That makes every penny spent worth it. I tumbled down this rabbit hole two years ago trying to solve a mystery, trying to answer questions I hadn’t known I needed to ask.
What I found was something deeper, stranger, and far more twisted than I ever could have guessed. St. Medard’s Bay wasn’t a town with one mystery—there were many, coiled around one another like the inside of a nautilus shell.
And at the heart of those mysteries, a place: the Rosalie Inn, that pink building that had achieved damn near mythic status in St. Medard’s Bay, the one structure always left standing no matter how fierce the wind and waves.
And in that place—four women. Four women also left standing in the wake of destruction, four women who somehow managed to be as blessed as the Rosalie Inn, and as cursed as St. Medard’s Bay.
The Mother.
The Loner.
The Liar.
The Murderer.
And which was which?
Pages of unfinished manuscript titled “Be a Good Girl: Lo Bailey, Landon Fitzroy, and the Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty.” Found among possessions of August Fletcher, 8/3/2025
CHAPTER TWELVE
July 28, 2025
6 Days Left
It’s just past seven when I knock on August’s door the next morning.
I can hear him in there, the clatter of his keyboard, but it still takes a second knock and then a third before he comes to the door.
When he does, I see this week has done just as much of a number on him as it has on me. Between Edie, the revelation about Landon being my father, and the storm slowly making its way up from the Caribbean, I feel beyond shattered, and I look it, too. My skin is pale, my eyes red, the circles beneath them so dark they look bruised.
August is the same, his stubble thick and dark against his grayish skin, and as he frowns at me, deep parentheses appear on either side of his mouth.
“What’s up, Geneva?” he asks, standing in the doorway. Over his shoulder, his laptop glows, and I see the still-unmadebed, smell the faint odor of burnt coffee and unwashed man. Gone is the charming, smiling guy who first stepped into the Rosalie just a few weeks ago, and as he looks at me with barely suppressed irritation, I wonder if this is some kind of writer thing. Like he’s “in the zone” now and can’t be bothered by my interruption.
In any case, he can get over it.
Pointing into his room, I say, “I wanted to get that box back from you.”
I don’t figure I need to specify which box, but his frown only deepens, and at first, I think it must be confusion.
“The… box? Of my mom’s? With the articles and stuff in it?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, August glances over his shoulder briefly before turning back to me and asking, “Why?”
I blink at that, unsure of how to reply. It didn’t occur to me he might not want to give the box back, and I suddenly feel awkward standing there, the memory of our kiss still lingering between us.
A few excuses flit through my brain—There’s something I need to double-checkorI want to make sure it’s safe when the storm comes—but then I think,Fuck that, and go with the simple truth. “Because it’s mine?”
There’s no real argument to that, although I can see August looking for one before he finally sighs and heads into his room, pushing the door slightly closed as he does.
When he returns, he’s got the box in his arms, but I swear it doesn’t look as full as it did the last time I saw it.
But I let that go for now, giving him a terse “Thanks” before turning away.
I’m only a few steps from his door when I hear the keyboard clicking away again, and an uneasy, sour feeling settles in my stomach.
He’s writing so much because now his story has an actual angle, a real scoop.
