Grace took a breath, then said: “What if it’s related? To what happened at the ball?”
Tessa’s smile faded. “You think it’s the same person?”
Grace hesitated. “Possibly.”
Tessa stared, the mask of indifference gone, replaced by something sharper, almost hungry. “You think a random attack on a loser at a Halloween party has something to do with me being attacked at the ball, how do you figure?”
“I had a vision of the Halloween killing, and then when I held a necklace involved with the Halloween killing, I saw you killed at the ball. I don’t know for certain the same person is involved in both killings, but I know they’re connected, somehow.”
Olivia stepped in. “We don’t know much. But it’s the best lead we have.”
Tessa considered this, then shrugged. “Fine. Let’s say I believe you. What’s your plan? Bodyguard detail? Should I hide in my panic room and wait for the magical person to get bored?”
Anna grinned. “Actually, yes. Maybe lay low for a few days. Christmas is coming. Grace thinks if you make it through, you’ll be safe.”
Tessa let out a snort. “Adorable. But I have a show to run, advertisers breathing down my neck, and a segment on themayor’s ski accident to air tonight. I can’t afford to go off the grid.”
Caroline tried a soothing tone. “It’s just for a few days. Let us help you. Better to be safe than?—”
“Than what?” Tessa interrupted, eyes glittering. “Dead? Sorry. That’s not how news works. If I start hiding, every other reporter in the region is going to sniff it out and bury me in clickbait. No thanks.” She stood, tugged her dress into place, and squared her shoulders. “But I do appreciate the concern. I really do.” She turned to Grace, her expression suddenly and disarmingly genuine. “Thanks for saving me. Even if it means you get to say I told you so next time.”
Grace met her gaze. “I don’t want to be right. Just alive. Besides, I’m pretty sure Bryant will insist on you having some type of bodyguard assigned to you.”
Tessa rolled her eyes. “Let the cop do what he wants, but I won’t slow my life in the least bit.”
Caroline gathered the group, ushering them out with practiced ease. “Thank you for your time, Tessa. Stay safe.”
They retraced their steps to the elevator. Anna waited until the doors closed to say: “Well, that was productive.”
Olivia groaned. “She’s never going to listen. She’ll do the exact opposite just to prove a point.”
Grace watched the numbers descend. “She doesn’t have to listen. We just have to figure out a way to keep her alive.”
They walked out into the freezing air, the wind snapping at their coats. The parking lot was still empty, the world deceptively quiet.
Grace watched the station’s windows, waiting for a sign of movement, a flicker of shadow. She thought of the raven in the garden, its words clinging to her like burrs: Some people deserve to die.
But not today, she thought. Not if she could help it.
The four women got back in the car, cranked up the heat, and sped away, back into the town, back into the waiting unknown.
Grace had failed to convince Tessa, but she hadn’t lost hope. Bryant would assign someone to Tessa. And if that didn’t work, she could always hope for another vision… as much as she’d grown to dread them.
14
The town spared no watt or garland. From the curve of Main Street to the riotously lit town square, every surface groaned under the weight of tinsel and twinkle lights strung so dense they practically broadcast their own AM station. Wreaths hung from every streetlamp, and every porch had its quota of blow-mold Santas and wire-frame reindeer. The world smelled like pine and cinnamon, overlaid with the memory of car exhaust.
Grace huddled at the edge of the festivities, flanked by her usual suspects: Caroline, Anna, Olivia, and Bryant Paulsen. She wore her heaviest coat, the one she’d bought in Anchorage and never expected to need again, but the wind still found its way up her sleeves. The cold had a way of burning, especially when you’d spent most of your life south of the frost line.
Caroline had commandeered a high-top table in the temporary beer garden, wedged between a churro stand and a booth where local kids sold “authentic North Pole snowballs,” white felt, eighty percent glue. She looked unbothered by the temperature, gesturing with a plastic cup of hot buttered rum and telling a story loud enough to scandalize the carolers fifty feet away.
“…and then she says to the pastor, ‘if the Lord didn’t want me to have these, why did He make them so easy to get pierced?’” Caroline threw her head back, blonde hair a flag in the breeze. Anna howled, nearly choking on her cider. Olivia, per usual, just raised an eyebrow and looked away, but the corners of her mouth curled.
Bryant stood slightly apart, hands jammed in the pockets of his black wool coat, watching the crowd with the same careful vigilance he brought to his day job. His cheeks were ruddy from the cold, and every so often he’d glance over at Grace, as if checking to make sure she hadn’t wandered off or dissolved into mist.
She’d expected the night to feel anxious, a repeat of every public event in recent memory. A puzzle to be solved, a vision to interpret, a murder to prevent. But tonight, the town’s joy was so loud, so insistent, that for a minute Grace allowed herself to believe that nothing bad could happen under all this light.
“You know,” Anna said, voice low so only Grace could hear, “when I was a kid, I thought all this was just for me. Like, the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce woke up every year and asked, ‘What would make Anna happy?’”
