toward me now instead of away, the way her voice dips when she asks about my next move.
“Information first,” I say. “Then we decide when to use it.”
The air shifts, subtle but enough to make my pulse skip. We’re no longer two women circling the same target—we're leaning toward each other across the battlefield.
We leave the bar together, the desert night wrapping cool around us. The quiet out here feels heavier after the low murmur and clink of glasses inside.
She falls into step beside me, her heels clicking against the pavement, steady and unhurried. “Same time next week?” she asks, like it’s already decided.
“Maybe sooner,” I say, unlocking my car.
Her hand rests briefly on the door frame before she steps back, the faint trace of her perfume lingering in the air—a reminder she was closer than I meant her to be. “Call me when you’ve got the next piece,” she says, the laugh that follows edged more with defiance than ease.
But when she smiles afterward, it isn’t the sharp, knowing one she uses like armor. It’s smaller, unguarded, like she forgot for a second who she’s supposed to be. It doesn’t belong in a war room, and it unsettles me more than her sharpest smile ever could.
I don’t linger on it, but I notice.
I catch myself watching and look away first. “Drive safe,” I tell her.
Her gaze flickers, like she knows exactly how long I’d been looking. “You too, widow.”
The word lodges in my chest, sharp and strange. I don’t correct her. I let it sit there, heavier than I expected.
The coffee line at Desert Drip snakes almost to the door, and I’m half a second from bailing when I hear her voice behind me. “You’re blocking the only decent caffeine in a five-mile radius, Widow.”
Elaine steps in beside me, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, blazer draped over one arm. Her lipstick’s the same deep red as last night, but the rest of her looks… softer. Less curated.
“Didn’t realize you were a morning person,” I say.
She shrugs, pulling a phone from her bag. “Not really. I just hate people more when I’m tired.”
I snort, and she glances up at me like she’s trying to decide if I’m laughing with her or at her. Then she smiles, the same smile from last night, and for some reason, I remember more of it than I mean to.
We talk while the line crawls forward, not about Donovan, not about the plan, but about the weather, about the new mural going up downtown, about how the barista somehow always burns the oat milk.
When it’s my turn to order, she slips hers in right after mine, the timing so quick it feels rehearsed. At the register, she pays without hesitation. “Consider it a payment for letting me cut in line.”
I arch a brow. “You didn’t cut. You just… appeared.”
Her gaze flickers down the length of me, quick and unassuming, but it leaves a warm stripe in its wake. “Same thing.”
We step outside into the dry, bright morning. For a second, neither of us moves. The air between us feels different than it did last night, lighter but no less charged.
She breaks it first. “I’ll call you if I find something.”
I nod, sip, and the words slip out before I think better of them. “Or I’ll call you first.”
Elaine tilts her head like she’s filing that away, then turns to go, her hair catching the sun.
I watch her longer than I mean to, the scent of her perfume curling through the warm air like it has nowhere else to be.
When she glances back over her shoulder, she doesn’t look surprised to catch me still looking.
That evening, I am sitting at my desk, a to-do list a mile long, half of which has deadlines attached, but my phone’s in my hand anyway.
I scroll past Donovan’s name, past the unread emails, until I hit hers. Elaine Royce. No reason to call her yet. Nothing new for the plan. I should wait.
I press the call button before I can talk myself out of it.
She answers on the second ring, voice edged with curiosity. “Widow. Either you found our smoking gun, or you’re bored.”
“Little of both,” I admit. “Are you busy?”
There’s a pause, like she’s weighing the question. “Depends on who’s asking.”
“Meet me at Honey careful, I might start thinking you like me.”
I don’t answer that; I just hang up before she can hear the smile tugging at my mouth.
When she walks into the café, the afternoon light catches in her hair, throwing copper threads through the dark. She drops into the chair across from me without saying a word, sliding her sunglasses onto the table.
“This is dangerous,” she says, unwrapping her straw. “We keep meeting like this, people are going to start talking.”
I lift my cup, meet her eyes over the rim. “Let them.”
She stirs her drink lazily, watching me over the edge of the cup. “So, if this isn’t a strategy meeting, what is it?”
“Call it… an experiment," I say, leaning back. “Seeing how well you operate without the war map between us.”
Her brow arches. “And?”
“You’re tolerable.” I let it hang there just long enough before adding, “Almost pleasant.”
She laughs into her cup. “Dangerous territory, Widow—sounds a lot like a compliment.”
I shrug. “Dangerous is kind of our thing.”
We drift into the easy stuff again, a story about a client who tried to pay her in vintage jewelry, and how I once got locked in Carrington Caskets for an hour after hours because the security system glitched.
She smirks through most of it, but I catch the way she tilts her head when she’s actually listening.
When the conversation finally tilts back toward Donovan, it’s slower, less urgent.
I tell her about the cash withdrawals from our joint account—never much at once, but enough to add up.
I told her about following his phone pings and how they never lined up with where he said he was.
What I don’t tell her is where that trail points, or what it could mean for the funding he’s supposed to be protecting.
As we get up to leave, she rests a hand briefly on my forearm. “Next time, you’re buying.”
I glance at her hand before she pulls it back. “Next time, you’re calling me first.”
Her smile curves, deliberate this time. “We’ll see.”
It’s late when my phone lights up. It's not too late, but it's enough that I check the name twice before answering.