“. . . feel so sorry for her.”
“. . . had no idea he was this far gone.”
At the head table, the one designated for guests who’ve met their demise, Graye stops and picks up a wine glass. She clinks it with a fork to get the attention of the group. Dutifully, they quiet down, and all eyes turn to her.
“If I could have your attention, everyone, I’d like to make a quick announcement. First, and most importantly, Laura is doing fine. She has a bit of a bump on her head, but the doctor is checking on her now, and she’s well enough to insist she doesn’t need a doctor, so that’s good news.”
Relief passes across their faces.
“She’s regaining her bearings here at the hotel while Dr. West has been escorted out of the building.”
There are nods of approval along with a few shaking heads.
“Most of you know Laura personally, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that her first concern is ensuring this unfortunate incident doesn’t ruin your evening. She’s asked that everyone please enjoy their dinner and the rest of the mystery theater. She plans to rejoin you shortly and sends her heartfelt apologies for the disruption.”
Graye motions the waitstaff to begin clearing the first course and serving the second while the guests slowly make their way back to their seats.
Mai Linh flags Graye down as she’s heading back out of the room.
“She’s really okay?” Linh probes.
“She is,” Graye says. For now, she refrains from adding aloud. Between the combined threat of Nick and Laura’s own husband, Graye wonders if she’s going to have to guard Laura in her sleep to keep her safe.
“That bastard,” Mai Linh says, her arms crossed protectively around her middle. “She’s too good for him.”
Graye agrees, but doesn’t want to gossip about her friend. “She just needs to catch her breath.”
“Send her my love, and let her know if she needs anything at all . . . an aspirin, a shoulder to cry on . . . the name of a killer divorce lawyer, I’ve got her back.”
Graye nods. There are others who stop her to send similar sentiments, and Graye collects their good wishes to pass along, but she’s itching to get back and check on Laura.
The room that’s been set aside to use as a staging area is on the first floor, and that’s where Graye heads.
She arrives just as Dr. Lawson is leaving. They’ve interrupted her evening, evident by the robe she’s thrown on over a pair of pajamas, but her eyes are clear and bright.
“She’ll be fine,” the doctor assures Graye. “As stubborn as ever. I don’t believe she has a concussion, but keep an eye on her. Any signs of nausea or mental fuzziness and I’d like you to call me right away.”
“Thank you, Dr. Lawson.”
The woman nods and tightens the belt on her robe. They’re standing in the hallway. Hugo is inside with Laura, and the door is cracked open.
“Call me Bridget,” Dr. Lawson says. “I’m glad she has you, Miss Templeton. There are times in our lives when we need friends around us.”
The doctor pats Graye on the arm and turns to walk down the hallway. Touched, Graye watches her go.
Words filter through the crack in the open door. Hugo’s voice, low and insistent.
“This can’t continue, you know.”
“Of course I know. I just . . .” Graye can feel Laura’s hesitation, her worry. “I thought I had more time.”
“Time for what?” Hugo presses. “What more can you possibly need from that man?”
Graye doesn’t want to interrupt, but she doesn’t intend to stray far from Laura’s side. Not again.
She knew David was stewing in his anger, that he’d aim it in Laura’s direction. She knew, but she’d let her emotions run away with her. She’d had the chance to warn Laura about Nick and David both, but she’d let the chance slip away, lost in her own wounded feelings.
Graye won’t allow that to happen again.
Laura needs her.
Now more than ever.
She waits outside the door.
“You don’t understand,” Laura says.
“Explain it to me then.” His voice is hard now, insistent. “And don’t give me any more excuses. No more of that ‘It’s complicated’ bullshit.”
“It is complicated. And I don’t owe you any explanations.”
“Owe me? Is that what you think? I’m not here because I expect anything from you, Laura. I’m here because I care about you.”
It’s not a comfortable feeling, eavesdropping on the two of them. She paces outside the door. Graye won’t hesitate to interrupt if she hears any indication that Laura is ready for the conversation to end.
A woman rounds the corner of the hallway, glances around, and bears down in her direction.
Graye recognizes her, though she doesn’t recall having been introduced and can’t put a name to the face. It’s the woman who was standing next to Hugo during cocktails. The same woman who was seated next to him at dinner, who placed a hand on his arm when he first rose to intervene.
She’s not happy.
Graye meets her halfway, just feet away from the room.
“Can I help you with anything?” Graye asks.
“Are they in there?” The woman gestures to the door Graye has stepped away from to protect Laura and Hugo’s privacy.
“They’ll be out shortly,” Graye says. “Would you like me to pass along a message?”
“No,” she replies slowly. “I don’t want you to pass along a message. I want to know if they’re in there.”
“Well, yes, but—”
The woman moves to step past her, but Graye takes a step as well, blocking her path.
The woman looks at Graye as if she’s no more than a bug beneath her shoe. “I’d appreciate it if you’d get out of my way,” she says.
“I’m sorry. I can’t allow you to disturb them right now.”
The woman’s brows shoot up, nearly grazing the ceiling. “You can’t allow me? I wasn’t asking your permission. Now get out of my way.”
