1500 hours, the beach
Now it was coming together for real. Sheridan’s cat sitter might be a little loose-lipped, but she was not selling stories to the press, and she certainly had nothing to do with all that money Phil couldn’t figure out. Genesis, for all his good-natured charm and movie star looks, was behind all of it. Of course he was.
Gabby was so close to wrapping this up, she could taste it.
Now she just had to ensure Naomi would give testimony so that Jasmine would. It reminded her of when Kyle would only go to camp if Sierra went, and she had to call the camp and make sure they were in the same group, which, in retrospect, had been a lot of effort to accommodate some whining. But at any rate, she had managed to get Kyle and Sierra to camp, and she could get both Jasmine and Naomi immunity. Then take down the cult, get Markus’s and her jobs back, and everything would go back to normal, which wasn’t perfect but was better than not normal.
Gabby wanted to talk to Naomi before Jasmine had a chance to warn her, so she went directly to Naomi’s cottage. Naomi was on her way out, striding purposefully toward the beach in a bikini and wielding a paddle. Naomi might be older than Gabby, butshe had the look of a lifelong athlete, someone who was so confident in her own body that she was just as comfortable naked as in a fancy dress. Gabby still hadn’t worn any of the swimsuits the EOD had forced her to pack.
“Naomi, can we talk?”
“I’m getting on my paddleboard. You’re welcome to join me, but it’s probably not the best place to talk wedding details.” It was a polite way of saying, “Bye bitch. I’m busy.”
Gabby groaned. On a normal day, Gabby would say, “See you later. Have fun.” Today, she was on a deadline. She had gambled big, offering immunity to Jasmine, and she needed to lock down the deal before her fake wedding to Markus.
“Sure.” How hard could paddleboarding be?
“Do you have a suit on under that outfit?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
Naomi was just looking for excuses to leave her behind. Gabby would go swimming in full athleisure if she had to.
“Gia, put on a swimsuit,” Naomi commanded. “You’re being weird.”
“Maybe I am weird,” Gabby responded.
“Suit yourself.”
Gabby just wouldn’t fall in. They weren’t going swimming. A paddleboard was essentially a boat. She’d seen Kyle’s friends on them at a birthday party once. Naomi waded out into the water with her paddleboard. Gabby grabbed another one of the boards. There were plenty to pick from.
Gabby scrambled to get her board in the water to catch Naomi, but when she climbed on and gave a strong push, it wouldn’t budge.
“Your fins are stuck in the sand,” Naomi yelled. “You’re still onthe beach.” Hands on hips, she said, “Gia, if you want to talk to me about the wedding, I’ll meet you in my office in an hour.”
“I’ve always wanted to go paddleboarding,” Gabby said with a smile that probably came off as maniacal. After she dislodged the fins from the ocean bottom and pushed the board to deeper water, she tried to climb up the back, but its nose popped up. The whole thing slipped out from under her like she had just tried to catch a greased hog at the county fair.
“Get on in the middle.” Naomi frowned. “Have you ever done this?”
“Just a little rusty,” Gabby lied.
“The middle, Gia. That’s where it’s most stable.” Naomi frowned and reoriented the board for Gabby.
Once again, the board slid out from under her, and she flopped in the water. As if she were having so much fun, Gabby laughed. Really, she couldn’t think of a worse way to spend time. Why did people torture themselves like this? With another fake peal of laughter, she said, “I can’t believe I forgot how to do this.”
“Don’t lie. This is your first time.”
“It is not!” Gabby smiled big.
“Were you airlifted onto the paddleboard last time?”
Gabby laughed again. After about ten more tries and a lot of direction from Naomi (put your left foot here; no, I mean here; grab the board in the middle; yada, yada), she was on her knees in the middle and trying not to breathe lest she tip the thing again.
“When you get a little momentum, rise to chair position.”
“What is that, yoga?”
Naomi glared at her. “Gia, this is a yoga cult. Chair pose is second only to corpse pose in simplicity.”