She shoulders her way around Graye, who reaches out to grip the woman’s arm. Laura’s reputation has suffered enough. She can’t allow random strangers to walk in and interrupt her with the man she’s been cheating on her husband with. There’s no telling what kind of gossip that would kick off.
The woman stops in her tracks and turns back to Graye, her eyes wide and fiery. “I don’t know who you think you are, but I can promise you this, if you don’t get your hands off me, you will regret it.”
“I’m Laura’s assistant and it’s my job to make sure—”
The two women, still locked together by the arm, turn their heads in unison when Hugo’s dumbfounded voice escapes from the room. “Pregnant? Are you serious?”
Graye pulls in a breath. The woman faces her again, her gaze sharp enough to draw blood.
“You may be Laura’s assistant,” she says, her voice rising as she pries Graye’s fingers off her arm. “But I am Hugo’s wife, and there is absolutely no way you’re going to stop me from going in that room.”
Suddenly the door in question swings wide and Hugo stands there, his face stricken. Clearly, he heard and recognized his wife’s voice.
“Rachel.” He hardly spares a glance for Graye.
The woman pushes past him into the room. The door swings wide and Graye can see Laura sitting on the bed, her shoulders slumped, face hidden in her hands. Graye moves to follow.
“Not you,” Rachel says, turning and pointing at the door.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Get out.”
“I don’t take orders from—”
“It’s fine, Graye,” Laura says, dropping her hands from her face. She stands, and unease courses through Graye at the state of her. Her eyes are puffy and strained, her cheeks streaked. Most of her makeup is gone, leaving nothing to mask her pallor.
“Would you mind checking in on the guests? I’d like to salvage as much of the
evening as . . .” She trails off.
Graye scans the three people in the room, each standing stiffly, none willing to meet her eyes.
“I don’t want to leave you like this.”
“It’s fine,” Laura says in a curt tone that makes Graye flinch. “I’m sorry,” she goes on, more gently.
“No, it’s okay.” Graye takes a hesitant step backward. “I’ll go. If that’s what you want.”
“Thank you,” Laura says, giving her a tired smile that goes some of the way toward soothing the hurt.
As she closes the door behind her, Graye can’t stop a final glare in Rachel Caron’s direction. The woman stands unflinching, her hands upon her hips as she watches Graye go, chin held high.
There’s something about her demeanor that rubs Graye the wrong way. She came down that hallway ready for a confrontation, Graye is sure of it. It was clear in the way she walked, the way she held herself.
She knew she’d find Laura and her husband closeted together.
More than that, Graye recalls the expression on her face when she heard the news that Laura West, her husband’s lover, was pregnant.
She wasn’t surprised. Not the least bit.
Graye would stake her life on the fact that Rachel Caron already knew.
She reaches the end of the hallway and throws a concerned look over her shoulder, but the door remains closed to her. Whatever’s being said between the three of them, Graye’s been shut out.
She won’t lie and pretend it doesn’t sting, but that doesn’t mean she can’t see the glaring question hanging in front of her face.
Earlier this evening, someone went out of their way to visit David, to purposely spill Laura’s secrets. Someone who knew she was pregnant.
It doesn’t seem possible. The woman couldn’t have known already. Could she?
But someone had. Someone with a grudge and a tall, handsome incentive to cause problems. And yet another threat that Graye hadn’t considered.
31
Prison isn’t like the movies. You’re not going to find Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins bonding over a harmonica, debating the value of hope and secretly tunneling through the wall.
Prison is a scouring.
If it can be taken away, it is.
Your desires? Kiss those goodbye. Dignity? First thing to go. Comfort? Forget about it. Prison is cold, except when it’s hot enough to bake in.
Your future? What future?
All of it. Gone.
Layers are stripped away until there’s nothing left but what you carry with you, and all the time in the world to marinate in it.
The lucky ones have something to hate. Something other than themselves. The system, their abusive stepfather, the guard who gets off on pain.
Or the girl who put you in the hellhole in the first place, walking free. Pretending to be someone she’s not.
One day, if you’re lucky, prison will spit you out like an old piece of gum that’s lost its flavor, chewed up and ill equipped for a world that’s forgotten about you.
Hate, though. It’s the strongest part of you now, and it feels good, so good. It feels alive, an impeccably maintained piece of machinery waiting patiently for you to take it for a spin.
And that is how you end up on an island where a snotty little nobody is nursing delusions that she’s escaped a debt.
But some debts can’t be outrun.
So you watch.
You’re patient. No need to rush. Anticipation is a drug, and you can wait until the time is right. You know why cats play with mice before they devour them. Because it’s fun.
You watch little Gracie skitter this way and that, licking the boots of the blonde woman who has no idea who Gracie really is, where she comes from. How easily she’ll betray, given the chance.
Grace was always weak. Names can be changed, but not a person’s nature. Grace needs someone to tell her what to do, tell her who to be. She’s looking to Blondie to fill that role. That much is clear.
But she isn’t built to live a happy life. You’re surprised she hasn’t figured that out yet. Some families are born in clean, pretty places. They live their whole sweet-smelling lives never looking down, in case they lose their balance and fall into the shit that runs through the gutters.
But Gracie was born down there, and there isn’t enough perfume in the world to mask that stink forever. Every once in a while, people sitting next to her will catch a whiff. Their noses will wrinkle and they’ll wonder who forgot to take the trash out.
You know this, but Gracie, poor naive Gracie, she’s hopeless.
Watching Grace scamper, with no clue her sins have caught up with her, is the most fun you’ve had in years. The most fun you’ve had since that long-ago night that seems like a dream from someone else’s life.
You’re in no hurry. You’ve got time. You give her the lead and let her run. You can yank her back whenever it pleases you.
She doesn’t know this, but you do.
And it’s intoxicating.
32
LAURA
Hugo is gone. Off somewhere with his wife. Laura shut down the tense conversation in the hotel room by rising and walking to the door.
Holding it open for the pair, she motioned them out. “I have an event to host.”
“You can’t intend to—”
“It would probably be best if you call it a night,” she told Hugo firmly, cutting him off. “There will be enough gossip as it is.”
She didn’t miss the look of agreement that passed across his wife’s face.
Laura doesn’t need anyone to hold her hand, nor does she have any right to ask even if she did.
Laura may not be a novelist, may not have magic at her fingertips, but she’s a master showman.
It doesn’t matter that the heated words in the hotel room leave her bruised, or that even if she can smooth things over with her guests, she still has David to contend with when she gets home.
Her mother taught her well. Her heart is battered and bloody, so she crams it into a heart-shaped box. She fixes her face and pummels her features into a relaxed guise.
Because that is what Laura does.
There’s a hush when she returns to the party. To be expected, really. But Laura digs deep for a smile and a little wave designed to let them off the hook. Everything is fine here, nothing to see, her smile says. That easily, they’re free to enjoy their evening without the guilt of believing their hostess is busy having a breakdown.
Even if she is.
Graye has kept all Laura’s balls in the air, and she gives a silent prayer of thanks for talented, effective women. With Graye’s help, she can at least attempt to hide how quickly things are falling apart.
The body count has risen while Laura’s been distracted with her personal life. By the time dessert is served, the table of death has become an exclusive club, rowdy with men and women whose responsibilities have been satisfied.
Cecelia, comfortably regal in her role as queen of the dead, waves away a woman found strangled earlier, her feet extending from the bottom of a ladies’ bathroom stall. When the other woman rises, Cecelia motions for Laura to join her in the newly vacated seat by her side.
Not Laura’s first choice for companionship, but Cecelia Ainsley is the unspoken guest of honor and it would be beyond rude to ignore her.
“How’s your head?” the older woman asks, getting straight to the point.
“I’ll survive,” Laura says.
Cecelia is watching the crowd, a benign expression on her face that masks whatever opinions she might have about Laura’s domestic problems.
“That you will,” she agrees. The hush is gone, the noise level risen again, perhaps even beyond where it was before.
“They’re relieved the danger has passed and giddy that it brushed so nearby,” Cecelia observes.
“That’s not a very kind thing to say.”
“Is it not?” She looks at Laura, pity in her eyes. “People put so much stock in kind
ness. Truth is infinitely more interesting.”
Laura sighs. The woman can be downright unpleasant.
“You believe I’m harsh.” It’s a statement, not a question. Certainly not an apology. “I was married once too, you know,” she goes on.
Laura didn’t know, but says nothing. Her head is pounding and the woman is a magnet that continually flips, pulling in, then suddenly pushing back with no notice at all.
“I won’t bore you with details, but I will say this, because you’re too polite to get up and walk away. A bad marriage is a forge. Once you’re in it, your only choice is to push forward and find your way out of the flames, scars and all, hopefully stronger for it.” She shrugs. “The alternative is to sit there and be burned to nothing.”
A chill passes over Laura. Her chest tightens, and she stares at a spot along the far wall. Anywhere other than the woman’s eyes.
“I should see to the other guests,” Laura hears herself say. She can’t rise from the chair quickly enough.
“You do that,” Cecelia says.
Her eyes are on Laura’s back as she walks away. Runs away, both from the author’s presence and her pointed words, aimed with precision. Words that ring with a detached, uncaring truth and no hint of kindness.
And now Graye is coming at her with worried, overly sympathetic eyes. Laura forces professionalism into her voice, speaking first to head off the personal questions she’ll have to deal with soon enough.
Not yet. Not with an audience watching my every move and pretending they aren’t.
“How are things coming along, Graye?” she asks cheerily. “Everything ready for the grand finale?”
Her assistant stops, visibly swallowing back what she’d planned to say. Some question about Laura’s well-being, no doubt.
“Ah. Um, so far, so good,” Graye says.
Good girl.
“One of the poisoning victims stole the spotlight. She had a fit of giggles and nearly choked, but she’s fine now.” Laura nods as Graye glances at her watch. “We’re gearing up for the final act any moment.”
“Wonderful,” Laura says, rubbing her hands together and resolutely muting all thoughts that don’t have to do with finishing this evening off with a bang.
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